Watching the over-the-top coverage of Narendra Modi’s visit to America on Indian television and the massive reception given to him by the Indian-American community at Madison Square Garden, otherwise the venue for rock concerts and boxing matches, one cannot help but think of how this country’s relationship with its diaspora has changed.
The garba playing ladies (one hopes Muslims were not asked for IDs if they wanted to participate), the IT professionals, the restaurant and motel owners, all of them were dutifully interviewed and all of them uniformly seemed sure that India would become great soon and Mr Modi was the man who will make this happen. Which is fine, one supposes, since they have a perfect right to hold political views, but what is radically different from an earlier time is that we not only want to know their opinions but also care about those.
Sixty-odd years ago, after Independence, large numbers of Indians made their way to Britain but many of those who went for higher studies came back to take part in the Nehruvian dream of building a new nation. India not just offered opportunity but they considered it their duty to contribute their skills to create a new India, an India that would proudly take its place in the world.
In the 1960s and ’70s, when times were really harsh and the going tough, droves of Indians armed with subsidised degrees from top Indian institutions got on the first plane out to the US, initially to study and then to find ways to stay back. Alongside them were those who felt socialistic India had nothing for anyone wanting to “do business”.
And this was true — businessmen were seen as profiteering leeches who sucked the blood of the poor. This generation of NRIs (the phrase only gained currency much later), settled down in the West, mainly in the US but also in Canada and the UK. In India, they were perceived as traitors, who could not stand the heat and left a poor country just when it needed them most.
By the mid to late 1990s, these NRIs were comfortably settled in the professions and in business, fully entrenched in the economic though not necessarily social life of their host countries. The first generation never really got assimilated in the US and was uncomfortable when their locally-born kids grew up fully American in attitudes and values. The conflict between the home environment that encouraged “Indian” traditions and the peer groups in schools and workplaces that was fully American created the ABCD (American Born Confused Desi). India looked upon them with some interest, but mainly as potential investors whose dollars could be utilised.
By this time an entirely new category of Indians had moved abroad in large numbers. The Gulf countries were full of Indian labourers and the US had its share of burger flippers and cabbies, though for our policy makers, these millions have largely remained under the radar. We need their money but don’t particularly care for their views or their interests. Politicians going abroad love to be feted by middle class and rich types who offer lavish hospitality and suck up to powerful Indians; who wants to know about the construction worker who shares a dirty room with five others in the hot desert?
But it is the latter that send in the hard cash that helps us build our forex reserves. They may not have the glamour of large homes in Edison, New Jersey or Mountain View, California and may not send their children to Ivy League colleges, but they work hard in tough conditions and they eventually return home.
In recent years, the well-off NRIs have assumed a much higher profile in the Indian policy framework. Now they are called PIOs (People of Indian Origin) or OCIs (Overseas Citizens of India) and every year they gather in Delhi to network and be feted by the government. Short of voting — something that troubles them no end — they are allowed to do everything in the mother country. India has chosen to recognise ethnicity and ancestry as the basis for origin rather than citizenship, a far cry indeed from the time when India spurned the “Indians” of South Africa and East Africa when they suffered under apartheid and Idi Amin’s rule. Indira Gandhi was clear in her response to Kenyans and Ugandans who asked her for help — you have British passports and it is that country’s duty to help you.
The third generation of Indian-origin people in the US and elsewhere have now grown up. They want to discover their roots, which they do via religion, tradition and Bollywood, all falling under the rubric of “culture”. It is a mix of guilt, a search for identity and genuine curiosity, much leavened by the fact that India welcomes them. Often this results in films, books and music in the most refreshing way, but most of the time it remains at the kitschy level of tinsel popular culture. It might appear that they have the best of all worlds, but in fact, for many, the feeling of being an outsider in both environments never really goes away.
Large numbers of Indians are doing well in Silicon Valley, on Wall Street and in corporate America, but these still remain a fraction of the overall diasporic population — for the hundreds of thousands of others tucked away in small towns or running mom and pop businesses, even if they are successful, life may be comfortable but is not all that glamorous.
It is not thus surprising that they have turned to India for emotional support. They not just want to contribute with money, but also with ideas. They want to do their best “to build a strong India”. Many of them came back to work for political parties (the Bharatiya Janata Party and Aam Aadmi Party, mainly) during the Lok Sabha elections; it gave them the heady feeling of participating.
The man most of them invested in won the elections. He speaks their language — of investment, technology and growth. He speaks of making India great — it fits in with their fantasies. He seems suitably traditional — he is fasting — which makes them proud of their culture. He beams strength and decisiveness — they feel strong too. And he wants them to give their ideas and come and invest in India — they feel wanted. Their residual guilt has been washed away. The Indian media wants to know their views. Their connection with India is now complete.
