Indian Diaspora in US: Rahul Gandhi and PM Modi Compete for Influence
Asia News Agency
Addressing a gathering of the Indian diaspora in Santa Clara, California, US, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi Wednesday said the RSS and the BJP are controlling all the instruments of politics in India. Rahul Gandhi pointed that before kicking off ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ (Unity March), they realised that the normal tools that had historically been used in Indian politics were not working anymore.
“Prior to walking, we were finding that the normal tools that we used to use for politics… conversations like this, public meetings, were not working anymore. All the instruments we needed to do politics in India they were controlled by the BJP and the RSS,” he said.
Gandhi said India is not what is being shown in the media which likes to promote a political narrative that is far from reality, asserting that there is a "huge distortion".
Rahul Gandhi’s engagement with the Indian diaspora in New York comes less than three weeks before Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives for a state visit to the White House. The PM is also expected to address a diaspora event in the US.
During his visit to the UK in March this year, Rahul Gandhi did not hold back on his criticism of India’s trajectory under the NDA government.
Indian diaspora has now become charged, contentious, and consequential
The diaspora has recently become a factor of domestic politics. The BJP, in particular, has been focussing on non-resident Indians abroad.
Until now, the dominant Indian image of the diaspora has been a simplistic one. Now it has become charged. C Raja Mohan (senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, Delhi and a contributing editor on international affairs for The Indian Express) “several factors have come together to make the interaction between India and its diaspora at once more charged, contentious, and consequential. The Indian political class has never been as divided as it is today. India’s internal gulf is bound to envelop the diaspora in the run-up to the 2024 general elections.”
Structural changes in India’s relations with its diaspora: Meanwhile, writes Mohan “there are many structural changes in India’s relations with its diaspora. For one it is growing bigger by the day. One estimate puts it at about 33 million…..As many countries hunt for talent to run their advanced industries, the demand for Indian professionals will continue to grow. The Modi government is promoting ‘migration and mobility’ agreements that will facilitate more substantive flows abroad of Indian scientists, engineers, doctors, accountants, managers, and bankers. The global footprint of India, then, will continue to widen and deepen in the years ahead.
“Second, the diaspora is richer and contributes in myriad ways to the Indian economy – from hard currency remittances to the air travel market, from consuming Indian goods to entertainment.
“Third, the Indian diaspora is getting active in the politics of the host nations, especially in the Anglosphere which is more open to immigrants than other societies. The prime minister of Britain Rishi Sunak and US Vice-President Kamala Harris are just two examples of the widespread Indian successes in electoral politics in the UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand….
“Fourth, the diaspora’s engagement with Indian politics too has grown. Over the last few decades, the Indian diaspora has graduated from the passive role of extending support to presumed collective Indian goals or individual commitments to community development at home. The leaders of the diaspora now take active positions on the issues of the day in India…..
“Fifth, active Indian political engagement with the diaspora raises questions about meddling in the domestic politics of host nations….
“Sixth, the story is not just about India but of the Subcontinent. If you add the migrants from Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, the South Asian diaspora swells up to 45 million. You would think the shared culture between and across the subcontinent would bring the South Asian diasporas together in their new abodes. What we have seen instead is its deep fragmentation amidst competitive political mobilisation….”
Can Gandhi break the Modi spell over the Indian diaspora ?
Since 2014, Mohan writes “the BJP has seized the powerful new possibilities with the diaspora. Rallies with the diaspora have become an integral part of PM Modi’s engagements abroad….If PM Modi looms large over the diaspora today, the non-BJP forces in the Indian community hope that Rahul will lay out an alternative vision for India. It remains to be seen though if Rahul Gandhi has the strategic acumen and organisational capacity to break the Modi spell over the Indian diaspora in the US and beyond.”
