My speech at the House of Lords Europe India Business Forum, hosted by Baroness Verma, Chaired by Vijay Goel:
As I look around this room I am reminded at just how rude are Indians. Just despicably rude. I recall as a child in the 1980s reading the Sunday Times Rich List, and there in the top 10 among all the English names like the Duke of Westminster was an Indian name – Hinduja. How dare you Mr Hinduja?
You come to this country as a guest and without anyone’s permission just jump into the Rich List. I mean some of these natives had taken generations to get in there and you not only jump in there but stay there to this day when all the others have gone and changed many times over.
It is because of you that people like me decided to go into business. We too thought if that Indian can do it, so can I. You and the other Indian business people like you are to blame for countless businesses who started up because they too aspired, succeeded, employed, profited.
Or you in the audience Mr Kapil Dev. How rude to go and win the World Cup? Did no one tell you you are not supposed to just go and barge in and beat the West Indies? They were undefeated, and you come along and not only beat them but with your pathetic team total of 183 runs, humiliate them! You take a catch running backwards just to show off how good you are. How dare you?
How rude to make us Indians think, at the home of cricket, at Lords, that we own this sport. We are the champions of the world, and can beat anyone at anything? How rude is that?
And you sitting there in front of me Mr Anil Aggarwal of Vedanta. I look at the market cap of your company. How rude are you to just come from Indian and immediately your company was one of the 100 largest in the UK – in the FTSE 100. Do you not know that some of these British companies have taken generations to get there? No one told you to wait politely in line? You Indians never queue do you? Always pushing in, jumping ahead. No manners. So rude.
Or you Baroness Verma – for God’s sake a Minister in the Government. How dare you. You don’t see any bloody white people in the Indian Cabinet – so what right do you have taking their Ministerial jobs in this country. Coming over from the Punjab and making yourself at home. And not just any Ministry – no – a Minister in the one Ministry which is to do with the survival of the Human Race – Climate Change. Should you at least not have been Minister for Ethnic Minority problems? So rude.
Anyway.
I speak to you on the day a small space vehicle orbits a distant red planet. That vehicle was launched by a country that did it on its first attempt and at one tenth the cost of its peers. India is that country and joins the very exclusive club of nations to have undertaken deep space travel.
From sport, to space. From Government to Business – Indian are just not going to wait in line and be polite. Watch out world – heck, watch out Universe!
Alpesh Patel
