The Hindu : Is it loud sounding nothing, wonder NRIs, PIOs

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 11, 2003

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National

Is it loud sounding nothing, wonder NRIs, PIOs

By Anita Joshua

NEW DELHI JAN. 10. Glad though the overseas Indians were to be the toast of the Indian Government, the Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and People of Indian Origin (PIOs) attending the first Pravasi Bharatiya Divas openly wondered whether the "warm rhetoric" would add up to anything substantial.

No doubt, the announcements made by the Finance Minister today were welcomed, but many of those slated to speak at the parallel sessions questioned the hurried nature of the discussions and pondered aloud about the intent of it all.

"Nobody here appears to be interested in hearing what we have to say; we seem to have been listed to speak just to show greater participation."

And, the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's opening remarks that India was keen on tapping the "richness of their experience" more than their wealth has been received with more than a pinch of salt.

In fact, many could be heard caustically quipping that with the coming of age of the Indians overseas, NRIs had graduated from being `Non-Required Indians' to `Now Required Indians'.

But, the Nobel laureate, V. S. Naipaul, while commenting on the trade fair kind of scale at which the confluence of overseas Indians had been organised with the commercial success of the recent immigrants being the driving force, saw nothing wrong with such an approach.

The star speaker of the day, Sir Vidia said Indians "must turn the barbs on ourselves and wonder why we have failed".

Also, in his opinion, there was a need to develop a real sense of history and stop blaming the British for everything.

Beginning his speech by stating that much of what he had wanted to say had been said by those who addressed the gathering before him, the writer's speech by his own admission was in the nature of little stones which were thrown into "your pool of thought to create ripples".

And, he did cause more than a ripple with the observation that Mahatma Gandhi had been a failure in South Africa.

However, he did mellow it down with the acknowledgement that out of this failure rose a "great independence movement".

Sir Vidia's observations notwithstanding, many an NRI and PIO who spoke at the parallel sessions could not help echoing the difficulties with which people with hyphenated identities retained their `Indianness' overseas.

This was particularly so in the session on Culture, Language, Literature and the Diasporic Identity.

While most narrated the measures they adopted to forge linkages with fellow Indians in their adopted countries to hold on to the age-old traditions, Parmanand Persad of Trinidad and Tobago sought the Indian Government's help in preserving Indian culture in his distant land.

Another common refrain was the need for India to implement its promises vis-a-vis NRIs and PIOs.

And, in this regard, a word of caution was sounded by Vishakha N. Desai, director of Museum & Cultural Programmes of the New York-based Asia Society, who said a mindset of singularity would make it more difficult for India to embrace hybrid identities.

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