Introduction:

Diaspora diplomacy could be defined as “engaging a country’s overseas community to contribute to building relationships with foreign countries”. Today, the Indian diaspora is more prosperous than before and its involvement in India’s development is increasing. It contributes by way of remittances, investment, lobbying for India, promoting Indian culture abroad and for building a good image of India by their intelligence and industry.

Body:

Indian diaspora:

• The Indian diaspora around the world now stands at 31.2 million, of which PIOs were 17 million and NRIs were 13 million, spread across 146 countries in the world.
• The US, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Myanmar, the UK, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Canada host an Indian diasporic population of at least one million each.
• According to Global Migration Report 2020, India continues to be the largest country of origin of international migrants with a 17.5 million-strong diaspora across the world, and it received the highest remittance of $78.6 billion (this amounts to a whopping 3.4% of India’s GDP) from Indians living abroad.

The opportunities that Indian diaspora brings for India are as follows.

• They serve as an important ‘bridge’ to access knowledge, expertise, resources and markets for the development of the country of origin with the rest of the world.
• Indian Diaspora is an important part of India’s “soft diplomacy” or “diaspora diplomacy”. For example, Indian Diaspora played a critical in the fructification of Indo-US Nuclear deal.
• They have also contributed to the growth and development of the country of their residence. For example, Silicon Valley represents the success of Indians.
• The Indian Diaspora has played an important role in the field of Science & Technology.
• Trans-national entrepreneurship: They are a significant source of trade and investment in India.
• Source of large inflows of remittances, which has been helping balance the current account. It further aids in socio-economic development and poverty reduction. According to the World Bank, Indian Diaspora is the largest earner of remittances in the world currently.
• Diffusion of experience and exposure: They spread the Indian Culture and traditions abroad benefitting India in general. Example: Yoga, Ayurveda, Indian Cuisine etc.
• NRI’s also finance educational institutions or businesses, which again adds to the economy’s sectors. Reports suggest that these NRI’s are a major source of Foreign Direct Investment, Market Development (Outsourcing) and technology transfer, that boost the assets of the fiscal system, every day.

However, there are many challenges posed by the diaspora:

• West Asia
  • Low oil prices owing to Shale gas boom and slower global growth is resulting in job cuts for Indians.
  • Rising instability due to Shia -Sunni conflicts and radical Islamism is a direct threat to security of Indians.
  • Fierce competition from skilled labour from Philippines and cheap labour from Nepal.
  • Regressive and medieval policies like employer seizing the travel documents upon arrival known as Kafala labour system is exploitative.
• US, Canada & UK:
  • Discriminative practices owing to a racist, colonial mindset still persists. This makes it difficult to secure jobs and work visas.
  • Support of the diaspora is neither automatic nor continuous, and their interests need not be India’s priorities. Example: the Indian community in the US was not vocal enough in criticising President Donald Trump’s proposal to restrict the H-1B visa programme that has benefited many Indians. Revision of visa norms in UK post Brexit might hit the Indian Diaspora hard, specially the IT professionals
  • Disparity in jobs and racial abuse of Sikh and Muslim community due to terrorist branding Cultural integration due to various eating preferences (beef eating), consumerism and nuclear society
• Dual Citizenship and Voting Rights:
  • Majority of Indian Diaspora want to retain their Indian citizenship along with the citizenship of the country of their residence.
  • Wealthier diaspora from the US, Canada and the UK want dual citizenship and voting rights.
• Misutilization of Remittances:
  • Another challenge is that remittances may not always be used for beneficial purposes. Example: India faced problems due to foreign funding for extremist 29 movements like the Khalistan movement.
• Brain-Drain:
  • Indians prefer to do higher studies abroad and work as scientists and economists abroad causing India loss of talent in areas of research and development.
• Evacuation Issues:
  • With increasing political volatile situation in the West Asia and few African countries, there are imminent challenges involved in rescuing the Diaspora in distress.
  • The recent instances of Operation Raahat in Yemen, Operation Sankat Mochan in South Sudan show the high risks involved in such rescue operations.
  • The rehabilitation of such rescued people is also a challenge back in India.
• Reducing trends:
  • Reports suggest that the e-Migrate system and the Minimum Referral Wages policy have been detrimental to India as companies now find it easier to hire labour from countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan.
  • It was found that in 2016 the number of Indian workers who went to work fell by half in Saudi Arabia and by 33 percent in other Gulf countries, while the number of expats in the regional actually increased by 12.17 percent

Way forward:

• India should formulate a new NRI policy, the government must immediately work with developed countries to ask that they kick back a portion of the income tax revenues they collect from the Indian diaspora.
• This is fair because these countries did not invest anything in creating this talent but benefit immediately when the immigrant pays taxes abroad.
• There is a need for a strategic diaspora evacuation policy from conflict zones in a world where crises materialise without warnings and give very little reaction time for governments.
• India’s foreign policy aims to translate partnerships to benefits for key projects like Swachh Bharat, Clean Ganga, Make in India, Digital India, and Skill India, the diaspora has plenty of scopes to contribute.
• VAJRA (Visiting Advanced Joint Research Faculty) scheme which seeks to formalise a rotation program wherein top NRI scientists, engineers, doctors, managers and professionals serve Indian public sector organizations for a brief period, lending their expertise- is a step in the right direction.
• Improvement in ease of doing business will go long, in enabling investments from the Indian diaspora.

Conclusion:

The diasporic populations have become an increasingly important factor in international politics. The Indian diaspora, for their part, have many of the elements required for success — they are a “model minority”, they are affluent, and they are growing in number. Many of them are willing to exert their influence in electoral politics and are engaged in multinational businesses, and are thus highly visible. This makes for a ripe environment for India to aggressively tap on their potential.