Venantius J Pinto raises a good point. Like all good questions the answers always veer toward a muddy grey rather than being straightforwardly black or white. I confess to a bias here. I am of Goemcar, Indian heritage, currently swearing allegiance to the Queen of Great Britain. Well, the United Kingdom.
I am still very interested in Goem and have a great affection for the land of my forefathers. This naturally puts my loyalty in question. If the UK went to war with India and I had to take up arms what would I do? Does not bear thinking. However, the world has moved far since the days that jingoistic nationalism put people in such stark situations. I am not saying that in the modern milieu such exigencies cannot arise. They would be far less likely. In favour of permitting dual citizenship, I will hark to the example which I feel best illustrates the problems raised by this question. The Israeli solution. Israel permits dual citizenship to Jews the world over, banking on the assumed natural loyalty of Jews for Israel. This has reaped great benefits; Jews the world over have even taken up arms to defend Israel. The situation in India is slightly ‘alag’. We do not have the luxury of religious commonality. We have Catholics with their leader in Rome. We have Muslims with their focus on Mecca. And yet India has counted amongst its most fervent of patriots’ citizens hailing from these non-Hindu traditions. What we as ethnic Indians have is a common ethnicity. We can all look back with, I think, great pride on our ancestry. This I feel, should be enough. Bearing in mind the economic and social benefits that Indians in Diaspora can bring it would be wasteful at the very least to spurn them. Having said that I think these ‘foreign’ citizens of India should not have all the entitlements that citizenship automatically brings. The right to vote in elections needs to be curbed. This is of course debatable, but is a point worth considering. The right to property too is another issue. I feel the advantages of letting non resident Indians own property and start business ventures far outweigh the cons. This topic definitely needs airing. This would be as good an occasion as any. Xanno Moidecar
