When India's Tata Group bought Britain's ailing steelmaker Corus for about £4 billion (Dh23.94bn) nearly five years ago, many observers were nonplussed.
For many this was the empire striking back in ways that seemed unimaginable at the time of India's independence in 1947.
Then, India was a poor country, dependent on agriculture, and a recipient of food aid.
In the decades that followed, India built a state-dominated domestic industrial base in which local entrepreneurs such as Tata thrived, but their growth was severely limited because of restrictions imposed by socialist-minded leaders.
That changed in 1991, when India liberalised its economy. Within a few years, Indian businesses began making aggressive forays overseas, investing in a wide range of industries, such as cars, tea plantations, pharmaceuticals and steel manufacturing.
In 2006, the year Tata invested in Corus, Indian companies had made more than 130 acquisitions abroad,totalling an estimated US$18bn (Dh66.11bn) in value.
What sort of management would Tata provide? When Tata took over Corus, the group's head, septuagenarian Ratan Tata, reassured British unions, saying his group had a tradition of investing for the long haul, and many pointed out Tata's record of industrial relations, where strikes and strife were exceptions.
Which is why British unions, opposition Labour Party politicians, and other industry experts were surprised when Tata cut 1,500 jobs at Corus's plants in chronically depressed north-east England, in Scunthorpe and Teesside, soon after shedding 2,500 jobs in 2009.
Union leaders called the cuts "a devastating blow". The losses amounted to nearly a twelfth of the company's workforce and came on top of cuts made in 2009 at Jaguar Land Rover, the car and utility vehicle company, which Tata also owns. (In an ironic twist in the post-colonial world, Tata is now Britain's biggest manufacturing employer.)
In a sense, the cutbacks were not surprising: steel demand has been falling in the UK since 2007, and has not shown any signs of an upturn. But what many in Britain found galling were the remarks Ratan Tata was said to have made - such as British managers were lazy - in a wide-ranging interview with The Times. Since then, Mr Tata has backtracked, saying he was misreported by the newspaper.
Nonetheless, the questions Mr Tata raised - or did not raise - should be noted by British industry.
Tata executives have criticised the UK's EU-inspired environmental policies. European taxes on carbon emissions, the company said, were significantly eroding business competitiveness at a time when similar restrictions did not cramp the style of steel makers outside Europe.
But Mr Tata also condemned - allegedly - the work practices of the company's middle management. He complained about the declining British work ethic, saying managers did not "go the extra mile", compared with their Indian counterparts and expressed bewilderment over executives watching the clock.
For anyone familiar with Victorian-era colonial administrators complaining about the lazy natives, Mr Tata's remarks - alleged remarks given his later retraction - only sharpened the irony.
In India, Tata is known as a benevolent employer, with some policies that might seem distinctly old-fashioned, even patronising.
His criticism about Britain was more pointed - with him being quoted as talking of a "certain comfort level that comes from a country that has had good times".
In this, Britain is not alone: France's obsession with the 35-hour work week; the near-total shutdown of Europe during the summer months; the strict employment regulations on the continent that discourage small businesses from hiring more people; and generous welfare benefits should things go wrong, have made life for workers in Europe more cushy than their counterparts enjoy elsewhere.
The safety net has tamed the keenness workers and managers need to possess to retain their high-paying jobs. When Mr Tata calls for a resurgent national spirit, he almost sounds like a tub-thumping Tory.
British academics have rued declining UK productivity for a long time.
Economists have lamented that the country lags behind in skills upgrading and innovation. According to the latest figures available from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, in 2009 Britain ranked 15th out of the 30 OECD countries, measured by hourly output per worker.
Britain is aware of the decline and is making continuous efforts to boost its productivity and remain competitive.
Mr Tata's reported criticism drives home an important point, however, precisely the part Britain finds it hard to acknowledge - that the world has changed radically and fundamentally.
And Britain needs to watch out for competition from emerging powers such as India and China. In fact these countries are reoccupying the position they had in the global economy before the 500-year colonial interruption - a chastening reality for the western powers.