After years of deadlocked talks under three Conservative Prime Ministers, India chose not the familiar, but the functional. It was not based on shared heritage but shared goals. And so, it was under Keir Starmer and not Rishi Sunak that India finally signed one of its most ambitious Free Trade Agreements.
Modi’s decision to bet on a recalibrated Labour speaks volumes. The question isn’t why India didn’t sign this deal earlier. The question is: why now, and why Starmer?
Despite a decade-long Conservative rule, the FTA had remained elusive. The Boris Johnson government launched the 2030 roadmap in 2021, which promised deeper ties across trade, defence and innovation. But symbolic gestures often outpaced substance. The Conservative era, stretching from Johnson to Liz Truss to Rishi Sunak, often celebrated its ‘special relationship’ with India, but while language was warm, the outcomes remained lukewarm.
Negotiations on the FTA began with high ambition, but soon encountered roadblocks. Key issues such as the movement of Indian professionals, mutual market access, and labour mobility remained unresolved. The UK’s domestic debates on immigration, especially post-Brexit, created hesitations that made meaningful compromise politically complex.
While Sunak’s Indian heritage was treated as an implicit bridge, policy progress remained cautious. The FTA talks continued, but no major agreements were concluded during his tenure. Despite his visit to India during the 2023 G20 Summit and a public willingness to deepen ties, a reciprocal state visit from the Indian side never really took place.
Labour’s return to power in 2024 marked a turning point in how India perceived the UK’s political climate. From 2021 onwards, Starmer’s leadership emphasised a more balanced and bilateral approach. He distanced Labour from diaspora-driven resolutions and refrained from commenting on India’s internal matters. A gesture New Delhi has welcomed. By the time Labour’s election manifesto was released, there was a clear shift in tone: no mention of contentious issues, and a strong focus on trade, investment and cooperation.
This course correction wasn’t seen as diplomatic hygiene, but it truly changed the atmosphere. It allowed both sides to return to the table with clarity and mutual trust. Long-stuck issues like skilled migration, tech exchange, education linkages, and defence co-production finally found room to breathe. The tone shifted from hesitation to possibility.
This agreement also comes at a time when India is actively rebalancing its external partnerships. With Washington re-entering a cycle of unpredictability, India isn’t putting all its chips on old alliances. Instead, it’s expanding its bandwidth by seeking stable, policy-driven partners who offer long-term value without theatrics.
India signed high-impact FTAs with the UAE and Australia to clinching an economic agreement with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). Each of these deals reflects not just commercial intent, but a future-facing alignment.
The UK now enters this circle not as a sentimental choice, but as a re-evaluated partner that fits India’s calibrated worldview. At the same time, Modi’s parallel diplomatic choreography says even more. His visit to the Maldives reinforces India’s renewed focus on neighbourhood diplomacy, while his recent engagement with China — the first high-level visit since the Galwan clash — signals a cautious but important attempt to manage regional tensions.
Unlike the earlier chapters of India-UK engagement, which were often defined by grand cultural displays, diaspora pageantry, and speeches laced with heritage, this visit stripped away the sentimentality. What emerged was a relationship finally ready to stand on its own terms.
Both sides seemed to quietly step past the weight of history. For decades, the relationship had often swung between romanticising the past and hesitating because of it, usually caught between post-colonial discomfort and nostalgia-driven diplomacy. However, this time, there was no attempt to overplay identity, ancestry or symbolism.
This FTA wasn’t born in a moment of goodwill; it came from years of careful watching, waiting and preparing for a window that felt right. India didn’t rush; it waited for a government that was aligned institutionally.
Modi’s visit under Starmer is more than a mere handshake; it’s a reset. It reflected a larger truth that India and the UK have finally outgrown their need to define the relationship by the past. The colonial chapter will always exist, but it no longer needs to dominate the page.
By Shyna Gupta
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