Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

Has the India-UK bilateral relationship reached a plateau or is it just stagnating?

British royal couple, Prince Charles and his wife Camilla are visiting India, and British Prime Minister David Cameron will arrive on Thursday, his third visit to India since he took office in May 2010 and second in less than nine months.

But Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has visited the UK only thrice during his nearly decade-long tenure thus far.

Only one of his three visits to the UK was a bilateral one, way back in October 2006, and that too had a heavy economic agenda as Singh had visited London to attend the India-UK Investment Summit.

Nothing spectacular has been achieved by the two sides even after this summit. This is evident from the $15 billion bilateral trade between India and the UK, hardly the kind of figure that the former colony-colonizer duo, now "strategic partners," can be boastful about.

In contrast, India's annual bilateral trade with the US has already crossed $100 billion, while India and China have vowed to reach the $100 billion mark in their bilateral trade by 2015.

A major irritant surfaced in June this year when the UK announced its plans to launch from November a $4,800 visa bond scheme for six "high risk" countries, including India, aimed at deterring visitors from overstaying their visa. The other targeted countries were Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Ghana and Nigeria. The UK has now decided otherwise and scrapped the scheme.

India had conveyed stern messages to the UK government at different levels, including by Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma in his meetings in June during his visit to London. India once again aired its strong and absolute objections to such a mechanism during the India-UK comprehensive dialogue on visa related issues held in London in July.

London has now finally swallowed its pride. A spokesperson for the British Home Office said on November 3: "The government has been considering whether to pilot a bond scheme that would deter people from overstaying the visa. We have decided not to proceed."

But the damage has already been done. Indian students and businessmen, two very important sources of revenue for the UK government, have already been scared. The number of Indian tourists to the UK is also likely to decrease.

British leaders' paranoid visa-related policies over the past two years have already resulted in a depletion of student traffic to the UK. The stop-go-stop kind of diktats from London would alienate the Indian business community too.

The UK appears to be mindful of the fact that it ticked off the Indians wrongly. Therefore as a goodwill gesture, on November 6, the UK unveiled new premium visa services for top business travelers from India.

The promised additional improvements for high-value Indian businessmen over the next 12 months will include a passport pass-back pilot scheme in southern India, which will allow Indian visa applicants to keep their passport while their visa is being processed, and the mobile visa clinic in India, allowing high-value applicants and companies to apply for visas at their own offices rather than visiting a visa application center.

The UK government, keen to pander to the powerful while turning away the poor, has also announced the launch of the "Great Club," an invitation-only service providing top business executives with support from UK Visas and Immigration. It will start in the new year as a 12-month pilot aimed at business leaders who use the visa service and have strong links to the UK.

Time will tell whether the latest UK sop will wow Indian businessmen. But one thing looks absolutely clear. The UK has fallen way down in the Indian priority list. New Delhi's diplomatic gaze is now fixed on countries like the US, Japan, Russia and China.

The author is a New Delhi-based journalist-author and a strategic analyst. bhootnath004@yahoo.com