'Vanity trip' to India did little to exonerate Boris Johnson from Partygate scandal

If Boris Johnson faced a glorious welcome when he visited Gujarat last month, it can’t be said that he was met with similar enthusiasm when he returned home from his first visit to India as the British Prime Minister. Narendra Modi had ensured that his home state gave Boris a grand reception akin to the one given to US President Donald Trump in February 2020, just before the American presidential elections.

Enormous banners welcoming Boris to Gujarat and giant posters of his face were plastered all over Ahmedabad; dancers and drummers appeared at every turn along the Sabarmati embankment and flag-waving crowds lined his route from the airport into the state’s main city. Any Western leader’s head would be turned by such a rousing welcome. However, a characteristically self-deprecating Boris admitted in Delhi the next day, “I wouldn’t get that necessarily everywhere in the world,” and the British press corps travelling with him for his two-day trip knew that he was referring to the ‘Partygate’ scandal dogging him back home, and which he could not escape even from 4,000 miles away.

Even as Boris was landing in India, MPs were voting for the prime minister to be referred to a parliamentary investigation by the Privileges Committee into whether he deliberately misled the House of Commons over the parties held in Downing Street during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the motion had been brought in by the Labour Party, Boris had hoped that the majority of the Conservative MPs would stand by him. Instead only two Tory MPs gave Boris their full-throated support during the bruising debate, while many ruling party MPs abstained allowing the motion to be passed by an overwhelming majority of those present in the House. In fact, a senior Tory backbencher Steve Baker urged Boris to resign and accept that “the gig’s up”.

Also read: UK Opposition slams PM Johnson’s visit to JCB factory in Gujarat

Boris had hoped that his India trip would divert domestic attention away from Partygate and provide him with the opportunity to showcase himself as a prime minister in action “getting the job done”. Ever since Brexit, Boris has wanted a trade deal with India to show Britons that his government did not make a mistake by leaving the European Union. However the only tangible outcome from the trip that Boris could boast was that a Free Trade Agreement between the two countries may be signed by Diwali.

Boris expected that the possibility of trade deals would generate some upbeat headlines, but the British press corps was more interested in his reaction to the drama playing out back home. A string of broadcasters questioned him in the burning Gujarati sun about the collapse of his authority in Westminster and whether he would continue to be prime minister.

Even as Partygate continued to overshadow his trip, Boris lurched into another controversy by attending the inauguration of a new JCB factory in Vadodara. JCB is owned by Tory Lord Bamford, a friend of Boris who backed his bid for the Conservative leadership in 2019 and a major donor to the Conservative party. The prime minister enthused about how JCB was “an absolutely amazing example of the synergy and the synthesis between UK technology and Indian technology”. Little did he know that he was blundering into a major human rights controversy. It was not very bright of Boris to get himself photographed leaning out of a JCB bulldozer the very day after it was used to raze scores of Muslim shops and homes in Jahangirpuri, New Delhi.

Leading newspaper The Guardian hit hard arguing that Boris “should not have mugged for the cameras with the machinery used to intimidate religious minorities by a regime seemingly bent on creating a theocratic Hindu state. Perhaps he is unaware of the growing sense of vulnerability felt by India’s 200 million Muslims. But no one who is paying attention could miss what Modi is about”. Other papers called him “tone-deaf”, whilst the kindest cut was to call his visit “ironic”.

Social media had a meme fest and the criticism travelled well beyond with UK MPs raising the issue in Parliament. Videos of Labour MPs Zarah Sultan and Nadia Whittome tearing into Boris went viral. Opposition MPs had urged Boris to raise UK’s concerns about India’s press freedom, communal relations and protection of minorities with Modi, even before he left London. It was clear that not only had he not done this, but instead added fuel to the fire.

The Indian-origin Nadia Whittome was very blunt when she said in Parliament, “Does the minister accept that the prime minister’s visit to India has helped to legitimise the actions of Modi’s far-right government?” The Tory minister, deputed to reply, was left searching for words. Boris was asked about human rights issues during the trip and he claimed that the “advantage of our friendship is we can have these conversations in a friendly and private way”, however everyone saw this for what it was – an evasive reply. Instead of enhancing his image as a statesman, the whole JCB debacle simply added to his brand of a bumbling buffoon. While in the past many Britons found these traits endearing as it made him human, but since Partygate it is less so with his personal credibility and integrity taking a huge knock after having to offer abject apologies to the British public through Parliament.

Boris’s trip was also fraught with tensions about deepening cooperation with India when its stance is radically different on Ukraine. Downing Street had made it clear in advance that Boris had no illusions about influencing Modi on his position on Russia. However, even one of the few solid announcements from the visit that UK will liberalise exports of defence equipment to India so individual contracts are subject to less scrutiny, was thrown into question by a report from defence think tank Rusi warning that Russia is laundering components for weapons from western countries through India.

The prime minister returned home with very little to show for his much-delayed ‘momentous’ trip to India raising questions about the timing. Forget the banners and buntings that met him in Ahmedabad, his lieutenants and colleagues gave him a chilly welcome. While the Opposition dismissed the whole thing as nothing more than a ‘vanity trip’.

(The author has held senior positions in Indian newspapers and now divides her time between Kolkata and London)

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