Former Chancellor and now Prime Ministerial candidate Rishi Sunak has been heavily scrutinised by his colleagues, rivals, public and media for his financial status and riches. What should ideally matter is that the chosen leader delivers, and brings in solutions for the larger and immediate crisis in the country, which is the NHS and cost of living crises. What definitely doesn't matter is the radical criticism of Sunak’s lifestyle, his £490 Prada shoe, and his wife serving tea to journalists poured in expensive cups.
Amid a recent leadership debate with co-candidate Liz Truss on the BBC, Sunak was again criticised by Dorries, the culture secretary, for wearing a £3,500 suit and said that Truss’s earrings that she has worn during the campaign cost £4.50 from Claire’s Accessories.
Rishi Sunak responded by saying, “I wasn’t born this way. My family immigrated here 60 years ago and my mum was a local chemist in Southampton. That’s where I grew up working in the shop delivering medicines. I worked as a waiter in an Indian restaurant down the road. Now I’m standing here because of the hard work and sacrifice and love of my parents and the opportunities they provided me.”
Commenting on borrowing and debt, he continued to place “family” at the epicentre of national planning, and said, “We fund our NHS through taxation. If we want to get the backlogs down if we want to get the support of NHS workers…I thought it was the right and responsible thing to do to get the funding into the NHS. That’s why I did what I did. I also think it’s not moral to ask our children to pick up the tab for the bills we’re not prepared to pay. It’s not a conservative thing to do.”
Born to Punjabi Hindu parents, Yashvir and Usha Sunak, Rishi reiterated that his mum studied hard and got the qualification to become a pharmacist. She met his father, an NHS GP and settled in Southampton. “Family is everything to me. My family gave me opportunities they could only dream of,” he said.
During the recent India Global Forum (IGF) UK-India Week 2022, Rishi had further narrated the story of his roots. His grandmother said goodbye to her small children, boarded a plane in East Africa, and, without a job or a home to go to, flew to Britain to build a better life. “I can’t imagine the courage that must have taken. It took them months to save enough for my grandfather to follow with their children – including my fifteen-year-old mother,” he said.
His father was an NHS GP – and worked extra jobs, evenings, and weekends. Almost every night of my childhood, he worked until the early hours, writing up patient notes and referral letters.
Usha Sunak, his mother, owned a pharmacy – Sunak Pharmacy. Rishi added, “Our life was built around the business. Out of school, I’d serve customers or do deliveries; help dispense medicines; do the bookkeeping. And every Sunday we’d pile into the car to clean the shop, all of us together, the whole family. It was a family business – that’s just what you do.
“So I learnt early on that family matters. Families nurture our children and teach them good conduct; support us, unconditionally; pass on culture, religion, and identity. No government could even begin to replicate the profound bonds family forms. And like so many British Indian families, of all faiths, we came together to serve the community.”
Those criticising Sunak for the current stature of his place as the 222nd richest people in Britain, with a combined fortune of £730m as of 2022, have perhaps forgotten that while he was educated at Winchester College, Rishi won the prestigious Fullbright Scholarship for his MBA from Stanford University in California as a Fulbright Scholar. It was only while studying at Stanford, that he met his future wife Akshata Murty, the daughter of N. R. Narayana Murthy, the Indian billionaire businessman who founded Infosys.
British media hasn’t been quite kind to Sunak. Scathing pieces in the Guardian and Telegraph termed him as “thinned-skinned he couldn’t even take a bit of criticism or gentle piss-taking” and his policies were called “peculiarly regressive” respectively.
Sunak was also critiqued for mansplaining Truss during the debate while talking taxes, but it is imperative to ponder that despite being put down by white supremacists and perhaps Johnson’s supporters, Sunak isn’t slipping into deafening silence and continues to argue as a candidate.
Using his Indian heritage as a card to play for elections and to gain the trust of British Indians may or may not go in his favour, but if Sunak manages to move the votes, Britain, in the 75th year of India’s Independence, will finally have it’s first Indian origin Prime Minister. If he manages to win, he will create history.
