'We deal with issues privately than publicly'

Q & A/ Rob Young

What was your most memorable achievement in India, apart from the fact that it was during your tenure that the Advanced Jet Trainer (AJT) Hawk, that had been pending clearance for 21 years, got cleared?

That is obviously a matter of congratulation but I was just one player among many in that particular effort.

There has been a deepening and a broadening of the relationship. Underlying there is much greater level of trust now at the top of the relationship than, I think, we've seen for a long time.

And that trust permeates through the official relationship and provides a reassuring backdrop to the activities of all the longer players who are important to the relationship too "" and there are many of them, whether it is the British Council, NGOs, academic institutions, British firms.... I think, they all feel that the level of confidence now is encouraging.

I think, one can see it in a number of ways. First, at one level, if either side detects a looming problem, there is a tendency to pick it up in advance privately and try and manage it privately, so it doesn't become potentially a public bone of contention between the two countries.

When was the last time a matter had to be raised privately?

[Smiles] Well, precisely because it was private, I'd rather not go into it. But I would like to tell you that that is the case.

But at a broader level, it means that on a growing number of issues "" global, regional "" the two governments are consciously looking for common ground and trying to coordinate their policies and approaches.

We are, for example, talking much more intensively about regional issues "" from Afghanistan to the south Asian subcontinent. And that is both a measure of the greater trust between the two countries and also adding constantly to that trust and understanding.

One of the episodes that you didn't refer to but was possibly one that needed private resolution, was the Gujarat communal riots in which British citizens were hurt as well. There was a sense that the British government felt let down by the episode. Now that the trial is underway and the Supreme Court has taken a hand in the matter, what are your feelings about Gujarat? Is it all behind us now?

It has been a distressing episode. As you know, there was the leak of a British government report which might have caused some upsets. That seems to me, another example, of why we should try and deal with all these issues privately rather than publicly.

Since then, we have seen a number of developments, including the latest involvement of the Supreme Court and I think the outside world is looking for justice to be done, for the perpetrators to be brought to trial and for the compensation to be given to the victims.

Earlier in the year, you saw two near-wars, one an almost-nuclear war. It was a period of serious tension between India and Pakistan. How close were the two countries to war and what is the lesson this tension has thrown up on how to manage the problem?

Sadly, in some ways, terrorism is one reason why the two governments have come closer together. It is an issue on which we both have direct experience. Both countries feel strongly the need to combat terrorism in all its forms. We have, in fact, been cooperating with the Government of India on terrorism for around 15 years since the Sikh problem in the 1980s.

But, of course, that has been accelerated in the recent years. The UK proscribed such terrorist organisations as Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba nine months before 9/11 and that was seen by India as a sign of serious intent. Our cooperation has intensified after 9/11 and, of course, after the attack on the Indian Parliament.

I think that period helped India to change the terms of the international debate about Kashmir. The world focussed on terrorism as a key issue.

Nonetheless, as you say, last year was very tense and there was confrontation between India and Pakistan. I personally believe there was a real risk of conflict that could have escalated quite quickly and we were justified in issuing the travel advisory that we did in the end of May.

Despite all the tension, the Indian prime minister felt able to take another step towards peace in March this year. It is that kind of bold step that is required that takes forward the peace process and we hope very much that an environment can be created in which talks can not only be started but sustained. It is clear is that it will be difficult to do that against the backdrop of continuing support to terrorism.

You said an environment should be created for talks. At the moment it doesn't look as if talks are even starting. The visit by Pakistani Prime Minister Jamali to India and the offer to invite the Indian prime minister for the Saarc meeting was turned down quite rudely. All this doesn't seem to be particularly propitious....

[Smiles] I prefer to see the half-full glass, usually. I think that if you look back at the situation a year ago, tensions have dropped markedly, we have a new government in Jammu and Kashmir that is changing the environment there; the Indian government is working with the new government; a normalisation process has been started with Pakistan; and there is lot of interaction between groups of opinion-formers in the two countries....

Given the history of relations between India and Pakistan, I think this process is bound to take time. We should probably not try and rush it too much but make sure progress is consolidated at each stage.

About Iraq. Aren't you embarrassed at being part of this rather heavy-handed military approach of the US in Iraq, the tendency to use a tank to swat a fly, the use of the doctrine of overwhelming military force, when what is needed is obviously the kind of approach that is being followed by the British "" which is to set up institutions of civil society and play down the we-are-the-occupying-force aspect?

I don't think any of us have any doubts about the need to take the action we did in Iraq. However much time we would have given Saddam Hussein, he wouldn't have complied with the UN Security Council resolutions and military means was the only option then.

Now, we have certainly run into considerable problems in Iraq. The area that the Americans are concentrated in actually presents greater security challenges than southern Iraq where the British are. In the central Baghdad area and the Tikriti heartland, there was always going to be more resistance.

We need to tackle this in a variety of ways. Of course, by counter-terrorism activity. But it needs to be underpinned by progress towards a return of sovereignty to the Iraqis, through the drafting of the constitution, through the holding of free elections, by a major effort to get public services back, not to normal but to better than normal, to give Iraqis a sense that their lives are better now than ever under Saddam.

On Indo-British trade and investment relations. Are you quite satisfied? Indian tariffs are high. There are entry barriers....

Five billion pounds was the size of the two-way trade in goods and services in 2000. It remained about the same in 2001-02, I think largely because of the depressed state of the international economy and the slow rate of growth in India.

But this year, 2002-03, there has been a 16.5 per cent incease in bilateral trade in goods over the same period in 2000. That, I believe is an important new trend. I believe the trend would be matched in services, which are accountable for a larger proportion of two-way trade.

But there is still an image issue. A lot of British firms still think it is difficult to do business with India in comparison to certain other countries. Tariffs, bureaucracy, FDI [Foriegn Direct Investment] caps...these are a few issues. However, I think that all that is getting better.