[nukkad] Why the Diaspora needs India - by Lord Bhikhu Parekh (member of the British House of Lords)

[Gireesh Dixit - PCS <>]

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Why the Diaspora needs India

My dear fellow countrymen

I share some thoughts and sentiments on the eve of the major three-day
conference that is about to take place in New Delhi.

This conference is concerned with something called the Indian Diaspora.
Indians have been going abroad for the last 2,300 years or more, starting
with the post-Buddha era when missionaries went
to Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

In the 7th and 8th centuries, our people went to East Africa and elsewhere,
as part of our involvement in the slave trade. During this period, Gujarati
businessmen financed Arabs in the buying  and selling of slaves.

Then came the 19th century, when our people were taken on as indentured
labour in roughly 24 countries, including Fiji, the West Indies, South
Africa and East Africa. After the Second World War, our people started going
to Western countries and, in the1970s, to the Gulf countries.

So there are five different phases of Indian migration, of which three are
recent ones.

In 1947, when we achieved Independence, I thought the Government of India
would think of those Bharatiyas who are settled abroad. Pandit Nehru did in
fact think of them, and he panicked. He was afraid that if India started
taking an interest in the overseas Indians, then these would be accused of
divided loyalty, of loving India more than the country in which they had
settled.

India finally discovered the overseas Indian in 1991 -- when our economy
went bankrupt and when we discovered we had only sufficient foreign reserves
to fund one month's worth of  imports. It was then that out of the blue,
this new species of animal called the NRI was discovered -- and elevated to
the position of saviour of bankrupt India.

My own feeling is that nothing has changed. This conference is taking place
against that same background. The overseas Indian matters to the mother
country only as a cow that can be milked matters to its owner. The NRI is
merely someone who will invest  in his home country, and that saddens me.

Dear countrymen, I want to put forward a different vision for the
interaction between the overseas Indian and the mother country. I think the
overseas Indian signifies something different, something more than just a
milch cow.

All books on Indian history, including Panditji's Discovery of India, convey
the image of ours as a passive country. India was like a beautiful woman who
attracted outsiders to court, to woo, and sometimes to rape. But that is
only one side of the story.

The Indian Diaspora is the half-forgotten side of Indian  history. If
foreigners have reached out to us, then we too have reached out to them. If
the globe is a part of India, India too is a part of the globe. And
therefore, should we not, can we not, use the occasion of January 9 to
rethink our image of ourselves?

Let us think of India not just as a passive country that  attracts
outsiders, but as a country that is actively and curiously exploring the
rest of the world.

Having discovered the Diaspora, what do we do with them? We hope the
government will develop a systematic and coherent diasporic policy.

As of now, the government is walking into this exercise in an absent-minded
manner. It must ask itself why it is interested in the Diaspora. Is it our
money? That will come to India anyway,  you don't need a conference for
that, you don't need to spend Rs 100 million on that.

The government needs a policy, and it cannot formulate one on its own -- the
Diaspora should have an input. The Diaspora, it must be remembered, cannot
herald fundamental changes, nor can it force transformation in India. In
that sense, India is not Israel, which has more Jews living outside it than
within its borders.

We, the Indian Diaspora, make up just 1.7 per cent of the total population
of this country, and much of that number is poor. Out of the 20 million or
so of us living outside the borders of this country, only an estimated 3.5
million are settled in life, rich.

We need to keep that in mind before beginning a dialogue. And what should
this dialogue consist of?

It should not consist of mistaken assumptions. For instance, everyone
imagines that overseas Indians are full of love and goodwill for Mother
India, that they are patriotic. This is rubbish.

If that were so, where was this Diaspora when India was passing through its
darkest period in the 1970s and 1980s? Why were they missing then, why have
they discovered India now? Surely some self-interest is involved?

I don't think 'patriotism' is going to get us anywhere -- there is not even
enough patriotism in India. How then do we expect it  from overseas Indians?

I think you can build a permanent relationship only on the basis of
enlightened self-interest -- that is the only relationship  that will last.

What does the Indian think of his overseas counterpart? That the NRI is
confused, arrogant, showing off his wealth and foreign accent and forever
lecturing the people back home on how to lead their lives. "As if they are
telling us that India would be a nice place but for the bloody Indians."

As for the overseas Indian, he thinks the Indians back home are full of
resentment, that they hate NRIs, they are jealous of NRIs who have proved
themselves -- they too want to get out, but unlike
us, they cannot, and so they are full of bitterness.

This is the truth. So then, why should India be interested in the Diaspora
and vice versa? I would think there are four reasons, on each side.

On the Indian side, the reasons can be summed up as money, influence, and
skill. India wants economic investment; it wants the Diaspora to exert its
political influence, particularly in the US, Europe and Australia; India
wants the political clout of the Diaspora, its managerial skills, IT skills,
research skills and academic skills, all of which are in short supply back
home.

Pause and ask yourself, how is it that no fundamental research  of any
consequence takes place in India these days? That no invention of any note
comes out of India?

And finally, India needs its Diaspora to remind it of the wider world out
there -- the dream of Vishwa Bharat which Gandhiji,Tagore, and Panditji had
should not be forgotten. India is increasingly beginning to think of itself
in a small, enclosed way -- it needs to open up, and the Diaspora is the
ever present reminder of the need to do that.

So what does the Diaspora need India for?

First, they want to invest and make money -- they can get a  higher rate of
interest, 7 per cent, here than in America, where it is 4 per cent.

Second, they want to feel good about themselves. Many Indians made money in
Silicon Valley, but the incidence of mental breakdown was highest among this
section. Indians in the West say that in order to get to the top they have
burnt themselves out from both ends. Many have lost their wives to neglect,
children to neglect. They need India to help keep them sane, centred.

Third, they are worried about their children 'going native'. Indians living
abroad kept thinking they were superior, that they could stay away and aloof
from the society they were part of. But now they find themselves in
countries where the local civilization is more influential than the one they
left at home. They find they can't hang on to their own culture, and are
therefore in a state of panic. They want Mother India to help them hold on
to their children and grandchildren. This cultural help is very important to
overseas Indians.

Fourth, they want to feel proud of India. Wherever they go, they want to
feel good about being a Person of Indian Origin. A part of us is always
social. I like to be told that Gujaratis are good people, because I am a
Gujarati. If something goes wrong with Gujarat, I am ashamed.

Gujarat has created tremendous hostility between Indian Hindus and Indian
Muslims outside India. Indian Muslims abroad are very loyal to India. They
have nothing in common with Pakistani Muslims. Around six years ago there
were riots between Indian Muslims and Pakistani Muslims. Pakistanis told the
Indian Muslims, 'You are all bloody Hindu Muslims. Your Islam is not pure.'

Our guys told them, 'You are all bloody fundamentalist Muslims. You are not
secular like us.'

On the issue of Gujarat, there is no unity among the Diaspora. The overseas
Indian wants to feel that India, like China, is a great country.

So those are the reasons, from both sides, why we can, and should, come
together. If the two sides can meet keeping these parameters in mind, the
relationship can be lasting. If initially it is based on self-interest, love
and affection will come in time.

We all know India has weaknesses -- but why miss out on its strengths?

I say all this with a degree of sadness. I am part of India, I am part of
the Diaspora, and I love both. I am shaped by India, I have two homes in
India, I spend four months in India every year. And because I am both, I
carry within myself two Bhikhu Parekhs.

And I am not the only one.

If you give us a chance, we will come here even more often. Dual nationality
is not a matter of a passport, but of personal identity. It could even be
our destiny.

Your fellow Indian

Bhikhu Parekh

Lord Bhikhu Parekh, 68, is a member of the British House of  Lords and a
professor at the London School of Economics. He has been a non-resident
Indian for the last 40 years. As told to Senior Editor Sheela Bhatt.



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