Can-do Hindu

The tension was high yesterday as the 2pm deadline approached. There were just two people left in the Conservative leadership race. Rishi Sunak already had the support of over 100 MPs; could Penny MordauntA British Conservative politician who ran to be leader twice in 2022. match that number? At last the announcement came: Sunak would be the new prime minister.

It was a historic moment. Sunak will be the first prime minister of Asian origin, and the first Hindu.

"I am thoroughly British," he has said: "this is my home and my country, but my religious and cultural heritage is Indian, my wife is Indian. I am open about being a Hindu." He does not eat beef or drink alcohol.

Sunak has told of how both his father's and his mother's parents left PunjabA state in northern India, bordering Pakistan. and moved first to Africa and then to Britain.

One grandfather worked as a clerk in Kenya and the other as a tax official in TanganyikaA state that existed between 1961 and 1964. Today, most of its land is part of Tanzania. . They took their families to England in the 1960s. 

His mother ran a chemist's shop, where Rishi helped out, and his father was a doctor.

Rishi won a place at one of Britain's leading private schools, Winchester College, but his parents had to make big sacrifices to pay the fees. He ended up as head boy, because - according to a friend - "he was clever enough, reasonable enough and well behaved enough".

He met his wife Akshata, the daughter of an Indian IT billionaire, while studying in California. The couple have been named as the 222^nd richest people in the UK, worth £730m.¹

He became the MP for Richmond in Yorkshire in 2015. In 2020, Boris Johnson appointed him as chancellor of the Exchequer. Sunak was widely praised for organising Britain's furloughThis used to be a word for a permitted absence, and refers to the scheme where the government subsidised the wages of those who could not work during the lockdown. The cost of the scheme is estimated at almost 40bn. scheme. 

Now he must hope that, with his connections in India and the US, he can strengthen Britain's links with both countries.

Yes: That is why Britain is so keen to strengthen ties with it. It is the world's fastest-growing major economy, well-placed for trade with Europe, Asia and Africa. It is also a nuclear power.

No: More than 20% of India's enormous population live in poverty. There is also a huge divide, made worse by President Modi, between Hindus and Muslims. It cannot become a superpower with those problems.

Or... Some countries' biggest export is their talent. Sunak could never have become so successful if his grandparents had remained in India: it does not offer its own people enough opportunities.