Rishi Sunak - The Postcolonial Fantasy

Rishi Sunak has risen to the top not because of his Indian origins, but because of his capability to handle the economy and to infuse confidence in his fellow parliamentarians

- Kishwar Desai London

It is interesting how we take the success of every desi bachcha in the world as our personal success. And we take their narrative into our hearts.

It is almost like every Indian belongs to a large global family, bound by invisible strings. Sometimes even if the strings originated from the pre-partition era, we can tug at them. And so when a few months ago, both Sajid Javid and Rishi Sunak resigned within minutes of each other—forcing Boris Johnson to resign—someone pointed out the irony: one Indian and one Pakistani bringing down the British prime minister.

As far as conspiracy theories go, that was an interesting moment of speculation and now, of course, as a novelist, I can appreciate the magical realism behind the appointment of the first UK prime minister of Indian origin in the 75th year of India’s partition and independence. What a wonderful postcolonial fantasy!

However, even though I am the chair of the trust that set up the world’s first and only Partition Museum in Amritsar and is now setting up the second one in Delhi, I have to admit that these are just amazing coincidences with which history is replete. Sunak has risen to the top in British politics not because his grandfather is from Gujranwala—which is now in Pakistan—but because of his very capable handling of the economy, and the manner in which he was able to infuse confidence in his fellow parliamentarians during the very difficult time of Covid.