India slams UK debate on farm stir

New Delhi: India on Tuesday summoned British envoy Alex Ellis to lodge a protest against what it said was an 'unwarranted and tendentious' debate in the UK Parliament that saw lawmakers criticising the Indian government's handling of the farmers' protest. The debate was held on Monday in response to a public petition that garnered more than 115,000 signatures, and witnessed Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democratic and Scottish National Party lawmakers calling on the Boris Johnson government to raise their concerns about the handling of the protest and media freedom with the Indian government.

Most of the British MPs acknowledged the Indian government's agricultural reforms were a domestic matter but noted their constituents had strong links with India's farm sector and were upset by what they described as the use of force against protesting farmers. Conservative MP Theresa Villiers was the only one of about 20 lawmakers who joined the debate to defend the Indian government's actions.

Ellis was summoned by foreign secretary Harsh Shringla and served a demarche or formal diplomatic representation that conveyed India's "strong opposition to the unwarranted and tendentious discussion on agricultural reforms in India in the British Parliament", according to a statement from the external affairs ministry.

Shringla made it clear that the debate "represented a gross interference in the politics of another democratic country", and he "advised that British MPs should refrain from practising vote bank politics by misrepresenting events, especially in relation to another fellow democracy".

Earlier, a statement from the Indian mission in London described the debate as a "distinctly one-sided discussion". It said: "We deeply regret that rather than a balanced debate, false assertions – without substantiation or facts – were made, casting aspersions on the largest functioning democracy in the world and its institutions."