PM says committed to cement new bond with PIOs

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrives at the Piarco International Airport to attend the CHOGM Summit in Port of Spain on November 26, 2009.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that his Government was committed to cementing a new bond of mutually beneficial collaboration between India and people of Indian origin (PIOs) around the world.

"Today’s India is on the move, just as the people of Indian origin are on the move. India is reaching out to the world with confidence and in a spirit of live and let live," Dr Singh told members of the Indian community at a reception hosted for him by Indian High Commissioner Malay Mishra in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, on Thursday.

Dr Singh, who was on a four-day visit to the United States, arrived in Port of Spain yesterday to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) 2009 to be held there from November 27-29.

He said that, in reaching out to PIOs, India was also reaching out to the world at large. "You are, for millions of Indians, the most visible and dynamic symbol of our own globalization process," he said.

According to him, there is a fundamental difference between the globalization of India and many other developing countries. He said that, for India, globalization was a natural means of linking up with the world community of Indians.

"As I have often said, if there is one phenomenon in the world over which the sun truly never sets, it is the phenomenon of the global community of people of Indian origin," he remarked.

He also pointed out that the Commonwealth encompassed countries around the world where PIOs had made a mark.

"In different and diverse countries the people of Indian origin have successfully blended Indian culture and values with the local cultural and social environment. In doing so, you have demonstrated the unique liberalism and pluralism of the great Indian civilization. This is what enables each one of us to adapt and adopt to new homes and new neighborhoods," he said.

Dr Singh said that when he met PIOs around the world he celebrated India's pluralism as much as he celebrated the country's great civilisational inheritance.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meeting the Indian community at the civic reception hosted in his honour by the High commissioner of India to Trinidad & Tobago at Port of Spain, on November 26, 2009.

"Indianness is like a large and all-encompassing banyan tree. It offers shade to everyone who comes in search of it. It has deep roots at home and branches that in turn go to great distances and strike roots there," he said.

Noting that it had been often said that the 21st century would be the "knowledge century", he said India was proud of its inheritance in this respect. He said overseas Indians had played an extremely important role in global brand building for this purpose.

He said that, during his visit earlier in the week to the US, he felt proud as an India to meet so many people of Indian origin doing so well in so many different walks of life.

"If India is today viewed as a 'knowledge economy' it is because of the reputation that people of Indian origin worldwide have earned through their creativity, through their adventure, enterprise and diligence," he underlined.

According to him, India today seeks to tap the wellspring of Indian creativity and enterprise from around the world.

"Our ability to do so will depend on our ability to forge partnerships, on the one hand, and our ability to provide the proper enabling environment for the flowering of such partnerships back home," he stressed.

The Prime Minister said that long before Indians crossed the seas as workers, they travelled the world as traders and great teachers.

He said there was a time when the Indian gurukul system and its universities at Takshila, Nalanda and Nagarjuna were the envy of the world. Even after independence, Indian colleges and universities continued to attract students from all over the world, he said.

Dr Singh said that, in the last 20 to 30 years, India had lost ground, both because it failed to incentivise its institutions to become global players and because foreign universities become more aggressive in marketing.

He said he was conscious of the fact that an important demand of the overseas Indian community was to secure access to educational opportunities in India. That is why the Government had been widening educational opportunities for PIOs in India, he explained.

"I know many of your children wish to experience the new India, having heard about an old India from their parents and grand parents. I want all those people of Indian origin who have never been to India to make a pilgrimage and discover the new India that is in the making," he told the gathering.

He also invited PIOs to make use of the investment and business opportunities that India now offered. "I invite you to be active partners of a new India and walk with us in finding new pathways of development and progress. I invite you to feel the love and affection of Mother India and feel the warmth of her embrace," he said.

Dr Singh also hoped India could promote more tourism from India to the beautiful Caribbean islands. Noting that Indians are now travelling around the world, he said the Indian diaspora could emerge as a major global network for the tourism and travel trade. He said there were many people of Indian origin on the US mainland who would be happy to travel to the Caribbean for business and holiday, pointing out that there were win-win possibilities in this kind of business activity.

He said education and business were the two major arenas through India was reconnecting with PIOs worldwide, though the cornerstone of interaction remained their shared culture, both ancident and modern. He said he would like to see that children of PIOs got opportunities, wherever they were living, to learn classical Indian dance and music. He also said modern means of satellite-based communication must be expanded at the same time so that Indian film, music and television could reach PIO homes even though they might physically distant from India.

NNN