Dear Editor,
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit the Caribbean in November, and Guyana has been chosen as the host country. As has been a tradition in every country he visits, the PM should be given a public diaspora programme.
Modi-ji has had a lifelong history of engaging the diaspora. He did not engage the diaspora when he was a student meeting visiting Indians in Delhi and elsewhere in India during the 1970s, and engaging Shri Raviji-Maharaj and Indrani Rampersad of Trinidad and Swami Aksharananda of Guyana as well as students from other countries. He engaged the diaspora when he was a pracharak (volunteer) in the 1980s and 1990s, and as assistant to BJP leader LK Advani (1990s), as General Secretary of BJP (1998-2001), as Chief Minister (2001-14), and as Prime Minister (from 2014).
In visits to New York and New Jersey, he engaged Guyanese and Trinidadians. Ditto at international conferences in Washington and Trinidad, and his private visit to Guyana (2000). He and Ravi Dev exchanged ideas when they sat on the same dais at a 1993 conference in Washington. He and Dr Vijay Naraynsingh held discussions in Washington, and again in Trinidad. He engaged Swami Aksharananda and Ravi Dev, and met other Guyanese, including me, in Trinidad.
In all of his global conferences, in the USA and Trinidad, and in his visit to Guyana, he has cherished mingling with and engaging diaspora people, and he has always looked forward to those experiences. He has yearned to know about the diaspora experience, and has yet to turn down a public engagement with the diaspora in all of his travels.
Meeting the diaspora has energized him. He expressed how pleased he was when he travelled abroad and saw Indian culture being embraced in other countries. He has lauded foreigners for embracing Indian culture, and the diaspora for maintaining ancestral culture and links to India.
Wherever Prime Minister Modi visited overseas, the diaspora felt honoured to host him. Modi’s engagement with the Indian diaspora has become a regular feature when he travels abroad, deepening ties with the motherland. He was hosted for a conclave with the diaspora in so many countries, including Fiji, Mauritius, South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Singapore, Seychelles, Malaysia, and other countries that received indentured Indian labourers.
Modi also had diaspora engagements in developed countries like Australia, the USA, Canada, the UK, France, Holland, Ireland, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland, among others. In all of his travels, the PM has been known to captivate large audiences. The large-scale diaspora events have become a significant part of his diplomacy. The engagements have had a huge impact on the diaspora, building up their morale and confidence, and cementing with India the connection which should never be broken.
He has always emphasized unity with other groups in the countries where Indians have settled. He also saluted them for the pride they have shown in India in their identity, and in the host country where they reside. He praised their optimism in their future and in the future of India and that of the countries where they have lived.
The PM always acknowledged the global influence of Indian culture, yoga and cuisine, that attracts the interests of non-Indians or foreigners. Modi is also known to extol the great work of the diaspora in strengthening relations between India and the adopted or host country, and for their contributions to the development of the host country. He often refers to the diaspora as “Rashtradoot” (ambassadors of India). He always praised their “unmatched” skill, talent, work ethic, investment in, and contributions to their adopted countries, and their abiding commitment to Mother India and countries of domicile.
Modi (as PM) is yet to visit Caribbean countries that experienced indentureship. A visit to Guyana is being finalized as the PM travels to Rio for the G20 Summit in November (18, 19). Caribbean people are looking forward for a visit that is long overdue.
It would be an honour to have a public diaspora programme for the visiting PM to showcase to the 1.4 billion Indians in India our Guyanese and Caribbean hospitality and culture.
Modi’s fever is being echoed in the Caribbean diaspora as they eagerly look forward for Prime Minister Modi’s much-anticipated visit. The last time a Prime Minister of India had visited was Indira Gandhi in October 1968, over 56 years ago.
Caribbean community organizations should come together and plan a public programme for the PM. A public programme or outreach with the Indian Caribbean diaspora, at which all (regardless of ethnicity) are invited locally and around the region, would add to the elegance and tradition of the PM’s visit. Such a programme would give impetus to India furthering ties with the Caribbean, especially towards investment and towards cooperation in development.
A diaspora programme would continue as a signature act whenever he visits another country as a part of India’s foreign policy.
The Modi visit and a diaspora programme would be a testament to a renewed commitment by New Delhi to bridging the gap between the potential and reality of Delhi’s reach in the Caribbean, boosting the prospect of soft power and political influence.
Yours sincerely,
Vishnu Bisram
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