BY RITA GITA-GANGES FROM NEW DELHI

DISAGREEMENTS BETWEEN the UK and India over a free-trade agreement have seen India insist that it would order all Indian restaurants in the UK to shut if London will not play with what the Indians metaphorically call a straight bat.

“New Delhi has intellectual property rights over all Indian cooking,” says Madhur Gandhi, a well-known chef, who owns three establishments in Mumbai. “It’s like the British monopoly on the production of salt when they ruled, the one the Mahatma broke. Apparently, they also had a monopoly on Indian food recipes, for which restaurants paid a small fee. That monopoly passed to the Indian Government at independence. Nehru actually mentioned it in his Freedom at Midnight speech but few people noticed it. Anyway, it means that if New Delhi decides that Indian Restaurants in Britain shut, then they shut. It’s a little known fact. “

Diplomatic expert Mogli Khan explains that, “New Delhi feels that the British might be bowling a googly in these talks, to use another cricketing metaphor. Perfidious Albion is well-known in these parts. Makes you continually look over your shoulder for the Gully. But look, for the Indian Government to close the British restaurants, would be like pulling stumps and they don’t wanna do that.”

Roger Kipling of the Anglo-Indian Nostalgic Literature Association says that the closing of all Indian restaurants in Britain would be nothing short of catastrophic. “It’s Britain’s favourite food,” he says. “The effect on a country still reeling from the pandemic and then Brexit, and then being annihilated by France and Ireland in the rugby and not doing particularly well in the Qatar Soccer World Cup, would be too horrible to contemplate. It could lead to street riots, revolution. The Indians know this so they will not use it unless they absolutely have to. They’re good chaps.”

“Remember,” adds Mogli Khan, “the UK is very anxious for a free-trade deal with India, indeed with anyone, anywhere, and so it is more likely to make concessions to New Delhi in negotiations. New Delhi knows this and so it is keeping the Vindaloo, Butter Chicken and Onion Bhajis simmering for now. But the threat is there, always there, cooking so to speak.”