I recently read a post on LinkedIn about how there has been a shift from “Can India keep pace?” to “Look at what India is achieving’. As proof of this metamorphosis, the author of the post gave the example of an American of Indian origin now holding a senior position at Google.
This selectiveness of where success began, and what constitutes it is getting contagious. This is not surprising given the last decade has focussed on making Indians believe they had been under a ‘1,200 years of slavery’ mentality while simultaneously promising to extricate India from this alleged debilitating belief. Is it any surprise then that many today hold that ‘India achieved freedom in 2014?’
Donald J Trump, the 45th and 47th President, for all his ‘America First’ bravado and Make America Great Again (MAGA) promise was probably inspired by what is transpiring in India. A potential matter of pride for India? Interestingly, by promising to Make America Great Again he inadvertently claims America has not been the greatest country on Earth, even though many Americans think
otherwise.
Part of democracy is electing leaders who have negative things to say about their country before coming to power. The success of such negativity begins the process of revisionism which is construed as new found positivity. This manifests as their recognition of what they conceive is the country’s true greatness allegedly stifled earlier.
The desire to change narratives in a short span requires proof to bolster and augment its assertions. This ‘padding’ which includes comparing apples with oranges and other types of false equivalences eventually only diminishes what it intends to celebrate.
Today, it is not surprising that Indian citizens laud the success of those who have given up their Indian passport. Thus, Indians celebrate and are visibly proud of the success of this American of Indian origin senior Google executive, and many others like him - Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai for example. Such pride does not mention the Indian Institutions that gave them their break. It was the, now much reviled, Nehruvian model of socio-economic development that ensured education in these institutions was affordable. Possibly, a requirement for these revisionist celebrations is that the basic foundations for success be swept under the carpet.
The fact that these Americans of Indian origin are doing well speaks highly of their educational foundation in pre-2014 India. But such success is not a recent phenomenon. There is a long history of Indian migrants to America succeeding in their adoptive nation. Kalpana Chawla, the first American of Indian origin to fly to space graduated in Aeronautical Engineering from Punjab Engineering College; Vinod Khosla co-founder of Sun Microsystems completed his engineering from IIT Delhi before heading to the US. Sabeer Bhatia, the co-founder of Hotmail graduated from BITs Pilani. The first American of Indian heritage to serve in the US House of Representatives was Dilip Singh Saund. He represented California’s 29th district between 1957 and 1963. Saund graduated from University of Punjab in 1919. These Americans of Indian heritage were highly successful, they were recognised and celebrated. However, their accomplishments in the USA were hardly tom-tommed in India as a sign of India progressing. If there was nationalistic celebration it was for the attributes of the country which shone in her former citizens.
To assert that proof of the parent country doing well is the success of those who are no longer its citizens is akin to forcing a square peg into a round hole. The pride that flows from such force-fits doesn’t ring true.
Celebrating this false equivalence opens a Pandora’s box. Indians’ pride for their country should then face an inflection point now that Gautam Adani has been indicted by the US Justice Department. Similarly, the fact that Indians form the second-largest illegal immigrant population in the US, as per Pew Research, should diminish pride about India’s much heralded economic growth, as would the fact that approximately 97,000 undocumented Indian immigrants were apprehended at the US borders or that in 2023 Indians constituted 18% of the illegal crossings to the UK via small boat. Pride for the country should have been reduced after a Swiss court sentenced Prakash Hinduja, his wife, son and daughter-in-law to jail for exploiting domestic workers. That the case is under appeal is not much of a salve. Does pride for India diminish when Rishi Shah, a billionaire American entrepreneur of Indian heritage is imprisoned for fraud? How do Indians perceive India when M Night Shyamalan’s
movies flop?
The Atal Bihari Vajpayee government began the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in 2009 to celebrate the achievements of the Indian diaspora. To then claim nothing happened before the last 10 years, and suddenly be proud of India’s achievements, and to link India’s stature to the success of former Indian citizens is to do injustice to India, and the spirit, tenacity and grit of her people.
Being fixated on success post a certain period is to celebrate in a vacuum. It denies the effort and sacrifice of many that came before. And what is worse is, it creates a precedent for future generations to embellish what they believe they have achieved by forgetting the past they stand on.
Finally, when celebrating these achievements let’s not forget that besides the grit and tenacity of migrant Indians it was the welcoming and accepting attitude of their adoptive countries that was instrumental in their success.
There are enough reasons to be proud of India without resorting to false equivalence and scouring foreign shores. The reasons are not limited to - the technical ingenuity of ISRO; reach of A R Rahman and Diljit Doosanj’s music; sacrifice and service of Kailash Satyarthi and Aruna Roy; writings of Geetanjali Shree; sporting prowess which span from Major Dhyan Chand, Milka Singh, P T Usha, Shiny Abraham, Ramesh Krishnan, Aslam Sher Khan, Vijay Amritraj to Neeraj Chopra; the start-up ecosystem. The achievements of these diverse people in these diverse fields are a matter of pride and prove the importance of India’s rich diversity. Jai Hind!
(Samir Nazareth is an author and writes on socio-economic and
environmental issues)