Brown Sahib146;s message

But the relations between India and Britain are grounded in a reality that goes beyond culture, curry and cricket. India is now the third largest investor in the UK, with more than 500 Indian companies opening offices there. More importantly, nearly 1.5 million people of Indian origin live in Britain and that more than anything else is fuelling the relationship.

Now, Gordon Brown, who is widely expected to succeed Tony Blair as prime minister later this year, is arriving in India. Amazingly it is his first official visit to the country, a fact not unnoticed back home, with many political opponents suggesting that he had missed the boat. For Brown it is an important visit, a chance to build Brand Brown and demonstrate that he possesses the qualities of an international statesman. But for India, it is Gordon Brown8217;s record as Chancellor of the Exchequer that can provide Delhi a glimpse of his approach and an outline of his vision for the future of the relationship.

For the past two years, Brown has publicly warned about the growing economic clout of India and China, in particular the more than four million skilled graduates that both countries produce each year. These are the people who are quietly making up the numbers in the UK workforce and, increasingly, calling the shots. Britain faces tough choices in the era of globalisation, particularly because of low-cost production centres in India and China. One solution, and one that is endorsed by the prime minister-in-waiting, is: if you can8217;t beat 8217;em, join 8217;em.

So nearly four centuries after an intrepid naval commander arrived in Surat to seek permission to trade with India, the saga continues. Except that the world of Captain William Hawkins is vastly different from that of today.

Perhaps the best illustration of the sea-change in trade relations is in the battle over India8217;s mobile phone industry. UK telecom giant Vodafone is rolling up its sleeves in what promises to be a bruising takeover bid for Hutchinson Essar valued at nearly 20 billion. Among its international rivals over the bid are the UK-based controversial billionaire Hinduja brothers. And pitching up for Vodafone is its Indian-born CEO, Arun Sarin. So a British company is competing with another British company for an Indian telecom firm 8212; or, to put it another way, several Indians are slugging it out in the middle. So what if they have different coloured passports.

Perhaps it is a hardnosed reality or a maturity brought about by aged ties. But the frosty sensitivity of the past, when a comment by Robin Cook on Kashmir raised hackles in India or a perceived slight to the Queen drew sharp comments from the British media, is clearly history. Instead, it is the Clinton-campaign slogan of 1992 that appears to hold pride of place 8212; it8217;s the economy, stupid. And the future of Britain is even more closely tied up with its former colony.

But there is also politics. The British Asian community is steadily rising in prominence and is easily the most influential among the minority groups in the UK. And it is not just their votes that count. Steel billionaire Lakshmi Mittal has pledged two million pounds to the cash-strapped Labour Party, almost certainly bailing it out of financial crisis. The party8217;s deficit last year amounted to nearly 27 million pounds.

This is perhaps the one major element in the Indo-Britain equation that India has perhaps underplayed, the British-Asian community and the value they bring to the relationship. In a Britain that is embracing multiculturalism, the Asians appear to have pride of place. If the first wave of Asians helped revive the retail shops on Britain8217;s high streets, their children are now making their mark on the financial and business world.

British Asian influence has now crept into the arts, culture and music. The Sounds of the Asian Underground is more than a record label 8212; it is a new genre of music. And sporting icons Amir Khan and Monty Panesar may just mean that the next generation of Asians may well pass the Tebbit test 8212; coined infamously in 1990 by the Conservative MP, Norman Tebbit, who suggested that people from ethnic minorities should not be considered truly British until they supported the England cricket team.

Politically influential and economically powerful, the British Asian community is a significant factor that will govern Indo-British relations and shape them in the decades to come. There is a delicious irony in this. British colonialist Thomas Macaulay once famously aspired to create 8220;a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste8221;. In modern, multicultural Britain, that has been turned on its head.

And there is a final twist in the tale. The impact of British colonialism was felt most in India8217;s cities 8212; in Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. But the Asians of Britain today are largely drawn from small-town Asia 8212; from Surat and Navsari, Jalandhar and Ludhiana, Mirpur and Sylhet. This is the constituency that will in many ways define British policy towards India.

Call it the revenge of the proletariat.

The writer is the BBC8217;s India correspondent