K M Devarajan January 30, 2005

Tags: visa , immigration , NRI

href="/tag/India">India needed "massive investments in infrastructure, both social and economic, rural and urban, to step up the rate of economic growth to 7% to 8% per annum so that we can eradicate poverty in our life time". The economy must absorb up to $ 150 billion (Rs 6,45,000 crores) of investment in infrastructure over the next decade and he was looking to Indians abroad for much of this.

He also said that the government was "committed to make India attractive enough" for their investment.

In continuance of the initiatives undertook by the previous government beginning 2002 to grant dual citizenship to overseas Indians in 16 select countries and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act passed in Parliament in 2003, the Prime Minister announced his decision to implement a new scheme with many attractive and expanded features. The facility of dual citizenship will now be available to all Indians in all countries who migrated from India after January 26, 1950. Dr Singh also explained the measures taken by his government for closer interaction with the newly formed Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs.

This is targeted at the more than 20 million people of Indian origin who now live in more than 100 countries, according to government estimates. However, the government is mistaken in the nature of this "Indian Diaspora", which also includes persons sent out of India as forced immigrants. The Indian diaspora is, in fact, a product of 19th century British imperialism.

Slavery being abolished in almost all colonies of the British empire, beginning 1840s the British forced people, particularly from India and China, in the form of indentured laborers to work in sugar, rubber and tea plantations, bauxite mines, cotton fields and timber extractions activities in their colonies such as the Reunion Islands, Mauritius, Madagascar, South Africa, Fiji, Surinam, Thailand, Malaya, Burma, Ceylon as well as several islands in the Caribbean Sea, namely, Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica, St. Lucia, St.

Vincent, Grenada, St. Kitts, Curacao, Aruba, Guyana etc. They were also taken to Africa to build the Mombasa railway and the present affluent Indian population in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania are the descendents of those who went there to grab the opportunities created for trade and industry following the construction of the Mombasa railway.

These migrants did not - or rather were not allowed to return home even though the indentured labor itself was abolished in 1917. In subsequent decades the descendants of these immigrants achieved better economic status and formed a new prosperous middle class in these countries. People of Indian descent now constitute nearly half the population in Surinam, Fiji, Mauritius, Trinidad and Guyana. In Surinam and Fiji, Hindi has even gained official status incorporating some local variants. This group forms the majority of Indians now living abroad.

Since they lost all their roots in India nearly two centuries ago and now identify with the countries they live in, there is no reason for them to make any remittances or investment in India. In fact their obsession with their colonial past is so high that in countries like South Africa many people add an English pre-fix to their names, such as, Shiner Ramkisson, Nelson Pillay, Vivian Reddy, Sylvan Govinder, Stanley Subramoney, Sam Munusamy, Bob Narandas and the like.

In fact immigrants from India dislike being classified under the omnibus terminology "Person of Indian Origin". Instead they prefer to be called Hindu, Muslim, Sikh etc without any mention of the country of their origin, as they are all born-and-bred in other countries.

This is in sharp contrast to the overseas Chinese who contribute nearly two thirds of their foreign exchange reserves, which in 2004 stood at more than US$ 550 billion, as against India’s US$ 130 billion. Even in tiny Taiwan, expatriates made substantial contributions to their exchange reserves of over US$ 250 billion last year.

The second group who could be induced to make remittances to India are those who migrated on their own to do business as traders, shopkeepers, plantation and mine owners and manufacturers. Some of the richest persons of Indian origin live in Lisbon and Oporto in Portugal, whose ancestors made their fortunes in Angola and Mozambique. One of the biggest manufacturers of textiles and garments in the Southern Hemisphere is a South African whose family migrated more than a hundred years ago from Porbunder.

M A Chidambaram, the second son of Raja Annamalai Chettiar and uncle of the current Indian Finance Minister, had substantial banking interests in Vietnam and was even a Director of the Banque Nationale de Paris  now known as Banque Nationale de Paribas. It is said that A M M Vellayan Chettiar  brother of A M M Murugappa Chettiar of the famous Murugappa group of industries  was the richest Indian in Rangoon, and crossed over to India by foot during the Japanese invasion. But these people were deeply rooted in India and returned to their homeland for a more prosperous life.

There are many highly successful persons of Indian origin in countries around the world who are capable of meeting the target of inward remittances set by the Prime Minister in a short time. But they will do so only if something great was happening in India, which would help them multiply their wealth. No one would like to dump their money in a country that is one of the most corrupt in the world and where the bureaucracy is notoriously indifferent to development and modernity.

Foreign remittances will continue to flow into India from the third group, i.e. the workers and professionals who migrated to the Gulf, Europe, Australia, Canada and the USA after the Second World War in search of better living conditions through higher wages. But these remittances will come to India irrespective of Dual Citizenship and will also dry up after a period, as they move back home or their children embrace their new national identities.

Mostly, this generous facility of Dual Citizenship will allow "persons of Indian origin" to jump the immigration queue.