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Abstract
The boundaries between disciplinary approaches in diaspora studies are becoming blurred, and the diaspora experts are increasingly adopting a multidisciplinary outlook. Keeping this in view, this paper tries to address some of the holistic issues of international development, whether local or global. Using the limited example of the skilled Indian diaspora in the United States, it tries to deconstruct the interface between a diaspora and its international context—identifying each as a dependent variable under one construct and as an independent variable under a different construct. It suggests construction of alternative matrices of diaspora actors and models for specific purposes. For example, one may wish to know how the international context—through immigration quotas—would be instrumental in determining the actors of the Indian diaspora and their roles in the host societies. Others may want to learn how various actors of the Indian diaspora, as pressure groups, can affect the international context bilaterally or multilaterally. While both perspectives—one of the receiving country and the other of sending country—are important, a novel approach would be to fuse the two. Existing literature may have focused on how international relations amongst nations have shaped the actors and the models of diaspora, or vice versa, in the past. What this paper attempts is to contemplate the links between the actors and models of Indian diaspora within a changing international context in a contemporary as well as a futuristic way, and one which could be used to study other diasporas as well in a generic way.
Notes
1. An earlier version of the paper was delivered as the keynote address at the International Seminar on ‘Actors and Models of the Indian Diaspora in International Relations’, jointly organized by the Centre de Sciences Huamaines and the India International Centre, at New Delhi, on September 26–27, 2005.
2. The ‘twice-banished’ refers to people from the former colonies of Indian settlement, e.g., in the Caribbean, Surinam, Fiji, Mauritius and East Africa, who subsequently migrated and settled in the West.
3. A lascar refers to a member of a ship's crew, mostly with reference to an East Indian sailor.
4. Even though the H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa for temporary entry, it is one of the few US visa categories recognized as dual intent, meaning an H-1B holder can have legal immigration intent to apply for and obtain the green card for permanent residency in the US. In recent times, as direct route to green card backlogged, particularly for the American companies and universities to attract highly skilled professionals from certain countries, like India and China, this dual-intent ‘non-immigrant’ visa for temporary stay of up to six years was found to be the most convenient option for what is defined as a ‘specialty occupation’ like Information Technology. Increasing the cap on H-1B visa by American law has been controversial, to have displaced local citizens and depressed wages in America, and encouraged brain drain in the countries of origin of the recruits. For recent shifts in global policies towards encouraging temporary immigration over permanent immigration, see OECD (Citation2004).
5. Even socially, crossing the seas was at one time considered a taboo in high-caste Indian communities, e.g., as depicted in Munshi Premchand's novels and stories. Perhaps it was the cumulative effect of the nexus between the diaspora and the aspiring migrants that led to the crumbling of such taboos over time, resulting in swelling streams of migrants joining the Indian diaspora wherever it grew.
6. There is enough evidence of diaspora–India interaction that has been documented in the media lately. See also BBC (Citation2004), for a few expert viewpoints on migration and the diaspora.
7. See Khadria (Citation2006b).
8. The term ‘semi-finished human capital’ for tertiary level students was first used by Tapas Majumdar (Citation1994). See also Khadria (Citation2004a).
9. It is interesting to note that the revenue burden arising from this curtailment in visa fee has been shifted to the other visa applicants by almost doubling the visa fee from 35 euros up till 2006 to 60 euros from 2007.
10. They also play an important role in world politics like they did in the past as, for example, the Indian celebrity students in the US did during India's independence struggle. See Jensen (Citation1988) as cited in Khadria (Citation1999a, Citation1999b). See also Khadria (Citation2007).
11. For latest figures, see OECD (Citation2006).
12. Today, Britain is an endless repository of success stories of the Indian professional diaspora, ranging from Lord Swraj Paul, to steel magnate Laxmi Mittal, to icons like Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen.
13. The first reference is an allegory of doubtful loyalties adapted from the title of Le Carre's (Citation1974) best-seller of the 1970s—itself borrowed from a well-known nursery rhyme; the second is an expression used by Albinia (Citation2000) for the brown-skinned Asian Indians.
