‘No hint of racism’ in Prince Charles

By Amit Roy

FOR various personal reasons, I have known Prince Charles for a very long time – and there is one thing I can say with absolute confidence. There isn’t a hint of racism in him.

To be sure, the interview given by Prince Harry and Meghan to US chat show host Oprah Winfrey was shocking.

But whatever the deep divisions in the royal family that were exposed by what the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had to say, I don’t think it would be in the inter­est of Asians in general, and Indians in particular, to destabilise the heir to the throne. As Charles III, he would bat for British Asians – of that I am sure.

The other day, when expressing con­cern that some members of the UK’s eth­nic minorities were not taking the Covid vaccine in a Zoom event organised by the British Asian Trust, he used an expression that tells us so much about the man.

Expressing support for the vaccine roll out in the UK, Charles said: “As you un­dertake this absolutely vital work, I can only wish you every possible success in coming to the aid of our ethnic minority communities, for whom I hold the great­est affection.”

Affection is a word seldom used in public – but Charles meant what he said.

He has been ahead of his time in one important respect, in always wanting to represent a multi-faith Britain. However, his desire to be “defender of faiths” rather than just “defender of the Faith” – that is only the Church of England – has got him into trouble with the more traditional ele­ments in the British establishment.

There was a time when I used to travel quite a bit with Charles and Diana in the early days of their marriage. As part of the British press party, I went with them to Italy, Oman, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia (where she was gifted jewellery worth £1 million) and even to India.

I remember a visit to the Vatican when Charles and Diana had an audience with Pope John Paul II. Moved by the meeting, Charles announced he hoped to cele­brate mass with the Pope as a gesture of unity with the Roman Catholic Church.

But on the morning of the day this was supposed to happen, the accompanying press officer, Vic Chapman, told us that the joint mass had been cancelled on the orders of Buckingham Palace. This did not improve HRH’s mood, said Chap­man, adding in his characteristically earthy way, “It sure ****** up his lunch.”

Charles’s attitude to Islam doesn’t sug­gest he is a man with prejudices. In 1993, he gave a lecture entitled Islam and the West at the inauguration of the distin­guished lecturer programme at the Ox­ford Centre for Islamic Studies. He re­turned in 2010 and toured the centre be­fore delivering another lecture, Islam and the environment, at Oxford University’s Sheldonian Theatre.

With India, a country he has visited on countless occasions, he has had a special relationship. Charles said he acquired his love of India from his great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten, the last viceroy of India. When Mountbatten was assassinated by the IRA (Irish Republican Army) in 1979, the first country in the world to lower its flag was not the UK, but India.

Just before Charles and Diana went to India in 1992, one of his senior officials invited me to Clarence House for sugges­tions on what he might say in his keynote address in Delhi. I said he ought to men­tion he had learned about India from Mountbatten, which he did. Unfortunate­ly, he did not listen to another piece of advice – that he should accompany Diana to the Taj Mahal in Agra. He didn’t – with disastrous PR consequences.

None of the press wanted to go with him to Bangalore: instead, everyone wanted to accompany Diana to Golcon­da. I was press ganged into travelling on his VC10 – alone with him and his offi­cials – to Bangalore for a meeting with businessmen discussing how to make gas from cowdung. Although the air condi­tion failed, he stayed in a hot, stifling room the whole afternoon. But he did care about the possible benefits of mak­ing gas for poor Indians.

I reckon he knows India better than most British Indians, anyway. And I forget the number of times I have seen him at Indian functions in the UK.

Of course, none of this means there hasn’t been a breakdown in his relation­ship with Harry. Many will not forgive him for the collapse of his marriage to Diana. However, you get to know some­one’s attitudes over a number of years.

Without in any way diminishing what Meghan and Harry said in their interview, I can definitely state that Charles cares for Britain’s ethnic minorities, especially the Indian community. The one thing he isn’t is racist.