Indians abroad and their anti-Indian agendas – Francois Gautier
“What would happen if Indian Americans practised a little bit of … Indian-ness? They would shine, be an example to their fellow Americans, and make India proud. Instead, they want to become more Americans than the Americans, and merge themselves totally in American culture. In this process, they drop their unique identity and are a loss not only to India, but also to America, as they bring nothing new to American culture.” – Francois Gautier
Welcome to America, the home of millions of Indians, some of whom make a living out of bashing India in American universities and in the US publications.
This is the greatest brain drain in the world, which allowed the Silicon Valley to flourish (80 per cent Indian engineers), or the American medical system to expand (60 per cent Indians).
Compare this to the American Chinese: Not only do they unabashedly stand out as Chinese, but they repatriate many of their funds to China and even go back to the mainland, to be part of the great Chinese economic boom.
American Indians rave about the American way of life, but it burns out a human being in 30 or 40 years, starting early for work — by 7 am, America’s millions of highways are already clogged with traffic; the fierce competitiveness in the workplace — you can be fired in a minute for no reason; the late hours and heartburn produced over the years by food too quickly swallowed on the run or in the car; the immense stress at airports where security — thanks to continuing terrorism — has reached inhuman proportions.
What about meditation, this most ancient technique that has again no religion, and can be practised by anybody, with wonderful effects on the mind and the body? In fact American companies have begun introducing meditation in their seminars and it is becoming mainstream in the US. Does that mean that meditation is taught in Indians schools, as it should be, or that our Indian Americans practice it? Not at all. What about Ayurveda, the oldest medical science still in practice that knew 3,000 years before Western medicine, that many diseases have a psychosomatic origin? Do our Hindu Americans use Ayurveda? Unlikely.
Yet, what would happen if Indian Americans practised a little bit of that Indian-ness? They would shine, be an example to their fellow Americans, and make India proud. Instead, they want to become more Americans than the Americans, and merge themselves totally in American culture. In this process, they drop their unique identity and are a loss not only to India, but also to America, as they bring nothing new to American culture.
And because they do not stand out, they allow these multiple South Asian groups that sprout everywhere, to be dominated by hostile Indian Americans, who, for instance, convinced for 10 years the US Government to deny Modi a visa.
At the same time it is true that America, whatever its faults, has always stood up for freedom and democracy. It did so during the World War II, when it saved Europe from Nazi domination. It is doing so today, by being the only country in the world willing to take on terrorism head on. Americans are friendly, hard-working, and it should soon dawn upon them that India is their natural political ally, in an Asia confronted with terrorism born out of Pakistan, Afghanistan or Indonesia. It is also the obvious democratic, pro-Western and liberal economic destination to counter-balance China’s aggressive hegemony in Asia.
Meanwhile, it is very unfortunate that the second-highest Indian official in the US endorses and promotes anti-Indian agendas, whereas he should be the first one to hunt them out. This Nehruvian mindset in diplomats has got to go. – The Pioneer, 31 August 2014
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