Indian diaspora gets red carpet welcome

Laying out a red carpet for the vast Indian diaspora, New Delhi said yesterday it would allow dual citizenship to some people of Indian origin in an attempt to boost investment.

The effort, which emulates similar bids by China and Israel to tap their respective expatriate communities, aims to capitalise on the success of some 20 million people of Indian origin scattered across 110 countries, officials said.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee told a gathering of 1,500 people of Indian origin, including Mauritius Prime Minister Anerood Jugnauth, that India could gain from their experience.

"We do not want only your investment but we also want your ideas. We do not want your riches, we want the richness of your experience," Vajpayee said.

"We can gain from the breadth of vision that your global exposure has given you."

Vajpayee said Indians overseas had dramatically changed the world's perception of the country and set new benchmarks for Indians at home.

"They make us examine why the Indian is so much more innovative, productive and successful than in his own country," he said.

Vajpayee said India was aware of the need to create a climate equally conducive for success at home.

Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha also highlighted how important the diaspora was for the government.

"The concerns of NRIs and PIOs are on top of the our national agenda," he said.

Nobel laureates Amartya Sen and V.S. Naipaul, and former Fijian prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry were among some of the other high-profile guests at the event.

The Indian diaspora is a powerful group, culturally, politically and economically. It has an annual income of $160 billion – about one-third of India's gross domestic product – while remittances by Indians amount to $15 billion.

"It is an attempt to take on board the Indian diaspora's heartfelt need to relate to India," said L.M. Singhvi, chairman of the committee which organised the event.

"This is a very timely effort by the Indian government. It has realised the economic and social effort overseas Indians make to the country," said Lord Navnit Dholakia, who sits in Britain's upper house of parliament.

"Overseas Indians can share the expertise they have by working in a global environment. This exchange of ideas will be very useful," he added.

Dholakia was among 10 eminent Indians abroad honoured by Vajpayee for their contribution to the country.

The others included the Mauritian prime minister, former Commonwealth secretary general Sir Sridath Ramphal, McKinsey partner Rajat Gupta, former premier of British Columbia (Canada) Ujjal Dosanjh, Malaysian minister D. Samy Vellu, South African freedom fighter Fatima Meer and businessmen from Kenya, Oman and Hong Kong.

The three-day conference is also a cultural extravaganza with participants being treated to exotic Indian cuisine, entertainment by top Bollywood stars and tours across the country.

India's vast and increasingly rich expatriate community in the United States, Britain and other countries has long sought the right to hold another passport along with an Indian one. At present, Indians taking a foreign passport lose their Indian nationality.

Dual citizenship would give people of Indian origin the same rights as Indian citizens while doing business in the country which has relatively stringent barriers for foreign nationals.

Prominent people of Indian origin including Nobel prize winners, government ministers, business leaders, tech gurus and academics, some of whose ancestors were indentured labourers in Africa, the Caribbean and Fiji, are taking part in the conference called the "Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas" (Global Indian Day).

But Lord Bhiku Parekh, a professor at the London School of Economics and an expert on Indian migrants, said New Delhi had "woken up to the existence of the diaspora rather late".

"Therefore there is a need for a systematic policy to deal with the diaspora," Parekh told the conference.

"And any dialogue would be meaningless if it does not engage the interest of young Indians growing up abroad."

Also, limiting dual citizenship only to citizens of developed countries like the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore has, however, given rise to criticism that New Delhi may have made this offer with an eye on their wealth since PIOs living in developing countries will be denied this facility.

Officially, it has been stated that dual citizenship will be offered to citizens of only such countries that allow its citizens of foreign origin such a facility.

Vajpayee said that his government intends to bring a necessary legislation during the budget session of Parliament starting next month.

"We are now working on the administrative regulations and procedures governing dual citizenship," Vajpayee said, broadly hinting at amendments that will required to be made and ratified by both Houses of Parliament to the 1951 Citizenship Act.

A senior foreign ministry official, J.C. Sharma, later clarified that there is no proposal under the government's consideration to offer the same to citizens of any of the Saarc countries.

Justifying the move to offer dual citizenship to only PIOs of developed countries, Sharma clarified that most of the developing countries do not allow its nationals to hold dual citizenship.

"Moreover, the final decision was also based on which countries these demands came from," Sharma explained.

Singhvi, who headed the High Level Committee on Indian Diaspora, and whose recommendations Vajpayee said prompted his government to make this decision, sought to parry doubts in certain quarters that by applying for Indian citizenship, PIOs in countries like the United States may lose citizenship of the country of domicile, saying the decision in this regard was taken only after wide consultations with respective governments.

Indian authorities are still not sure about how dual citizenship will be any different from the PIO card that New Delhi has been offering for the past few years.

All that Sharma had to say was that their rights and privileges, as well as what they would not be entitled to, will be crystallised by the proposed legislation.

He, however, clarified that they will not have right to vote or contest elections besides denial of opportunity to work in the government.

Doubts are already being expressed in political circles if the opposition, which commands a majority in the Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of India's bicameral Parliament, will cooperate with the government in passing this legislation, considering they have already termed the PBD as a political gimmick of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Vajpayee termed the meeting as a "homecoming" for PIO and NRIs, and made a clarion call to exploit their intellectual capital, while listing their achievements and describing how this association can turn out to be meaningful.

He, however, cautioned them saying they should be loyal to their country of adoption and asserted that Indians as a community have managed to achieve a delicate balance between thei