Former British prime minister Boris Johnson has praised “change-maker” Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his new memoir ‘Unleashed’.
He also said that he felt “curious astral energy” on his very first meeting with the Indian leader.
The former prime minister repeatedly stressed on the strong India-UK ties in the context of the Indo-Pacific and gave credit to himself for setting the course for a “proper free-trade deal” with India.
“Overcoming the qualms of the MoD (Ministry of Defence), who are always worried about India’s closeness to Russia, we agreed to work together on all kinds of military technology, from submarines to helicopters to marine propulsion units,” he wrote.
'Unleashed' devoted a whole chapter to Britain’s relationship with India as “a relationship as good as it has ever been”.
“For some reason, we went down to stand in the dark in the plaza by Tower Bridge, in front of a crowd of his supporters,” Johnson said in the chapter entitled ‘Britain and India’, referencing his first meeting with Modi during a visit to his City Hall office by the river Thames when he was Mayor of London.
“He raised my arm and chanted something or other in Hindi, and though I couldn’t follow it I felt his curious astral energy. I have enjoyed his company ever since – because I reckon he is the change-maker our relationship needs. With Modi, I felt sure, we could not only do a great free-trade deal but also build a long-term partnership, as friends and equals,” he wroite.
The 60-year-old politician-author revealed how a “distinctly sniffy” UK Foreign Office had warned him off meeting the “Hindu nationalist” leader during an earlier mayoral trade delegation to India in 2012, a problem “soon dropped” to pave the way for a relationship that "hit an all-time high".
Johnson asserted how much he loves India, being a "veteran" of many Indian weddings because his children with Sikh heritage ex-wife Marina Wheeler trace their roots to India.
