GLOBAL MEET OF THE INDIAN DIASPORA

New Delhi is to host the first-ever global meet of the Indian diaspora from January 9-11, 2003 in recognition and appreciation of the constructive economic, political and philanthropic role played by the people of Indian origin all over the world. They have generated enormous goodwill for India wherever they have gone to live.

Overseas Indians are estimated to number over 2 crore. They are spread across the globe. The forthcoming event is likely to be the most prestigious gathering of people who take pride in being originally Indian.

Meaning dispersion and derived from the Greek language, the word diaspora refers to the dispersal of the Jews among the Gentiles i.e., non-Jewish people mainly between the 8th and the 6th century BC. But in course of time the word has come to mean migration and resettlement of people of any nationality from one country to another. The Indian diaspora today consitutes an important, and in some respects unique, force in world culture. The origins of the modern Indian diaspora lie mainly in the subjugation of India by the British and its incorporation into the British empire. Indians were taken over as indentured labour to far-lung parts of the empire in the nineteenth-century, a circumstance to which the modern Indian populations of Fiji, Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad, Surinam, Malaysia, South Africa, Sri Lanka and elsewhere attest in their own ways.

Over two million Indian men fought on behalf of the empire in numerous wars including the Boer War in South Africa, the two World Wars and some remained behind to claim the land on which they had fought as their own. As if in emulation of their ancestors, many Gujarati traders once again left for East Africa in large numbers in the erly part of the twentieth century. Finally, in the post-World War II period, the dispersal of Indian labour and professionals has been a nearly world-wide phenomenon. Indians and other South Asians provided the labour that helped in the reconstruction of war-torn Europe, particularly the United Kingdom and the Netherlands and in more recent years unskilled labour from South Asia has been the main force in the transformation of the physical landscape of much of West Asia. Meanwhile, in countries such as the United States, Canada and Australia, Indians have made their presence visibly felt in the professions.(PIB Features)

Inputs: Courtesy indiandiaspora.nic.in

 

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