Indians in China feel left
out By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - For the sixth year in a row,
India rolled out the red carpet for its diaspora.
At the just-concluded Pravasi Bharatiya Divas
(Indian Diaspora Day) in New Delhi, the government
celebrated and serenaded some 1,500 Indians from
about 50 countries. But Indians living and working
in countries of key importance to its interests
went unrepresented at the event.
Of the
over 100 speakers that participated in the scores
of panel discussions at the three-day event, there
was not even one Indian from China, political
commentator K P Nayar observed in The
Telegraph, an English daily
from Kolkata.
The Indian diaspora is
25-million strong and is spread out across 110
countries. It is the second largest in the world
after China.
As in previous years, it was
the Indian-American community that hogged the
limelight at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas. The
Indian-American community is roughly 2.6 million
strong and is expected to cross 3 million by 2010.
It is rich - the annual median income of Indian
households in the US was $78,315 in 2006, 61%
higher than the US average - and well educated,
and its political influence in the United States
is growing.
At this year's jamboree,
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh singled out
the Indian-American community for praise. He
lauded their efforts "mobilizing support of the
political leadership in that country [US] for
Indo-US cooperation in civil nuclear energy".
Although the Indian community in the Gulf
is larger - it is around 5 million strong - it was
until recently sidelined in the Pravasi events.
Indians in the Gulf complained that their
contribution to the Indian economy through their
remittances was not recognized adequately by
Delhi. Of the $26 billion that overseas Indians
remitted to India in 2006, 50% came from the Gulf
Indians.
Since last year, the excessive
attention heaped on Indian Americans at the
Pravasi Bharatiya Divas has been corrected. The
contributions of people of Indian origin from
regions like the Gulf and Southeast Asia are also
being celebrated.
However, "Indians living
in countries of key importance to India's
interests - like China or South Africa, for
instance - continue to be sidelined, if not
unrepresented at the Pravasi Bharatiya events,"
complained a participant at Delhi.
Officials in the Ministry of Overseas
Indian Affairs say that if Indians living in China
did not participate in the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas
it was because of the small size of the community.
The number of Indians in China is estimated to be
about 20,000 only.
Former Indian
ambassador to China C V Ranganathan pointed out
that most of the Indians living in China are not
permanent residents, but those who have gone there
to work over the past couple of years. There are
people of Indian origin who have been in China for
decades, but these too are only a handful. In Hong
Kong their numbers are much larger, where they
have contributed in a big way to Hong Kong's
reputation as a trading power.
Indians in
China might not have participated at the Pravasi
Bharatiya Divas, but they do figure on the Indian
radar, claimed an official in the Ministry of
External Affairs (MEA). They help build bridges
between India and China.
Sino-Indian
bilateral relations have witnessed much change in
recent years. Trade and investment has grown
dramatically. Bilateral trade between January and
November 2007 was worth $34.23 billion, a 53%
increase over the same period in 2006. In 2006,
bilateral trade crossed $25 billion, a 33.8%
growth over the previous year. In December, the
Indian and Chinese armies participated in joint
military exercises on Chinese soil for the first
time ever.
Yet the bilateral relationship
has been far from friendly or cooperative. The
border dispute is yet to be resolved. This and the
Sino-Pakistan missile and nuclear cooperation have
cast a long shadow over bilateral relations.
Indian perception of China remains clouded
by suspicion and a feeling that Beijing is
determined to block India's rise. Some Chinese
look on Indians with disdain. These perceptions
can be changed only with interaction and this is
where Indians in China are contributing, says the
MEA official.
Nayar points out that
Indians working in China "can play a significant
role in any radical transformation in Sino-Indian
relations. There are close to 200 Indian companies
now in China: most of them are staffed primarily
with Indian personnel. In addition, there are many
multinational corporations, which employ people of
Indian origin from their headquarters, be it the
United States of America or Europe. All these men
and women are in constant and continuous contact
with the Chinese and are actively engaging them in
China's new ideology of making money."
Srikanth Kondapalli, China expert and
associate professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru
University in New Delhi, is skeptical about the
potential of Indians in China to influence Chinese
perceptions of India. "Indians working in China
have created stakes in the economy and that
Sino-Indian economic interaction will lead to
economic interdependence and this is a good
thing," he says. Still, "it is not clear how
Indians working there are contributing to India's
foreign-policy interests. Their numbers are too
small to have much impact."
Small their
numbers might be, still they are shaping Chinese
perceptions in significant ways. Indian software
professionals and teachers are adding to capacity
building in China, points out Ranganathan.
An executive from a leading Indian
software company with a development center in
Shanghai pointed out that Indian companies
operating in China are hiring Chinese. "This is
being noticed and appreciated by the Chinese," he
claims, pointing out "that in contrast, when
Chinese companies go abroad they take their
personnel and labor with them and are reluctant to
hire locally".
The joint venture
spearheaded by India's largest software exporter
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) with a consortium
of Chinese companies and Microsoft as junior
partners is helping China create its first
world-scale software company "with Indian help",
the executive pointed out. "It gives the Chinese
access to Indian skills and knowledge."
Information Technology training provider,
National Institute for Information Technology
(NIIT) , has churned out tens of thousands of
Chinese software students through its 165
education centers in China. TCS and NIIT have
passed on expertise to the Chinese, which has not
gone unnoticed in China.
In the process.
"the perception of India as a knowledge-sharing
country has been advanced", Ranganathan told Asia
Times Online.
The number of Indians in
China is growing rapidly. Kondapalli recalls that
a decade ago there were about a dozen Indians in
Beijing besides those employed in the Indian
Embassy. Today, there are about 2,000 in the
Chinese capital alone, he said. Indian officials
feel that as the number of Indians in China grows
their impact on China's perceptions of India will
increase.
Unlike the India-Pakistan
normalization process, that between India and
China has not been able to draw as much from
contact between the two peoples. Cultural bonds
that draw Indians and Pakistanis together are
nowhere as strong between Indians and Chinese.
"With the political leadership in India and China
lacking the will and courage, and bureaucrats in
both countries running out of ideas, India is
clinging to straws - the small Indian community in
China - to transform Chinese perceptions of
India," says a retired government official
critical of India's China policy.
Officials in the Confederation of Indian
Industry (CII)which partnered India's Ministry of
Overseas Indians in organizing the Pravasi
Bharatiya Divas point out that the government must
stop looking at the size of the Indian community
in a country or the depth of its pockets in
determining its guest list at Pravasi events.
"Their potential in furthering India's interests
in adverse circumstances should be considered," a
CII official said. "And the Indians in China are
doing this quietly. Why not recognize them?"
Indians in China will be invited to receptions
hosted by the Indian Embassy in Beijing during
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's upcoming visit to
China. Perhaps they will find themselves on
India's guest list next year.
Sudha
Ramachandran is an independent
journalist/researcher based in Bangalore.
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