I initially left this comment in JK’s blog:
“I suppose this is another absurdity of Pritish Nandy. Is he *also* a child of communism? Dunno much about him, but he seems to go after NRIs with so much venom. Why?”

However, I decided write a full-fledged blog, just to articulate aloud my own thoughts. Like I said, this man seems to hate the NRIs for no reason except perhaps jealousy-or misguided partriotism. JK has pretty much summed up the holes in Nandy’s joke…err…op-ed (?) But I’d like to add my own bit here. Let’s see what our man says at the beginning:

“However gifted or hard-working you may be, it is difficult to get admission into a good school or college.”

I’d like to ask a simple question: why? The answer(s) to this question is enough to fill an entire book.

Next,

“It is even tougher getting a decent job thereafter, in which you can prove yourself. And even if you manage to prove yourself, it is virtually impossible to succeed and become independent, to earn your first million dollars from your enterprise.”

Two simple questions, one for each sentence: why? why? Again, the answers to both these questions is enough to fill tomes on a topic entitled, “Creating Chaos by adopting the Socialistic Pattern of Society.” I suppose it’s enough to drop a few phrases to help the adventurous author who might mount this task: welfare-based policies, nationalisation, licence-permit-quota, tariff and tax protection.

Next,

“There are more jobs available, more opportunities to set up small businesses and swiftly grow them without the State stepping in to overtax you.“

Heh heh! Pritish Nandy has put his foot in his mouth. Notice the italics. This is the result of Stalinistic..err…Nehruvian (why do I love this man so much?)..errr…Socialistic policies. The ones who proclaimed about tyrsts with destiny so valiantly from tops of forts went ahead and created a state whose only business was to step in and take control of every aspect of its’ citizens’ lives. Now, Pritish uses this very fact to condemn those who sought escape from such oppressive policies. Is it called, hypocrisy? If the founding fathers of post-independent India cared to create a liberal society, all those NRIs would’ve earned the selfsame millions in India.

Hyprocrisy revisited in these lines:

“While this is indeed an admirable trait among those who have migrated overseas, there are many infinitely braver and more talented people who have chosen to stay back and pursue their destiny here.”

Fine, but do you know–and if you do, please enlighten us how you know–that all those who have migrated are cowards? In fact, the statement implies this: all immigrants are cowards/deserters and therefore, unpatriotic. In fact, I’ll say that those who have stayed back are bigger cowards. They failed to understand and realize the responsibility that lies with each of them when they exercise their franchise. What’s more, when the first trickles of corruption began to fall, they meekly accepted it (somehow hoping that it’d take of itself and go away? Like the cat that closed its eyes and drank millk thinking that the world wouldn’t likewise notice), and now that’s grown to alarming proportions, they’re scared as hell. Worse still, they didn’t stand up and fight–I’m not generalizing, but this applies to the majority of the Indian populace which somehow thinks that democracy doesn’t involve any individual responsibility, that it’s the task of the babus and politicians–to make the country better. That populace includes armchair activists and loudmouths like Pritish Nandy.

Next,

“Yet, ever since reforms picked up pace, the government and the media have anointed the NRIs as the heroes of modern India.”

Have you ever visited www.goodnewsindia.com, Mr.Nandy? You will find all the heroes–Indian heroes living in India-of modern India you need. It is the Indian mainstream media-the glamour rag, TOI leading the pack-that focuses on the successes of the wealthy NRIs. Yet, what is wrong with it–rightly, and in context of their achievements and the contributions they’ve made to their motherland?

Again,

“They (the NRIs) have an ambassador of their own. There is a commission to look after their needs and demands. Now they are seeking representation in Parliament.”

So what’s wrong to grant them a representation in the Parliament if it only means that the representation will further enrich the land of their birth? Oh, I forget! Nandy must be so used to seeing the kind of “Parlimentary representatives” we have today that he shudders at the thought of new blood. About 70% of our eminent parlimentarians have pending civil and criminal (more likely) cases in their honour. NRI representation will only blot that honour.

Next,

“At this rate, they could well ask for a state of their own!”

Now, now, Mr. Nandy, the tone of this is unbecoming of your stature as the op-ed writer of an “objective” newspaper.

“…the first citizens of the new India you and I have built with the sweat of our brow.”

MadMan, what’s this fallacy called? Appeal to emotion/popular belief? The “new” India is still in the process of shaping itself. While we’re slowly becoming a “force to reckon with,” there’s no “new India” as yet. At the moment, we’re a “glittering mass of contradictions and confusion (read this phrase somewhere, was tempted to use it!).” And who’s the you and I Nandy is talking about? Certainly not me! I’ve certainly had no hand in building this chaos called India.

Next, Nandy whips up passions,

“Of people who slunk away in search of a better life elsewhere and now believe that they are a superior race simply because they have earned more money in one lifetime than most of us will see in a million. So they are eager to come back here and teach us how to become a first world nation.”

Gross generalizations. How did you arrive at this conclusion, Mr. Nandy? Based on what observations? What first-hand experience(s) made you draw this inference?

Next,

“…the government is not just listening to them but also steadily empowering them, in the mistaken belief that they are bringing something of value to India.”

The belief isn’t mistaken and the empowering will benefit India in the long run. JK has already kind of mentioned them in his blog. Ah! and next Pritish proclaims the truth!

“The truth is: they have nothing to offer us.”

And why don’t the NRIs have anything to offer to us? When I read many articles on the web written by successful (maybe but not limited to,”stinking rich”) NRIs, I bowe my head in respect to them. If not for anything, for the genuine patriotism (not the Bollywood shirt-tearing and breast-beating kind) they have for India despite the slanders they get from the likes of Nandy. Prof Subash Kak & Rajiv Malhotra are the names that come to my mind. These and similar-minded NRIs offer fresh perspectives largely formed out of experiences with different races and cultures, and juxtaposing those experiences with the experience of being Indians first.

Nandy goes on a rampage in this paragraph,

“All we get from our NRIs is gratuitous advice and boastful success stories that we can easily do without. They need India. India does not need them.”

We, the resident Indians should be grateful that the likes of Prof. Kak still strive to make India a country worth her glorious heritage despite the brickbats they receive from loudmouths like Pritish Nandy. First you force talented Indians to migrate, and then, when they return to do good for their motherland, you pounce on them, call them pompous and arrogant. And what about so many residents who curse their own country for all its ills, not realizing that it was their irresponsibility that gave rise to the ills-instead of improving things-looking westward in dreamy anticipation? Are they your Models of Patriotism?

The next paragraph contains a pretty contradiction.

“Instead we should respect those thousands of untrained and unskilled workers who slog as slave labour in West Asia …..They are the ones who have built our dollar reserves…”

What are these people called, Mr. Nandy? Unless I’m mistaken, they are also known as NRIs, unless again, if you mean that NRIs are defined to be only “Indians settled in the US.” But you also talk about these workers as having contributed to our dollar reserves. Didn’t you say earlier that the $80 billion has “come from foreign investors who see a future in India?” Sorry, but shouldn’t an op-ed piece contain some logic? We’ll leave Nandy at that and examine his words about the plight of these unskilled workers,

“…and yet they are harassed and cheated at the airports when they come home every three years with a few cheap electronic goods for their friends and family.”

Are they the only ones to be cheated at the airports? I too have been ripped off at least Rs.1000/- at the Chennai airport. So too have numerous foreign tourists/businessmen/visitors. Indian corruption isn’t racist.

What stuck me aghast is the spite in this article’s closing para. To begin with, Pritish Nandy makes a gross generalization and then launches a full-scale onslaught against the NRIs. Sample this:

“Instead, we suck up to those who are neither loyal to India nor the country of their adoption and want to straddle both worlds. In the process we are encouraging a bunch of selfish, greedy, opinionated, pompous self-seekers who believe they are smarter than you and me who have chosen to stay back in our homeland and brave its many problems — simply because we believe in India.”

The tone he uses is incredibly acerbic; what’s worse, there’s no ounce of evidence to support his blackballing: selfish, greedy, pompous…strong words! I believe he’ll make a good orator, expert at eliciting passions enough to cause a riot. Pardon me if this sounds farfetched.

It’s not that I have a special love for the NRIs. It’s just that Nandy has taken an extremely twisted view of the whole affair. I’m unable to fathom what drives his thoughts. True, not all NRIs are saints; we find rotten eggs everywhere, but does that mean you call all eggs as rotten?

Which distresses me. Is this phenomenon–of residents calumniating immigrants restricted only to India or is it present among peoples of other nations? 

PS: In the end, I thank JK for bringing this article to my notice; I thank him all the more for bringing out the thoughts which I never knew existed in me.