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The International Indian - Vol 14.1
"The Indian Diaspora hasn't changed much, it is still
divided."
What is the Indian Diaspora? How much do we know and
understand about it?
TII's Contributing Editor Mona McNicholas talks to
Professor Prabhu Guptara, ExecutiveDirector,
Organisational Development, Wolfsberg (a subsidiary of
UES - one of the largest banks in the world). He is
also Freeman of the City of London and of the
Worshipful Company of Information Technologists;
Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of
Personnel and Development; and Fellow of the Institute
of Directors of the Royal Commonwealth Society, and of
the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts,
Commerce and Manufactures. He also continues to
supervise PhD research at the University of Fribourg
(Switzerland) as well as to be Visiting Professor at
various universities and business schools around the
world.
Tell its about your life and journey outside India.
PG: Political refugee from India (under Mrs Gandhi's
Emergency), lived in the UK for 19 years and now in
Switzerland for nearly 11 years - founded a
consultancy while in the UK, since when I have been
working for a financial services company
How do you describe your identity- how has it
evolved/changed in your journey from India (or one of
Indian origin) into the global village?
PG: I lived in the UK for 19 years and carry a British
passport, and though I have now also lived in
Switzerland for nearly 11 years, I am still deeply
Indian.
Scores of Indians have lived in other countries, but
when do you think the Indian Diaspora came to the
attention of people?
PG: As far as I can work out, as the Diaspora from the
seventies, though I remember conversations with
friends while I was a teenager about how many Indians
were living in South Africa and the UK and other
countries. What brought the phenomenon firmly to
attention in scholarly circles was the word "diaspora"
being applied not only to Jewish people (as was
traditional), but also then to the Armenians in
scholarly literature from the sixties, and finally by
us to ourselves.
How do you perceive the Indian Diaspora - in your
region and globally. How has it evolved?
PG: Hasn't really changed much: still very divided by
language and caste and religion, and so leaving out
all Indians who do not feel comfortable identifying
themselves in this way (in other words all
regionalists and casteists and religionists find their
own groups but genuine Indians often do not find
all-India groups with which to identify.)
What influence, has the region you live in, had on
your life and how have you and the Indian community
where you live impacted your society? What do you
consider is your greatest contribution?
PG: We have profited as a family from the outstanding
courtesy of the Swiss people and their lack of racism,
though of course the country has, like most European
countries, the negative of thorough complacency and
bureaucracy. What we have learnt most is the value of
thinking in systems (they call it "network thinking")
and the value of looking forward in order to organize
yourself for what is ahead whether tomorrow or for a
longer-term in the future.
What contribution have we made? Well, apart from the
usual ones that any family makes in any country as
workers and neighbours, I hope that we have helped to
at least modify some stereotypes about India and
Indians, and created a greater awareness of the
potential as well as the challenges facing our
country. In addition, we hope that we have contributed
to strengthening the links between India and
Switzerland.
Have Indians integrated well into the mainstream
society? If not, why not?
PG: Yes, I think Indians integrate well here - mainly
because in any situation it is the hosts who set the
tone, and the Swiss are very welcoming once they get
to know you (and we Indians are very adaptable - but
Switzerland requires very little adaptation except in
terms of the language and culture).
Do you think the Diaspora Indian takes part in social
and political reformations of his adopted country? And
the world? What are his strengths and weaknesses?
PG: Our strength in fitting in and adapting is,
regretfully, what makes for our unwillingness and
inablity to contribute to political and social
discussion and debates in relation to our countries of
adoption. In general, the most active among us think
at best of what is in India's interest, rather than in
terms of what is best for our adopted country as a
whole.
Professionally and personally - what do you consider
your gains and losses with your choice to continue to
live outside India?
PG: For us the greatest gain has been in output and
productivity because of the system-efficiencies in
northern Europe as a whole, but of course most in
Switzerland. The greatest loss is in terms of close
relations with relatives and friends and community (we
are one of only 3 Indian families in the little town
where we live - population over 10,000). However, I
did not choose to leave India and I would happily
return to India if any company offered me a job
commensurate with my abilities and experience.
Define what it means to be an international Indian.
PG: To have your roots in India, but to be able to
feel sufficiently at home everywhere and to be able to
live by international norms and not merely the old
Hindu norms of caste and language and region.
What kind of future do you see for the Diaspora and
for India?
PG: For the Diaspora, there is really no problem in
most countries - at least in western countries. That
is why we continue to live here!
For India, it depends entirely on whether we continue
on the path to economic liberalization combined with
some minimum conscience and care for the majority of
people in our country who are not merely poor but have
actively been discriminated against and oppressed by
our caste system throughout recorded history. I see
some evidence of a consensus to continue to liberalise
economically, but I see a continuing civil war in our
country between those who want to actually care for
our poor and those who only pay lip service to it or
even continue to work against it.
Do you think the Diaspora can survive quite well
without India?
PG: It is not the Diaspora that needs India (we carry
India within us wherever we go). Rather it is India
that nees the Diaspora - and it worth pointing out
repeatedly to our people that though many of the
negative changes that have come into our country
particularly since independence have come in because
of internationalizing trends, all the positive and
worthwhile changes that have happened in our country
over the last two centuries have happened because of
foreign influence either directly or via the Diaspora.
What impact do you think Indian policies or changes in
Indian society have on your life and others in the
Diaspora?
PG: Very little, apart from giving us greater pride in
our country, rather than a feeling of shame entirely
unnecessary at the fact that India has the largest
rate of road accidents in the world, or that India
still has the largest number of poor people in the
world, or the largest number of AIDS cases in the
world. The more such problems can be addressed, the
less reason we will have to be ashamed. By the way, I
am astonished at how much we Indians deliberately
ignore such issues, when we need to face them and
address them and solve them - as we arc perfectly
capable of doing.
Is the Indian family/community life fragile?
PG: No, but it is becoming increasingly fragile as the
emotional bonds that tie us to each other seem to
become thinner than earlier because of the
individualistic philosophy that is being propagated by
the global elite through the mass media.
Are Indians in the Diaspora
racist/communalist/casteist? How do they treat/relate
to other minorities-Blacks, Hispanics, Orientals....
etc?
PG: Unfortunately, we continue to be among the most
racist people on earth when it comes to relations with
Africans, Blacks and Chinese, though we seem to have
no problem with Hispanics and people from the Middle
East. The guiding principle of course is till that of
skin colour, and our continuing discrimination against
even Indians who are dark (or darker than us) is well
demonstrated till today by marrigage advertisements
which ask for a "fair" bride.
How command and accepted are inter-racial marriages?
PG: Thankfully, these are increasingly accepted. My
father was a north Indian and my mother a south
Indian, and that was one of the very few marriages of
that sort in their generation. In my generation, two
college lecturers were both thrown out of their
respective colleges (in Delhi!) when they married,
because one was a Hindu and the other a Muslim. The
case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which
finally decided in their favour, but the colleges
still did not want then back and kindly asked them if
they would accept a suitably large slum of money
rather than return to their duties!
Any opinions on the young generation of Diaspora
Indians: how different are they from their parents and
grandparents? Well-adjusted or mal-adjusted?
PG: No problems on the adjustment front, in my
experience (though a few experrience some anxiety
regarding their identity and nationality, particularly
during their teenage years). However, regretfully,
they seem to know very little about the history of
India and less and less about our culture - though the
latter is not surprising, since our culture has
changed so much even in India, and will prob ably
continue to change as India continues to
internationalize. "India" was primarily a British
creation (because the very concept of being a nation
rather than a kingdom came from Europe, and we
reconstructed our history and myths in line with the
notion of nationality) and it is a pity that we have
so little debate and discussion about what is valuable
about our country's culture that we want to maintain
against the. incoming tide of globalization, and what
we want to even more rapidly abandon, such as the
widespread poverty which is the result of historic
caste-based oppression of the majority of our people.
Mona McNicholas is TII's Contrributing Editor.
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