Hema Kiruppalini 
Research Associate, ISAS
The 10th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) will be held from 7-9th January in Jaipur and will draw an attendance of over 1,000 delegates from over 50 countries. On the 8th of January, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will inaugurate the event and on the day after, the President will deliver her valedictory address. The theme of this year’s PBD is ‘Global Indian: Inclusive Growth’ and participants will look forward to discussions centred around various developmental issues confronting India and more importantly, the role of the Indian diaspora in facilitating greater economic opportunities in their homeland. To begin with, how can we measure and thereafter improve the extent of the diaspora’s engagement with the home country? Although India has strategically engaged the diaspora to assist in developing inclusive growth, what more can be done to optimise the economic potential of the diasporic communities?
Referring to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) report on the ‘Framework of Inclusive Growth Indicators’ (2011), the inclusive growth in ADB’s Strategy 2020 is about economic growth with equality of opportunity. Three critical policy pillars – (1) high, efficient, and sustained growth, (2) social inclusion to ensure equal access to opportunities, and (3) social safety nets to protect the most vulnerable and deprived – are targeted for an inclusive growth strategy. Although India is one of the world’s fastest growing economies, the country is lagging behind in terms of (1) improving the delivery of basic public services (2) sustaining economic growth and (3) ensuring that the growth dividends are shared by all the citizens. According to the World Bank, one of the ways for India to achieve inclusive growth is to ‘improve the delivery of core public services such as healthcare, education, power and water supply to all its citizens’.
Will the PBD – with its larger than life themes and elitist orientation – be able to create a platform for Non Resident Indians (NRIs) irrespective of their class and status to integrate and initiate ideas that will contribute towards developing ‘inclusive growth’? Or, is the PBD a mere fanfare event and a futile effort to integrate the ‘global Indian community’ that is fissured on different levels? While the event has had some tangible outcomes, this annual parade of distinguished personalities has been critiqued for placing greater emphasis on NRIs than on PIOs and for providing limited offers to small businessman. Interestingly, according to The Encyclopaedia of the Indian Diaspora, even Nobel Laureate Naipaul had cryptically remarked that the PBD has the ‘element of a trade fair’.
To me, it seems that the event commemorates the achievements of those that constitute the ‘dollar’ diaspora by honouring them with the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman. And I wonder, what about the blue-collar immigrants from India who try to eke out a living overseas and continue to endure the hardships just so that they can try to bridge the income disparities in their home country? Does the PBD provide a stage for members of the ‘degraded’ diasporas (so to say) to voice their grievances? I doubt it. Indeed, it is often the case that there is a denial about the realities of the Indian diaspora and the complexities that define the nature of their engagement with the homeland. So, the tactic employed is to simply celebrate the glory of those who made it beyond the shores of India.
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