Rajnath Singh Marks First UK Visit By Indian Defence Minister In 22 Years

On Monday, military Minister Rajnath Singh will start a three-day trip to the UK. This is seen as an important step forward in the military and security relationship between the two countries since the last visit by a minister occurred 22 years ago. Singh was supposed to go to the UK in June 2022, but the Indian government canceled the trip for “protocol reasons.” This makes next week’s tour very exciting.

Singh will have a lot of talks with his colleague in the UK, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps. He will also be visiting the memorials for Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and inspecting a ceremonial Guard of Honour.

He is also going to meet with people from the Indian population living in the UK as part of his three-day schedule.

“This visit is important for both its appearance and its content.” “This is the first time that India’s defense minister has been to the UK in 22 years. The last time they were there was on January 22, 2002, when George Fernandes, who was defense minister under a BJP-led government, went there,” said Rahul Roy-Chaudhury, Senior Fellow for South and Central Asian Defense, Strategy, and Diplomacy at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

As a defense analyst who has pushed for this kind of visit in high-level talks over the years, Roy-Chaudhury thinks Singh’s planned visit next week shows that India and the UK’s political relationship has improved and trust has grown since British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s G20 Summit visit to India in September of last year.

“In substantive terms, the visit will seek to deepen military cooperation and defence industrial partnerships with the UK by building on the November 2023 Defence Consultative Group (DCG) meeting in Delhi at the level of Secretaries and the inaugural meeting of the 2+2 Foreign and Defence Dialogue at the level of Joint Secretaries in October 2023,” he stated.

“The UK is no longer one of India’s top five most important defense partners.” The two countries could start working together again on defense technology and industries if they finish the projects they are working on now, such as aero-engines with Rolls-Royce, naval electric propulsion with GE (Naval) UK and Rolls-Royce, and a ground-based air defense system with MBDA (UK).

“Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is likely to visit one of these arms manufacturing sites during his visit to the UK,” he said.

People in India are still worried about pro-Khalistan violence in the UK, and there are also some controversial problems with UK defense supplies to India. This means that the visit will be closely watched.

Analysts, on the other hand, think that this chance for a conversation at the cabinet level should be used to make the government of Narendra Modi’s “Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat” plan work in the defense sector.

India and the UK have a stronger defense relationship since former prime minister Boris Johnson visited India in April 2022 and announced the creation of an Open General Export Licence (OGEL) for India. The UK government said this would “reduce bureaucracy” and “slash delivery times for defense procurement.”

As both India and the UK get ready for general elections this year, the relationship between the two countries is getting a lot of attention. This includes faster talks on a free trade agreement (FTA), which will make the GBP 36-billion partnership between the two countries even stronger.