Prime Minister Boris Johnson is reportedly set to visit India next week to focus on strengthening bilateral ties against the backdrop of the ongoing India-UK Free Trade Agreement negotiations. The visit is expected to be around 22 April, PTI reported. The High Commissioner of India to the UK, Ms Gaitri Issar Kumar is also headed to India ahead of the visit to prepare for the high-level delegation.
Ahead of his India visit, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have been fined by Met Police for breaching lockdown rules during Covid-19 The PM's wife, Carrie Johnson, will also be given a fixed penalty notice. Boris Johnson has apologised after being fined by the Met Police for breaking lockdown rules but said he would not resign. The prime minister said: "I have paid the fine and I offer a full apology."
However, there’s a bigger crisis looming amid impending investigations - the crisis of Britain’s racist attitude towards ethnic minorities. Only this time, its target has been the UK’s Chancellor Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty.
Akshata Murty (daughter of India’s most respected businessman and Infosys founder Mr NR Narayana Murthy and philanthropist Sudha Murthy) has been accused of tax evasion through her non-dom status and the couple was recently also targeted by a Labour party member who said they should “go back home to India”. This has stirred serious unrest and hurt among the Indian diaspora- one of the richest in the UK.
With the intensity of tax-related criticism and attack on Mr Sunak and Ms Murty, the community’s leaders and renowned entrepreneurs have come forward to term it as clearly ‘politically motivated, prejudiced and racist’.
Infosys, had announced last year that it plans to hire 1000 employees in the UK over the next three years, thereby strengthening the UK-India partnership in the ongoing Free Trade Agreement, thereby supporting economic recovery. “This investment from Infosys is a vote of confidence in the UK and its technology sector and will help that sector scale new heights - creating the jobs of the future. We need more firms like Infosys with a commitment to investing in people to help the UK build back better,” Boris Johnson had said.
In a previous interview with Asian Voice, West Midlands Mayor Andy Street had also expressed excitement about companies like Infosys being a part of the West Midlands India partnership. With the current attack on Ms Murty, just weeks prior Mr Johnson’s visit, makes one wonder if Infosys would continue to be a part of the FTA.
Rishi speaks up for his wife
Reports suggest that Akshata earns around £900mn annually and she claims a non-dom tax status in the country, which allows her to avoid paying taxes on the annual dividend advantages she receives from her Infosys holding. However, that’s a misinterpretation.
The entrepreneur’s spokesperson said in a statement: "Akshata Murty is a citizen of India, the country of her birth and parent's home.
"India does not allow its citizens to hold the citizenship of another country simultaneously. She has always and will continue to pay UK taxes on all her UK income."
Rishi Sunak told The Sun that it was awful that his wife and in-laws were being smeared to get at him.
Sunak also alerted the British government and the Treasury about his wife’s tax status when he became a Minister, according to Reuters.
Akshata Murty issues clarification on Twitter
Clarifying her own intentions, Akshata Murty tweeted a thread from her unverified profile saying, that she has paid tax in this country on her UK income and international tax on her international income.
“This arrangement is entirely legal and how many non-domiciled people are taxed in the UK. But it has become clear that many do not feel it is compatible with my husband’s role as Chancellor,” Murty said.
“I understand and appreciate the British sense of fairness and I do not wish my tax status to be a distraction for my husband or to affect my family. For this reason, I will no longer be claiming the remittance basis for tax,” she added.
This means she will now pay UK tax on an arising basis on all her worldwide income, including dividends and capital gains, wherever in the world that income arises.
She added, “Until now, I have tried to keep my professional life and my husband’s political career entirely separate. Since Rishi entered parliament, he has not involved himself in my business affairs and I have left politics to him.
“He’s never asked me to abandon my Indian citizenship, ties to India or my business affairs, despite the ways in which such a move would have simplified things for him politically.
“He knows that my long-standing shareholding in Infosys is not just a financial investment but also a testament to my father's work, of which I am incredibly proud.
“My decision to pay UK tax on all my worldwide income will not change the fact that India remains the country of my birth, citizenship, parents’ home and place of domicile. But I love the UK too.
“In my time here, I have invested in British businesses and supported British causes. My daughters are British. They are growing up in the UK. I am so proud to be here.”
‘Friends’ of India react
Nayaz Qazi, Director of Conservative Friends of India told the newsweekly, "Rishi is a Parliamentarian of the highest accord and has worked closely with the Conservative Friends of India encouraging members to be politically engaged and dedicates his time to support community groups "
Speaking to Asian Voice, Ameet Jogia and Reena Ranger OBE, Chairs, Conservative Friends of India said in a joint statement, “Rishi Sunak has been an outstanding Chancellor who has steered our country through one of the most unprecedented periods in our history. He has the Conservative Party’s full support, and we support the Chancellor’s request to launch an investigation into his ministerial interests.
“The way that the Labour Party has targeted Rishi and his family in such an abusive and vile way has been deeply disappointing. This includes the Labour Councillor who recently tweeted that Rishi and his wife, Akshata should ‘go home back to India’. It is therefore no surprise that the British Indian community is hurt by the way Rishi has been treated, especially by the worrying anti-Indian and anti-success undertones. The Conservative Party remains proud of championing the most diverse Cabinet in history.
“Rishi Sunak is a shining light within the Conservative Party, especially in the Conservative Friends of India. He is an inspiration to so many, particularly with the outstanding support he has provided to thousands of people and businesses during the pandemic. It is therefore very upsetting the way Labour have launched personal attacks on him and his wife Akshata in this way.”
Commenting on the row against Sunak, Friends of India Society International UK's Manu Khajuria said, “It’s a British law (Formosa vs Formosa) which says a woman’s domicile is not dependant on her husband’s. Akshata Murthy is a proud Indian citizen, while Rishi Sunak is a proud British who has served his Nation well in times of distress brought on by a pandemic. She has not broken any law. It’s almost as if they are being punished for being model citizens, aspirational and hard-working, qualities which are desirable for any Nation’s citizenry. Is Rishi Sunak’s growing popularity and success a problem because he is brown? Why the attack if not envy & racism?”
However, Rahul Roy-Chaudhury, Senior Fellow for South Asia - The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) told Asian Voice, “It is unfortunate that the British Indian Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak has been targeted politically in the media over his US ‘green card’ status (till recently) and his Indian wife Akshata Murthy’s non-domicile status in the UK. None of these acts of omission or commission is illegal. But they reflect poor political judgement at a time when the cost of living for ordinary people has escalated.
“It should also be clear that Akshata’s case has been one of tax avoidance and should be acknowledged as such. Sunak’s argument that her non-domicile status was because of her intention to return to India to be with her parents, at some stage, is especially lame. This could have taken place all these past years with her domiciled status and paying tax in the UK for her international wealth, as will be the case from now on her.
“In effect, we are seeing a mix of poor political judgement, sheer competitive politics within the government and the Conservative Party, tougher economic circumstances all-round, anger against Covid-time parties by government members and very high public envy against the Sunaks (for being so rich) playing out, rather than as the result of any outright racism on the basis of their Indian heritage.”
Vinod Tikoo, a community activist and leading voice of Kashmiri Pundits in the UK, told us, “I am not sure if we can attribute this to the country's attitude towards race but for sure there are pockets of institutional racism in the UK, much like other countries. In this case, given home secretary Priti Patel also faced a lot of heat from Civil service and polity last year and now Rishi is being made a target because of his wife's legal non-dom status, one is led to believe that there may be an attack on those who make it big from the ethnic minority backgrounds…”
Ashish Popat from Indians Voice - UK told Asian Voice, "As we all know British Indians are a hardworking community in the UK and they always excel in the field of education and across the work sectors be it teaching, NHS, defence and other sectors, Labour party always talk about freebies so the British Indians do not fit their category of voters.
"Mr Sunak's wife did not do anything wrong and she comes not only from a wealthy family but well respected and down of earth family of India who created an empire from the scratch with all their hard work. Dom and non-dom status is a too technical term and if you ask the general public they do not understand everything around it so the Labour party with their propaganda machinery trying to misguide all and Mr Sunak himself requested an inquiry as he did not do anything wrong.
"Mr Sunak believes in hard work and his popularity comes from all his policy since his tenure as a chancellor, he is a person who helped many employed and self-employed individuals survive during the covid time, why did the opposition is forgetting all his helping hand during Covid times. All the propaganda machinery is trying to create a narrative that has no base and the current cabinet is well aligned and working for the welfare of the UK.
"The visit of Boris Johnson is very important for India - UK trade deal and they are very important partners and there is no relevance to this kind of rumours where the development is concerned. We all love and respect Infosys chair and we should not forget they have a huge contribution to the IT infrastructure of the UK."
