Royal tour of India in offing for King Charles, Queen Camilla: media report

LONDON: Britain’s King Charles III is planning an official visit to India in the near future as part of a government charm offensive and an added boost for his health since a cancer diagnosis earlier in the year, a UK media report claimed on Saturday.

According to the ‘Daily Mirror’, the visit will also include stops in Pakistan and Bangladesh as part of a subcontinent tour that had been abandoned in the wake of the passing of his mother Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022.

The 76-year-old monarch and his wife, Queen Camilla, 77, made a “private stopover” at a wellness resort in Bengaluru last month on their way back from Australia and Samoa and are believed to be planning a return.

“It’s hugely encouraging to be able to make such plans for the King and Queen given the year the monarch has had, but it’s very much full steam ahead,” the newspaper quoted a source as saying.

“A tour of the Indian subcontinent is in the offing, which will be of huge political and cultural significance for Britain on the world stage. The King and Queen are the perfect ambassadors at such a time,” the source said.

Buckingham Palace had revealed the King’s cancer diagnosis in February and a spokesperson has since confirmed that with his medical treatment progressing well they were considering a “pretty normal-looking full overseas tour programme for next year”.

Against that backdrop and the recent meeting between Prime Ministers Keir Starmer and Narendra Modi at the G20 Summit in Brazil, Downing Street is said to be keen on drafting the senior royals to launch a so-called charm offensive as post-Brexit Britain seeks to establish closer economic ties with India.

“Foreign Office officials have been given the green light to open discussions with potential host nations for royal visits, and proposals for tours of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are being drafted. Indian PM Narendra Modi is understood to have expressed his desire to host the King and Queen Camilla after they had to cancel their trip last time,” the ‘Daily Mirror’ report claims.

The couple’s last official visit to India was in 2019, when Charles was the Prince of Wales, with the focus areas being climate change, sustainability and social finance. More recently in October, they stopped over at the Soukya International Holistic Health Centre (SIHHC) in Whitefield, a suburb of Bengaluru, to “help break the long journey back” from the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Samoa.

According to palace officials, it was not health related or linked with the King’s ongoing medical treatment for the unspecified form of cancer. The private stop was reportedly factored in as part of appropriate periods of rest advised by Charles' doctors as part of the first long-distance royal tour since his diagnosis.

Both the King and Queen are known for their affinity with the concept of holistic health and wellness, with Charles and Modi known to have discussed the many benefits of yoga and ayurveda during the latter’s UK visit back in April 2018.