By Archana Arul
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The visit of US President Barack Obama to India as chief guest for the Republic Day celebrations should be seen much beyond the context of India showing off its military wares and cultural depth.
It gives the occasion to reflect on India-United States relations on a people-to-people basis and in the extent to which people from India have contributed to America and vice versa. It has never been a one way street.
The fact that as many as three million Indians call themselves Indian Americans or just “Americans” is reflective enough of the melting pot that is the United States. The Indian diaspora for that matter is said to be around 25 million spread far and wide in the world, especially in the Asia Pacific and Africa. The people of Indian origin have made it politically in the Indian Ocean states as also in the West Indies as the rich collection of this year’s Pravasi Bharatiya Divas would show.
But the Indian Americans in the United States are an example of the successful immigration, their assimilation and their contributions to social change of America. More than 100,000 students from India register in institutions of higher learning every year in the United States making the country the first in the list of foreign students in America.
And the fact remains that most of the students going to America on F-1 visas stay back by legally changing their visas to H1B, permanent residency and finally get their prized ticket by way of an American passport. In a country where there are supposedly 12 million illegals, the contribution of India in this front is also there — apparently there some 250,000 illegals of Indian origin hoping (perhaps against hopes) that someday they will also find their status legalized.
One does not have to just ask President Obama about the contributions of the Indian Americans to America. The track record speaks well except of course for that small handful who may have found themselves at odds with the law for one reason or another. The successes of the Indian American community goes beyond the business or the corporate; it has found its way all to the political with the community playing a deft and yet strong role in both the Republican and Democratic political parties. But overall the assessment has been that the Indians who had emigrated to the United States, after the initial cultural “shocks”, have assimilated well into a system that has also stood to gain from a rich civilization.
On the eve of President Obama’s visit, the Indian American Governor of the state of Louisiana Piyush “Bobby” Jindal has set the ball rolling by saying that he did not believe in “hyphenated identities” and that his parents came to the US to become Americans, not Indian Americans; and in stressing the assimilation of immigrants labelled those who talked about skin pigmentation as the “most dim witted lot” to be around with.
“If we wanted to be Indians, we would have stayed in India. It’s not that they are embarrassed to be from India, they love India. But they came to America because they were looking for greater opportunity and freedom,” Jindal said.
“I do not believe in hyphenated Americans. This view gets me into some trouble with the media back home. They like to refer to Indian-Americans, Irish-Americans, African-Americans, Italian-Americans, Mexican-Americans, and all the rest. To be clear — I am not suggesting for one second that people should be shy or embarrassed about their ethnic heritage,” he has said in prepared remarks delivered to the Henry Jackson Society in London.
Governor Jindal, some would argue, belong to that small group of politicians and leaders outside of India — the Asia Pacific included — who did not wish to be reminded of their cultural and ethnic heritage for fear of being de-valued in their own adopted countries. Governor Jindal is emphasizing, among other things, the criticality of “assimilation” in the wake of recent turbulence in Europe in the aftermath of what happened in Paris.
And all this is fine in a political context and in Governor Jindal placing himself as potential Republican Presidential Candidate in 2016. But the larger question is something quite different: the extent to which America is willing to accept Governor Jindal as an “American” as opposed to an Indian-American or simply condemned as a “foreigner” in powerful but conservative neighbourhoods of the United States. Indian American money bags and fat cats of the Republican party understand where Governor Jindal is coming from, but try explaining that to the rest of America.
Between opportunity and freedom, Jindal is right only on the opportunity front as this is precisely why the majority of the people in India emigrate to the United States, Canada or other parts of the world. Only a handful seek asylum on grounds of being “oppressed”, a reason that immigration judges and officials take with a large grain of salt.
As President Obama returns to India for a special visit, it is time the two countries placed a premium on educational and cultural initiatives that will go the distance in not only deepening the bonds of an already strong relationship but help the two countries better understand issues of assimilation, identity, crisis of identity and the challenges of social change.
*Archana Arul is a Research Scholar in the Dept. of Journalism and Mass Communication, SRM University, Chennai. She can be reached at arul.archana25@gmail.com
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