NEW DELHI – Indian National Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi is set to meet members of the Indian diaspora in San Francisco on May 30 and in New York on June 4 during an upcoming visit to the United States that kicks off on May 29.
Globally, Indian political parties are intensifying their outreach to the Indian diaspora, which numbers about 32 million people, ahead of 2024’s general election.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has maintained a steady edge in outreach to the Indian diaspora, Congress is ramping up its engagement.
“Join hands for secular and democratic India,” say posters inviting registration for the two events featuring Mr Gandhi which are being organised by the Indian Overseas Congress US, a diaspora group that promotes the Congress party.
“Non-resident Indians (NRIs) have certainly come a long way since the days when Indian prime ministers sanctimoniously urged them to be loyal to the foreign countries in which they had settled,” Congress MP Shashi Tharoor told The Straits Times.
“But since then, New Delhi has developed expectations of its NRIs, and a reciprocal sense of obligation, too, has followed. Today, NRIs are seen as people on whom the motherland and its elected representatives have a legitimate claim.”
Congress leader Virendra Vashisht, secretary of Indian Overseas Congress, noted that Mr Gandhi would be extending his outreach to the Indian diaspora with similar meetings in other countries.
“In future, we have plans for interactions with the diaspora in Australia and the Middle East,” said Mr Vashisht.
The visit by Mr Gandhi comes two weeks before the official state visit of Mr Modi to the US from June 21 to 24, when he will meet US President Joe Biden.
The American chapter of the Overseas Friends of BJP, which works on behalf of the party, is organising a unity march on June 18 in 20 major cities. In Washington, DC, the route goes from Washington Monument to Lincoln Memorial, a 20-minute walk.
Some 5,000 members of the diaspora have been invited to the White House lawns to watch Mr Biden and First Lady Jill Biden welcome Mr Modi on June 22, Mr Adapa Prasad, president of the Overseas Friends of BJP-US, told ST.
“Mr Modi is a prime minister who understands the leverage the diaspora has. It is soft power,” noted Mr Prasad.
India has one of the world’s largest diasporas – including Indians and people of Indian origin – living in different parts of the world such as Singapore, Malaysia, the US and Canada. While India does not recognise dual nationality, it offers Overseas Citizenship of India cards, which grant visa-free travel.
Past governments have recognised the importance of the diaspora, with the late former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee spearheading an annual Pravasi Bharatiya Divas or Overseas Indians Conference. But Mr Modi has energised the relationship, with diaspora events a staple of his foreign travels.
In 2014, he addressed a nearly 20,000-strong crowd of Indian Americans at Madison Square Garden.
On May 23, he addressed thousands of members of the Indian diaspora at a rally in Sydney, Australia. He was joined by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
BJP spokesman Guru Prakash Paswan called the party and the diaspora “natural allies” because of the popularity of Mr Modi.
“We are mindful that the diaspora can play an important role in investment development and as a cultural link bridge. They are our messengers. We have seen the kind of reception Prime Minister Modi has received across the world,” he said.
A 2020 survey of 1,200 diaspora Indians – called the Indian American Attitudes Survey – by YouGov in collaboration with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and the University of Pennsylvania found that one-third of those surveyed favoured the ruling BJP.
Twelve per cent identified with the Congress Party.
The survey found that this support is greatest among Republicans, Hindus, people in the engineering profession, those not born in the US, and those who hail from north and west India.
Analysts said wooing the diaspora had multiple benefits for the BJP.
“The BJP created a political forum – Overseas Friends of BJP – and started a deep engagement with the diaspora for two reasons... It acts as a brand ambassador for the party and creates an international image of a strong and rising India under Modi,” said Mr Praveen Rai, a political analyst at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi.
“Congress is doing it for the same reasons,” he added.
Even though diaspora members cannot vote in Indian elections and Indian nationals living overseas have to travel back to India and register to vote, they have, nevertheless, participated in election campaigning in both state and national elections.
In the recently concluded elections in the southern state of Karnataka, home to tech hub Bengaluru, 2,000 members of the Indian diaspora from Spain, the US and Britain campaigned in favour of the Congress, said Mr Vashisht.
In Karnataka, Congress – which won 135 seats in the 224-seat assembly – had promised an NRI ministry in the state government.
The BJP said diaspora members had also campaigned for the party.
However, Congress’ Mr Tharoor noted that the BJP had its supporters, as well as detractors, within the diaspora.
“India’s diaspora, though collectively influential, is deeply divided today across lines of ideology, religion, age, immigration history and even caste,” he said.
“Modi is a polarising figure to most Indians: He is passionately supported by some, who applaud his tough stances on Kashmir and Pakistan and his advocacy of an assertively majoritarian Hindutva ideology... But Modi is equally intensely opposed by other Indian Americans of a more liberal and inclusive bent,” added Mr Tharoor.
