Brit in India, one smoothing over quarrel at last? (8)
I believe the answer is:
islander
'brit' is the definition.
(Britain is an island)
'india one smoothing over quarrel at last?' is the wordplay.
'india' becomes 'i' (phonetic alphabet: alpha, bravo, charlie etc.).
'one smoothing' becomes 'sander' (someone who sands things).
'over' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'at last?' says to take the final letters (I've seen 'at last' mean this).
The final letter of 'quarrel' is 'l'.
'sander' placed around 'l' is 'slander'.
'i'+'slander'='ISLANDER'
'in' is the link.
(Other definitions for islander that I've seen before include "Person inhabiting Aran, say" , "one from Jersey, perhaps" , "I snarled at one surrounded by water" , "One who lives off the mainland" , "Orcadian perhaps" .)