Why London mayor Sadiq Khan may become UK's first Asian PM

When Narendra Modi visited London, Britain's Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron told the wildly cheering 90,000-strong crowd, "It won't be long before there is a British-Indian prime minister in 10 Downing Street."

By the look of things, however, an ethnic Pakistani might get there first. If London's new mayor, Labour's Sadiq Khan, does ultimately make it as Britain's first Asian prime minister, it will be with no help from Cameron or even his own party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

History

Corbyn ungraciously sulked at home while history was being made barely five miles away in Southwark Cathedral where Sadiq was sworn in as London's first Asian Muslim mayor at an inter-faith ceremony.

The Labour chief's absence recalled our own Congress party president's chilly attitude to the last but one Congress prime minister. Cameron's comments in the House of Commons about some of Sadiq's associates provoked another MP to yell "racist!"

His own candidate for mayor, Zac Goldsmith, is the grandson of a German Jew who changed the family name from Goldschmidt to Goldsmith. London's former mayor Boris Johnson is ethnically a Turk with, he boasts, a dash of Circassian slave blood. A Pakistani Muslim could hardly be more un-English than them. But Johnson and Goldsmith are Old Etonians like Cameron himself. Sadiq is working class.

Also read - Sadiq Khan as London mayor means little for how Britain views its Muslim citizens

Race is a moveable feast. An internet posting reads, "Being English is about driving in a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, and then travelling home, grabbing an Indian (not Pakistani!) curry or a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American or Australian shows on a Japanese or Korean TV which will soon be powered by a Chinese nuclear power station. And the most English thing of all? Suspicion of anything foreign."

No wonder King George V bristled at being called an uninspiring alien. "I may be uninspiring, but I'll be damned if I'm alien," he fumed, although his son, the erstwhile King Edward VIII boasted, "Every drop of blood in my veins is German."

A loyal courtier must have hurriedly assured King George he was as English as chicken tikka masala. Mohammad Sarwar, the Pakistan-origin British MP who returned to Pakistan to become governor of Punjab, wanted Glasgow recognised as the birthplace of chicken tikka masala which the late Robin Cook, sometime Britain's foreign secretary, called England's national dish. He didn't say the Kohinoor was British.

Votes

Cameron's comment about a British-Indian prime minister may have been intended only to flatter the susceptible Modi. He wants local Gujarati votes, and hence "Namaste Wembley!" and "Kem chho Wembley… (How are you Wembley?)"

Ensuring that Samantha Cameron wasn't outshone by Cherie Blair and Sarah Brown, the wives of Labour prime ministers, he draped her in a red sari. But if his "Achhe din zaroor aayega… Good days will definitely come" boast, improving on Modi's pre-election slogan, does come true, the benefit may be reaped by the son of a Pakistani bus driver and his seamstress wife who has soared where no Asian trod before.

What Cameron forgot in his campaign exuberance was that Pakistan has always had an edge over India with the British.

When he was lunching at Buckingham Palace once, Winston Churchill bowed to King George VI and his consort and boomed, "I believe that this is the first time I have had the honour to be invited to luncheon by their Majesties the King and Queen of Pakistan."

Even the jest must have afforded some satisfaction to a politician who had never been reconciled to the loss of the brightest jewel in Britain's crown, and a monarch who was denied the new title from India's heroic age that he yearned for to compensate for the loss of "Ind Imp" after his name.

Legacy

The inheritor of that legacy now controls City Hall with its £17 billion budget and power over transport, policing and planning even though Pakistanis account for only 2.7 per cent of London's population.

Some sneer Khan is "mayor of Londonistan". Others accuse him of being all things to all men, an ambitious operator who constantly comes up from behind.

Many also acknowledge the courageous liberalism that enables him to defy orthodox Islam and support same-sex marriage.

Also read - Guardian's racial hatred of British-Indians exposed as London looks for new mayor

"I have spent my entire life fighting extremism and radicalisation, encouraging minority communities to get involved in mainstream politics," Khan says.

Khan attributes his spectacular rise to "the decency of Londoners, the decency of British people (that) will always cut through." True son of the people, he took a bus and train to City Hall. "I'm determined to lead the most transparent, engaged and accessible administration London has ever seen, and to represent every single community, and every single part of our city" promises the "mayor for all Londoners," as Khan calls himself.

David Lammy, a Labour MP and former minister of Guyanese descent, predicts, "If we ever get a prime minister of colour, it will be because of what Sadiq Khan has achieved." It would be only just and fair if Sadiq were the first beneficiary of his own achievement. This "Paki" is not for bashing.

(Courtesy of Mail Today.)