By Atul Dev "It is true that India has never forgotten her children abroad, but it is also true that she might have taken greater interest in them than she has done."  – Jawaharlal Nehru, in the ‘Foreword’ to Our Countrymen Abroad “Pravasi Bharatiya Divas aims at bringing the expertise and knowledge of the Indian overseas community to India and integrating it into India's development process. Pravasi Bharatiya Divas is focused to highlight networking opportunities and collaborating them to confer a mutual developing platform. Generating this synergy to excel together towards a bright India along with the Indian overseas community is what Pravasi Bharatiya Divas 2007 proclaims with its head held high. It's a young India, it's an emerging India, it's a developing nation. No matter your qualification, status or resources, we are all Indians and can avail of the opportunities here. Let's work together, focus together and progress together.”  It is with these words that Vayalar Ravi, Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs, Government of India, had welcomed delegates to the 5th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas organized in New Delhi last week.  While reports of the event would have reached readers of this column, I wish to convey some of my thoughts on this occasion on a subject of passionate interest to me. The Indian Diaspora has attracted much attention in India and abroad in recent times -- more than ever before. Achievements of Indians in Silicon Valley, their listing in business magazines and their presence in public life of the countries of their adoption have brought them into the public eye. Interestingly the Indian Diaspora continues to have deep roots in the ancestral land and maintains extensive cultural links with it. It is an integral part of Indian culture and civilisation. Etymologically, the term Diaspora is derived from Greek words ‘dia’ (through) and ‘speiro’ (to scatter). Literally, the meaning of Diaspora is scattering or dispersion. It was originally mentioned in the context of Jews or Jewish communities scattered in exile outside Palestine. Since the latter half of 20th Century, this term is being applied to any ethnic group or community which is dispersed outside the country of their origin. Due to easy communications and economic requirements, the Diaspora populations are growing in terms of numbers and they are now playing a significant role in the life of the countries of their adoption as well as the countries of their origin. This is true of the Jews, the Chinese, the Indians or any other such civilization. Indian emigration has been taking place for centuries but never before in history has India witnessed such massive movements of people to other parts of the world as in the 19th and 20th centuries. Demographically, overseas Indians form the third largest Diaspora, next only to the British and the Chinese. It is estimated that today there are over 20 million People of Indian Origin (PIOs), including Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) settled in about 70 countries. While there are conflicting definitions of the terms PIOs and NRIs, I have personally lobbied extensively to define the difference till I have almost succeeded in making it official – those who still hold Indian passports are NRIs, the rest PIOs.Apart from the migration of Indians to the Far East and South East Asia during ancient times, the formation of the Indian Diaspora is characterized by two broad patterns of overseas migration in terms of history and political economy. The emigration that began in the 1830s to the British, French and Dutch colonies and ended in the early years of the 20th Century; and, emigration to the industrially developed countries during the post-World War II period, emigration to West Asia during the 1970s and eighties and later emigration of software engineers and other professionals to developed countries since the mid-1980s to this day. The labour migration to the colonies in the last two centuries created, what I call, the ‘old Diaspora’, while the post-war migrations created the phenomenon of the NRI, who virtually never got absorbed, in the real sense, in their country of adoption. Later, some of these NRIs became PIOs but many still hold their Indian passport mostly for nostalgic reasons.Indian labour emigration under the indenture system first started in 1834 to Mauritius, Uganda and Nigeria. Later, the labour emigrated to Guyana (1838), New Zealand (1840), Hong Kong (1841), Trinidad and Tobago (1845), Malay (1845),Martinique and Guadeloupe (1854). Grenada, St Lucia and St Vincent (1856), Natal (1860), St Kitts (1861), Japan and Surinam (1872), Jamaica (1873), Fiji (1879), Burma (1885), Canada (1904) and Thailand (1910). Under this indenture system, approximately 1.5 million persons migrated. (Details obtained from the first ever study of the Diaspora -- ‘Our Countrymen Abroad’ by Dharam Yash Dev, published by the All India Congress Committee in 1940.)While the political party seeking India’s independence did do some research on the Indian Diaspora, there was still no official recognition of the Old Indian Diaspora. In the absence of any formal or official channels of interaction and communication between these people or their governments, these PIOs have maintained close socio-cultural relationships with their motherland. These relationships are primarily cultural in nature, in the spheres of religion, language and customs through films, music and performing arts. Mauritius is the prime example of such a continued association with India.Religion forms one of the major domains of linkages between India and the Indian Diaspora, particularly the Old Diaspora. Not only did Indians build sacred places of worship similar to the ones found in their motherland but lived with the hope of visiting various centres of pilgrimage in India. Those who could afford it paid a visit to the place of their origin in India and offered their gratitude personally to the motherland. Others have meticulously preserved the images passed on by their parents and grandparents. The images of the gods and goddesses recreated by the early settlers, the folk tales and songs, description of the motherland by visitors further augmented their relationship with the ancestral land. Due to proximity of their land of settlement to their motherland, Mauritius was thus the leader in maintaining relations at all levels with India.One thing of note is that the Old Indian Diaspora has the distinction of resisting assimilative efforts by their host societies and they have thus managed to maintain and promote their Indian identity with great care with very few exceptions such as Jamaica. Visits of performing artists from India, including film stars, are significant events that evoke bondage of Indianness among the Diaspora communities. Transactions of cultural or habit linked and daily use commodities form an inevitable part of the linkages between India and her Diaspora. These commodities range from items essential in religious worship (e.g. idols, hawan samagri), food preparation (e.g. masalas) and entertainment. Video and audio cassettes (and now CDs) of films, social and epic serials (e.g. Ramayana and Mahabharata) have been in great demand. The ‘new’ Diaspora community is essentially a product of economic needs warranting migration across nations. Indenture labour was undertaken with the hope of returning ‘home’ with a better economic status, though it remained only a dream. Migration to the West Asian countries comes under the ‘new’ category and in fact is never quite considered a migration as almost all return home in one generation. Migrants to the West Asian countries regularly remit their earnings to their families and invest at their places of origin. Indians from the developed countries of the West have also been remitting their savings to their kith and kin besides investment in industries and other development projects. A few philanthropists have even been financially supporting welfare activities and charitable work in India. This community today has a large number of professionals in the areas of information technology, medicine, law, engineering, etc. Their contributions are not only through foreign currency remittances but they also serve as visiting scholars, creating virtual networks and shaping the direction of scholarly environment and capacity building in various fields of science, technology, business, etc. Indians who have immigrated to countries like the USA and UK have been active in the growing software industry, medical and other professional fields. Indian export business related to ethnic products such as food, clothes and cultural products (movies, scriptures and items used in rituals such as books, idols, etc.) have thus a tremendous demand among the Indian Diaspora community all over the world.The observation of Pravasi Bharatiya Divas on 9 January, the day Mahatma Gandhi returned to India from South Africa, every year, is thus to recognise and appreciate the role of the Indian Diaspora in the promotion of India’s interests worldwide. The old Indian Diaspora, which had lost its roots, is now having closer interaction with the motherland. The new policy initiatives taken by the Government of India would thus provide a formal channel to establish and promote linkages between India and her Diaspora for mutual advancement. It is the present generation’s way of remembering Our Countrymen Abroad.  (Courtesy Mauritius Times)

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