Why India, unlike China, negotiates with an eye to the past

When Prime Minister Modi signed the long-awaited India–UK Free Trade Agreement in London last week, it was hailed as “historic” and “landmark” — the kind of language that papers over more complex truths. Beneath the talk of tariff bands and liberalisation lies something deeper: a glimpse into how India, unlike China, still negotiates with one eye on the past.

Both countries endured deep external interference in their modern histories. But while China has moved on from the vocabulary of grievance, India continues to approach global affairs with a vivid memory of imbalance — wary, principled, emotionally alert. One rewrites the rules. The other remembers why they mattered.

This deal is undoubtedly a pragmatic milestone. Indian pharmaceutical firms will gain smoother access to UK markets. British universities are already preparing for a surge in Indian students thanks to streamlined visa pathways. Agricultural tariffs have been reduced; whisky tariffs will phase down over a decade. Crucially, the pact omits the controversial Investor–State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) clause — no secret tribunals, no bypassing Indian courts. For India, sovereignty isn’t just a talking point; it’s a lived imperative.

“This is a significant agreement,” Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri told reporters ahead of the Prime Minister’s visit. The omission of ISDS reflects India’s insistence on legal reciprocity and domestic jurisdiction — a response to past grievances where foreign corporations sued Indian authorities in global arbitration forums.

That imperative has roots. For centuries, Britain drew on Indian labour — for plantations, merchant shipping, and war. Over 1.3 million Indian soldiers served in World War I, and over 2.5 million in World War II — the largest volunteer force in history. They fought battles they didn’t start, in lands they barely knew, for a crown that denied them citizenship. Indian blood irrigated European soil. When the wars ended, those sacrifices were quietly airbrushed — while India was left with its dead, its widows, and its disillusionment.

Behind those wars lay deeper traumas. In 1799, after Tipu Sultan’s fall at Seringapatam, British troops looted palaces, tore gold from temples, and took his sons hostage. A half-century later, in 1857, Indian soldiers and civilians rose up in a desperate revolt against British rule — a rebellion fuelled by land grabs, religious insults, and racial indignity. The British crushed it mercilessly: towns were torched, rebels hanged or blown from cannons. The East India Company vanished, but imperial control only tightened. That memory lingers behind every ceremonial handshake.

I was reminded of this by an American friend who mentioned the Boston Tea Party — that now-mythic protest when white colonists dumped British tea into the harbour. It was rebellion, yes — but white against white, within the same civilisational family. India’s resistance — from Gandhi’s salt march to countless quiet acts of defiance — was different. It was racialised, patronised, and ultimately spiritual. It wasn’t just about tax. It was about identity.

And that identity struggle never quite ends.

India remains a proud, fiercely democratic republic. But its global posture is shaped by memory — of subjugation, exploitation, and sacrifice. That undercurrent runs through trade negotiations, climate talks, digital regulation — always: “Never again.” This deal was about more than whisky and visas. It was about parity. It was about not being seen — or treated — as the junior partner.

China, by contrast, offers no such emotional framing. It builds. It expands. Where India walked away from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), citing risks to its small producers, China signed on. Where India insists on data localisation and protection for farmers and small businesses, China lays cables, secures ports, and writes infrastructure into its diplomatic playbook. Beijing doesn’t ask whether the system is fair. It designs a new one.

India, by contrast, views the world through a lens of memory. China sees it as a map to redraw.

Both strategies have merit. India is often slow, fractious, and argumentative — but trusted. China is fast, efficient, and feared.

India’s trade strategy is constitutional — deliberate, legalistic, accountable. Each agreement must pass the test of sovereignty and consent. That’s why the UK deal avoids clauses that could override Indian institutions. There are no backdoors. No buried levers of control. This is not a return to the age of concessions and treaties imposed at gunpoint.

And yet, India’s memory-driven posture, however principled, can be double-edged. Our caution protects us — but sometimes slows us. We guard sovereignty so tightly we miss chances. We debate fairness so long we cede ground to faster actors. But there is virtue in this pace. India has not colonised. It has not coerced. It is trusted across the Global South because it remembers what it means to be voiceless.

When India signs a deal with Britain, it does so not just as a trading partner — but as a former subject. The legacy of the East India Company, engineered famines, and colonial bureaucracy is not ancient history. It is lived memory. The FTA signed this week is not just a commercial document. It is a reckoning.

So let China lay its railways and redraw the map. India’s journey may be slower, but it is more human. And if we still speak in the idiom of memory, perhaps it is because that idiom is not yet finished teaching the world its lessons.

(The writer is the London correspondent for The Tribune)