Prime minister Manmohan Singh’s American trip this week seems to follow the dictum of the title of the now dated self-help manual, How To Make Friends And Influence People. The prime minister has been literally bending over backwards while speaking to the American business leaders on Monday asking them to invest in India and, earlier this week, assuring them that there will soon be further economic reforms.
At the state banquet at the White House that president Barack Obama had hosted on Tuesday, there was a surprisingly large sprinkling of Indian glitterati, including Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, filmmaker Manoj Night Shyamalan, award-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri and Louisiana’s Republican governor Bobby Jindal. It would have been hard to imagine in the 1980s that so many prominent Indians could be on the White House dinner list. That seemed to have turned the mind of the prime minister to ways of connecting with them.
On Wednesday, he made a sentimental sales pitch that Indians abroad, not just in the US, should come home. He clarified to those in the US that they can choose to stay and work in both the places — the US as well as India — because of the IT-enabled technologies which make it possible to work from almost anywhere. This is significantly different from what would have been expected in the 1990s and in the earlier part of the decade, where the non-resident Indians (NRIs) were exhorted time and again to invest in the mother country. Singh must have realised that more than the dollars that they can send to India, the country needs their entrepreneurial energies, technical expertise and intellectual spark in pushing India into the fast lane of growth and prosperity.
The reality, however, is as always different and difficult. During the late ‘90s and in the earlier years of this decade, many Indians came home from the US to settle down here and contribute to the economic success story. But they discovered soon that things have not really changed despite economic liberalisation, and that it is a hassle to work and live here. So many of them packed their bags and went back to where they came from. Again after the 2008 financial meltdown, some Indians have been forced to look homeward, but there have not been too many who made the beeline home this time round. There is however a window of opportunity which could be used to advantage by the ubiquitous NRIs to connect with the homeland once again.
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