Reflections on overseas Indians

I've always found it difficult to understand how Indians who go abroad to study or work can not want to come back. To be honest, I do judge such people, but more than that, it's a lack of comprehension about their motives and reasoning. How can you not be sad to not be around the sights and smells you grew up around? How do you let go of the spiritual connection to the place you grew up in?

Ofcourse, with second generation migrants and beyond, the question of memory is redundant: they were born elsewhere. I have no way of understanding their identity issues.

I attended a conference today organised by a forum that aims to bring young migrant Indians in contact with 'India'. It's kind of a diaspora network thing, and the topic was 'Engaging young Overseas Indians for India's Development'. I wasn't keen on attending, because I tend to get irritated by corporate events (this was very corporate-y), but I ultimately did attend since our employers had registered us so we could 'network' (and they could show us off at a ready-made P.R. opportunity).

I heard something quite different from what I came prepared to listen to. The speakers, mostly overseas Indians who had come back to work here, were very passionate about their relationship with their home country, or their parents home country. It helped me understand a little just how genuine their motivations must have been to make them leave the 'phoren' and settle to work in India, especially given the family pressure to not give up the good life in western developmed nations.

I try to imagine my own relationship with Delhi, the city I grew up in. I'm 23 now, and I've spent twenty of those years pretending to not really being from Delhi. I've conveniently raked up by Bengali identity to suspend myself in cultural limbo-not exactly a Bengali poster-child (can't sing, can't dance and don't like fish)-but not willing to be identified as a self-absorbed 'Delhiite'. It has taken me twenty three years to begin to get fascinated by Delhi. I guess what I'm trying to get at, is that it can take years and years to develop a strong relationship with the place you live in, so to suddenly pack up and shift your existence takes a lot of imagination, idealism and something more. I can respect that.

How one wishes to engage with one's nation depends on an individual's worldview. For some, it begins by questioning the very legitimacy of the nation. I know I'm there. I believe the politically drawn borders are harsh and abusive, they are a fiction that the nation state pays good money-and sheds good blood-to perpetuate. I get angry when movie halls play the national anthem and expect me to stand and I'm amused when respect for people begins and ends with ceremonial acknowledgement to jingoistic symbols.

The exercise of nation-building begins with a leap of faith-accepting the existence of that Nation. I'm willing to live with this for how else do we take the step from the arm-chair to the street? And I welcome initiatives to encourage more persons to engage with this nation-building, even if their ideas of development differ so widely with mine. Till one engages, one cannot debate.

I was taught to engage in college, studying B.A. Honours in English at Delhi University. Admittedly not everyone in the class of forty came out saying 'I'm engaging!', but that's the nature of this education; one never knows what factor will trigger the crank in your brain that makes you engage with the world around you politically. There may be so many who are waiting to be triggered and I like people who have faith in that. Before judging somebody for the ideas they hold, I will seek to be inspired by such people.

This post started out by being a reflection on my experience at the conference today. I'm not sure where it's gone though, it's sort of turned into a think aloud.