They are not just potential investors but also contribute to research and are India’s unofficial ambassadors
NOW that the NRIs are a significant presence in India’s public consciousness, a good deal of thought is being given to how best to involve them in the development of the country. However, our thinking, both in government circles and among the NRIs, remains rather tentative, and is ignorant of what other similarly placed countries such as Israel, China, Australia and South Africa are doing.
India’s approach to NRIs is understandably but rather excessively dominated by the economy and the need to attract investment. Economy does not function in a vacuum, and we need to pay equal, perhaps even greater, attention to India’s political, social and educational institutions which are in a somewhat sorry state. Barely 1 per cent of the Indian diaspora is rich enough to invest, and it cannot be allowed to hog all the attention.
I would like to offer three suggestions that could form the basis of collaboration between the NRIs and the Government of India. First, we need a high level committee made up of the senior members of the Government of India and the representatives of the NRIs, and chaired by a senior Cabinet minister (preferably by the Prime Minister). Dr Manmohan Singh is not only a fine Prime Minister but has also spent a large part of his life abroad and thus qualifies as a distinguished NRI, a rare combination that is reminiscent of Mahatma Gandhi, another NRI who led us to independence. The committee should meet once a year, preferably at the same time as the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in January. It should have a clear agenda and should commission well researched papers on important issues. Although its membership should be drawn from all the major regions where Indians are settled, it would be slightly weighted in favour of those regions where the NRIs are recent migrants, have closer ties to India, and a greater capacity to contribute. When some of us recently met the Prime Minister and put the idea to him, he was sympathetic. It now needs to be built on and given a clear institutional articulation.
Second, in a knowledge based economy, India has little hope of becoming a great economic power without a sound basis of fundamental research. Our record here leaves much to be desired. Some basic and world class research is taking place, but it is largely applied, limited to technology, and principally confined to the private sector and the defence industries. The reasons for this are only partly financial. Research in classical Indian languages, philosophy, political science, economics, and ancient and medieval Indian history does not need large sums of money, and yet our scholars and students have to go abroad to learn the latest developments in many of these areas. The absence of the right kind of institutional climate, adequate training facilities, and the culture of research are largely responsible for this.
There are various ways to deal with this. We need to appoint eminent academics and scientists to our universities and research institutions, and give them the resources to create world class centres. We also need to offer scholarships to our talented students to acquire training in great Western universities, as China, Malaysia and other countries are doing.
The NRIs can play a vital role here. Many of them do valuable work at individual levels. I’ve a small family foundation and, among other things, we provide two fully funded scholarships to Indian students doing doctoral research in natural and social sciences at the University of Oxford. Others do even better work. I suggest that the NRIs set up a foundation comparable to the Ford or Guggenheim foundations. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility to raise, say, a hundred million dollars, whose interest can easily provide 50 to 100 such scholarships.
We can also do what the federal government of Australia has recently decided to do. Determined to build up world class research and teaching institutions, it has set up 15 generously funded research professorships for overseas Australians backed by substantial funds to recruit young scholars and build up research facilities. The idea is to attract the most eminent Australians back to Australia permanently or for five to 10 years, and locate them in half a dozen carefully selected institutions. They are expected to do research themselves and to build up a cadre of second generation researchers. Over a hundred distinguished overseas Australians have applied and are anxious to do something for their country of origin. The Australian government is serious and determined to get its money’s worth. I know this because I was asked for an extremely detailed reference for one of their distinguished candidates in political philosophy.
We should do something similar in India. The Government of India could identify important areas where we are weak and invite eminent NRIs and others to apply. It could fund the whole thing itself or ask NRIs to make a significant contribution. This will over time help create world class institutions in India, and not only arrest the growing flow of Indians going abroad but also attract non Indians from all over the world, thereby bringing us more money that can be used to build up more such centres. China, Singapore and Malaysia are already moving in this direction, and we can’t afford to be left behind.
Third, as India acquires greater global visibility, it needs to be projected better abroad. NRIs can act as unofficial ambassadors. Their major organizations need to be kept better informed about India’s view of the world, its problems and needs, its thinking on major issues, and so on.This requires greater cooperation between its diplomatic missions and local NRI spokesmen. It also requires greater contact between the Government of India and NRIs than at present. The annual Pravasi Bharatiya Divas meetings are too large, too one sided, and too government dominated to achieve this. It would also help greatly to have a probing, professionally run, non partisan weekly in which the affairs of NRIs scattered over 40 countries can be debated, and a systematic exchange of views between them and the government and people of India carried on. Such a weekly can also forge closer ties among the NRIs and make them a significant global force. Such journals have existed in the past and continue to exist, but they do not quite serve the purpose I have in mind. It is about time we started one, enjoying the moral support of the Government of India but in no way officially attached to or financially dependent on it. An NRI consortium can underwrite such a venture
