Inaugurating a new Consulate General of India in Manchester, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said the mission symbolises the importance of the growing Diaspora in the region and a sign of things to come, including an India-UK Free Trade Agreement.

”We look at the free trade agreement not simply as a trade or even investment understanding between us, but as something much bigger, really a game changer, a symbolic shift to a higher orbit of relationship,” he said.

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Mr Jaishankar said his first visit to Manchester, in a formal way, is an acknowledgement of how much the India-UK relationship has matured in the last four decades.

He said he sees the new Consulate as preparing for a very big pickup in bilateral ties. “This is not just an office we have opened, it is really an investment in a relationship on which we have very high hopes. We certainly hope it would spur more trade and investment and education and technology related activities,” he added.

The minister, who also addressed the Indian community in Manchester, said he does not think any Prime Minister has invested as much in the relationship with the Diaspora as Mr Narendra Modi has done. ”The importance, the concern, the value that we put on the Diaspora as a connect to the world, this wonderful term living bridge, I think is something really extraordinary. And it’s not just an emotion, I think there is a deep understanding behind that and understanding that in many ways it is the diaspora which shapes the image of India across the world,” he added.

Mr Jaishankar told the Diaspora that a lot is happening in India. Some of it also gets reflected in India’s relationships abroad. ”One of the developments with respect to the UK, incidentally, is we set up centres to help those in difficulties. It is called Pravasi Bharatiya Sahayata Kendras. And the first one, which we are doing actually in this part of the world, is in the UK. I think we are officially inaugurating it today, or maybe by announcing it,” he added.

Mr Jaishankar said the Diaspora is one of India’s priorities. ”The other thinking has really been in the field of trade. That trade in a larger sense, trade, technology, exchanges of people, that we today understand the importance of globalising. We are not always happy about globalisation. We would like to make it fairer. But at the end of the day for us, the world is full of opportunities than of challenges. When India looks at the world, it looks at the world confidently. That may not always be the case for everybody else, but that’s their problem,” he added.

He recalled that the BJP election manifesto last year had a significant part of it devoted to foreign policy. ”And in fact a very explicit mention that we would increase the number of consulates and embassies across the world,” he added.

”So, in many ways today’s function is a promise that we have delivered not just to the community, but a promise that we have delivered to ourselves that we will build a more globalised India. We will build a more connected India. We will build an India which values the contribution that the Indian community abroad can make,” the minister said.