“An Indian Son Rises Above the Empire”, put up a New Delhi Television banner, Monday, October 24 in the late afternoon. It was 2pm in the UK and the appointment of Rishi Sunak, the son of Indian immigrants, as Prime Minister, became a reality. The Conservative Party leader’s face was later featured on “one” of all news sites. Social networks are flooded with messages of congratulations, while, coincidentally, Indians celebrate Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights that marks the victory of course evil.
After two centuries of colonial oppression, many see it as a symbol of history’s fair return. “Today, as India celebrates the 75th Diwalie years as an independent country, Britain has a Prime Minister from India. History goes full circle »thinks Raghav Chadha, a member of the upper house of Parliament, reflects the opinion of many of his compatriots.
Officially sworn in as Prime Minister Tuesday, October 25 by Charles III, Rishi Sunak is the first descendant of an Indian and the first Hindu to enter 10 Downing Street. In Parliament, he has taken the oath of the Bhagavad-Gita, one of the basic texts of Hinduism. “I am very British, this is my home and country, but my cultural heritage is India”, said Sunak in the past. The 42-year-old Briton, born in Southampton, England, has Indian roots from his grandparents. Originally from Punjab, they migrated to East Africa in the late 1930s, prior to the division of the subcontinent between India and Pakistan in 1947. Sunak’s parents later settled in Great Britain. United in the 1960s.
A “British elite product”
It doesn’t matter whether Sunak’s grandparents’ ancestral village, Gujranwala, is today in Pakistan’s Punjab province, Indians proudly say that Rishi Sunak is one of them, while in Islamabad, the press is stirring up a resurgence. “Hindu of Pakistani origin”.
India never fails to celebrate the overseas successes of its “homegrown” people. The election of the vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris, whose mother is from Tamil Nadu (southeast), has made the nation of 1.3 billion people proud. The South Asian giant also prides itself on being the set of big bosses that rule Silicon Valley today: from Satya Nadella (Microsoft) to Parag Agarwal (Twitter) via Sundar Pichai (Alphabet).
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