Manhattan Indians and ‘illegal Indian aliens’!
We read so often about tapping the talents ofIndians living in America.Dr.Manmohan Singh, our Prime Minister had in his wisdom constituted one more Commission, this time, it is Knowledge Commission! High sounding?
Yes, it is! What is it by the way? No one knows for sure. It was, as we can guess , the brain wave of Sam Pitroda, friend of Rajiv Gandhi Now, after so many regime changes, suffered so much humiliation and he left the country for good in disgust. Now, when he saw the Gandhi family back in power, he flew into the country and held forth on so many public platforms. He is no doubt a man of ideas and a man of action. But unfortunately, the atmosphere now in Delhi was not conducive. For one, no one in the Cabinet was willing to take orders from him, let alone wisdom!
One of his pet themes was to tap the Indian talents, from US universities to serve in Indian universities. No takers for this idea too!
The good man was willing to oblige. After all the PM took time off to visit his Mysore campus and that was when the PM mentioned Murthy’s name. But then, Mr.Murthy must have found that nobody had any heart in the idea and also with Sam around Mr.Murthy’s contribution can’t be genuine, Sam given his own ego won’t interact with such a star entrepreneur like Mr.Murthy.So, the compromise was Nandan. So, it went. Now, the idea of tapping Indian talents in the USA is a bogus idea! No well-placed NRI Indian is willing to change jobs, except to come and give lectures during holidays!
So, we were amused to read the same type of idle talk persists. One visiting Indian (media man) writing from New York gloats over the so many successful Indians settled in Manhattan and doing so well. He names all of them, bankers, finance experts, so the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas of the BJP brain wave is the utmost in tapping the love of NRIs for their country. Says he: “India is still not attractive enough for these well-heeled NRIs”. So be it!
Now comes the news that in the USA there are nearly some 10 million illegal aliens, as they are called, they are working secretly, Mexicans, Cubans and Indians!
Among the illegal Indians there are Gujarati community alone some 50,000 to 60,000! They enjoy no rights, no protection, no documented existence! So a new visa regime is proposed by two Senators, then, these illegal Indians can get visas and then they can pay taxes and enjoy the protection of the law and eventually become citizens.
The point is that Indians abroad, as NRIs, don’t enjoy any freedoms as we understand it. They earn well, they find the material existence good but they pretend to love their country of origin, this is an emotion and yet they have to forego this sentiment for the sake of existence!
This rank includes all the top brains, top performers and also the lowly humble manual labourers!
Many of the so-called big names, in academics and management expertise etc. come to India periodically to give lectures. But they are careful in expressing their opinions, on a host of issues, the more sensitive the issues the more careful they are! Why? There have been recently some cases brought to our knowledge that the Indian governments, if you express any contrary opinion, revokes the NRI visas! So, let us be clear: let the welloff Indians live there. Let us generate our knowledge on our own!
Last point : please ask the Knowledge Commission to do their jobs in a year, at best. Three years is too long! Too wasteful use of money and time!