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The Rediff Interview/ Dr Thomas Abraham

'The twenty-first century belongs to Indians'

Dr Thomas Abraham is the pioneer of the Global Organisation of Persons of Indian Origin, which started in 1989 and aims at being the voice of the large Indian diaspora. It was the GOPIO that strongly supported the ousted prime minister of Fiji, Mahendra Chaudhary, even hosting him at a function in New York in mid-September, and which criticised the Indian government's weak-kneed response to the coup d'etat in the Pacific island state.

Dr Abraham, who has been involved in non-resident Indian community activities for the last 27 years was re-elected chairman of GOPIO. Born in Pathanamthitta, Kerala, and having studied in the Catholicate College and Jaipur's Malaviya, he came to study at Columbia University, New York, and thereafter stayed on in the US. An expert in advanced materials, he is currently vice president of Business Communications Company, USA.

In an e-mail interview with Amberish K Diwanji, he explained the rationale behind GOPIO and its aims and objectives.

Why did you want to set up such an organisation?

An unofficial estimate of the total number of people of Indian origin living outside India is about 20 million people. Whether they come from Africa, Asia, the Americas, Australia, the Caribbean or Europe, they are Indians in body and spirit. Almost all of them maintain their Indian cultural traditions and values. They seem to have meaningfully integrated in their countries without losing their ethnic identity.

With over 18 million people of Indian origin living outside India, a new global community of Indian origin has been developed. Most of the people of Indian origin have become highly successful in business and in their professions. If their professional expertise and financial resources are pooled together, it will benefit not only people of Indian origin but also their countries and India.

In addition, people of Indian origin could assume a new role in providing help in case of crisis to their communities around the world.

So how did you go about organising the Indian diaspora?

As a first step towards bringing our communities together, the Indian American community took the initiative to organise the First Global Convention of People of Indian Origin. This in turn was triggered when an elected Indian dominated government in Fiji was overthrown by a military dictator in 1987.

At the First Global Convention held in New York in 1989, the major issue of concern to everyone was human rights violations, be it in Fiji, Guyana, Trinidad, South Africa, Sri Lanka, United Kingdom, and even in the United States with the 'dotbuster' issue.

Tell us something about GOPIO. What are your aims and objectives?

The Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin was founded at the First Global Convention of People of Indian Origin in New York in 1989. The initial thrust of GOPIO was fighting human rights violations of people of Indian origin. GOPIO filed petitions at the UN and a concerted effort was made to fight these issues. This has been improved in the last one decade except the recent Fiji crisis where an elected government let by Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhary was thrown out of office.

In the last decade, the whole world has changed and so have the people of Indian origin communities. Politically, our PIO communities have done well. Indian dominated parties were elected to power in Fiji, Guyana and Trinidad. South Africa has several Indians as ministers in the government.

Human rights violations or being politically sidelined are not major issues for global Indian communities, except in Fiji. After several brain storming sessions and conferences, GOPIO believes that creating economic opportunities, by pooling our professional and financial resources, is a common platform to bring our communities together.

The PIOs have a stake in the new globalisation scenario where country specific closed economic boundaries have been broken.

Economically, how is the Indian diaspora doing?

The last decade also saw PIOs becoming enormously rich, thanks to the computer/ Internet revolution. There are a dozen billionaires, hundreds of PIOs with assets over $ 100 million and several thousand Indian millionaires. Although many of them left India with a meager amount of dollars or pounds in their pocket, with their dedication and hard work they became successful in the West and in particular, in the USA, UK and Canada.

What role can the Indian diaspora play in India's development and in promoting its image abroad?

The biggest role of the Indian diaspora has been to project a good image of India by educating the Western society of our rich cultural heritage, art forms, food and our friendly people. The one-to-one contacts of our people with Western society has completely changed the image of India in Westerners' minds.

In terms of India's development, NRIs/PIOs have been playing a larger role in bringing foreign companies to invest in India. There are also enormous opportunities for NRIs/PIOs to get actively involved as well as support various educational and social service activities. Many NRIs and organisations have set up schools and colleges in their villages and home towns and have also been supporting social and environmental causes.

The Indian diaspora is economically very differentiated. Thus while in the US, they are the richest community, in Malaysia, they are the poorest group.

What does GOPIO hope to do for the poor?

The thrust of GOPIO today is to pool our resources to help our brethren in countries where they are economically lagging behind. That is the main reason why GOPIO started its business council. However, it would take time to see the impact of this. We need to do some educational programmes, social service, etc, also to help the poor communities.

GOPIO has been asking for favourable policies from the Indian government. But will not the Indian government have to make different policies for the different economic strata?

In terms of the Government of India's policies, I don't think they have to have different policies for different groups of people. The PIO card or demand of dual nationality would cater mostly to the first generation overseas Indians and their children who have foreign citizenship.

However, people from Malaysia, Fiji, South Africa, Trinidad, etc are also eligible. The PIOs from these countries may not want dual nationality because of the political problem back home. They don't have to take it. GOI's policies should be the same, however, their thrust on doing things for PIOs may differ in different countries.

For example, the Caribbean PIOs have more interest in cultural interaction with India. GOI has now constructed India Cultural Centers in Trinidad, Guyana, Fiji, etc. That may not be needed for the Western countries, since PIOs in those countries can pay for it. In the Middle East, most of the workers are in transit. Their major issues are related to travel, children's education, etc. Here, GOI and state governments have to be involved to provide educational opportunities for them. Children's education is not at all an issue for PIOs in Western countries.

What is the relationship that PIOs/NRIs have with India?

Till the middle of the 1970s, the Government of India did not take any interest in non-resident Indians (NRIs), a definition which was given by the Reserve Bank of India when they wanted Indian banks to attract NRI deposits. In the 1980s, then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi invited a few NRIs including Sam Pitroda to come back to India to help in the development of some core sectors including telecommunications.

With economic liberalisation by the Narasimha Rao/Dr Manmohan Singh team, an impetus was provided to NRIs/PIOs to become more active in the Indian scene. The successive governments have continued the same policy. However, none of the governments wanted to grant dual-nationality for NRIs/PIOs, which the Indian communities have been demanding for a long time.

The Vajpayee administration announced a PIO card in 1998, but there have been few takers. It costs $ 1,000 to obtain a PIO card, which is an enormous sum of money. GOPIO at its last convention in September 1999 and again in Zurich, passed resolutions to lower the fee to one fourth the current fee. As we understand, the Government of India is considering lowering this fee, which is a good development.

There are enormous opportunities for NRIs/PIOs to get actively involved in India's development as well as support various social service activities. NRIs/PIOs can bring financial resources and a lot of proven ideas to India. A large number of foreign companies were influenced by the NRI professional working for them to invest in India. Many NRIs and organisations have taken major initiatives in supporting their former schools and colleges, some have set up schools in their villages, while others have been supporting social and environmental causes.

NRIs/PIOs have become a hot commodity to be attracted for investments, whether it is developing countries such as Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Uganda, whose presidents have been personally meeting NRIs or even developed countries such as Canada and Australia who want new investments. The Indian government has also now taken major steps to attract NRIs/PIOs to India.

The recent appointment of an NRI committee in the government headed by Dr L M Singhvi is in the right direction.

What are the other issues you have with the Government of India?

NRIs would like to be partners in the country's growth. The central and state governments should make it easy for NRIs to participate fully in India's development. NRIs/PIOs have to deal with the ministries of external affairs, finance, commerce, industry, information technology, home and human resources.

Now that an NRI committee has been appointed, the committee should take up the various issues with these ministries and state governments, review them and find solutions. The committee should also have regular meetings with NRI organisations.

The government should also appoint a few NRIs who are Indian citizens to the Rajya Sabha so as to provide them with an opportunity to interact with the government and the elected officials regularly.

Another aspect is voting rights for Indian citizens living outside India. There is no reason why the Indian government cannot provide voting rights to its citizens living outside India. The government should also provide dual nationality to naturalised citizens and children of Indian citizens born outside India. Over 100 countries including India's neighbours have dual nationality arrangements with the US.

By providing dual nationality, India will be the beneficiary by attracting a large number of NRIs to participate in India's development.

Is there anything else you'd like to say?

The twenty-first century belongs to Indians. Indians, both in India and outside, could work together to make it happen. We do have some serious problems to take care of. However, if all of us put our acts together, no one in the world can stop us from achieving our goals and aspirations.

The Rediff Interviews

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