By Kollengode S. Venkataraman (written in 1999)
On November 15, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee took the first step towards eventually granting dual citizenship for people of Indian origin (PIO) who are citizens of another country. The program proposes PIO cards that would eliminate visas for NRIs to visit India.
Further, under this plan, PIOs can acquire and transfer immovable property in India; can have admission to educational institutions, presumably on a preferential basis; and will be free to take part in government-sponsored housing schemes. This program would also make dividends from non-repatriable NRI investments tax-free.
PIOs are scattered all over the globe, from as close as Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Middle East, to as far away as Fiji, the Caribbean, and Africa, in addition to Western Europe and North America.
True, a few descendants of poor PIO plantation and farm workers in Malaysia or the Caribbean, or South Africa will benefit from this program. But the major chunk of the beneficiaries will be the affluent PIOs from North America, Western Europe, and the Pacific Rim.
Given the historical trend for abuse in government programs in South Asia, the dual citizenship idea for PIOs with access to hard currencies will lead to corruption of the system.
Dual citizenship raises important ethical, moral, and even legal issues, even though many NRIs would welcome it purely from personal considerations. Dual citizenship is likely to make life more precarious for millions of middle-income Indians earning in rupees.
Consider the provisions for higher education in India, access to immovable properties, and investment opportunities for PIOs.
In Education: Facilities for higher education, especially in developing societies, are a critical national resource exclusively funded by tax money. As it is, the government-mandated reservations for the scheduled castes and tribes (SCs/STs), and the other backward classes (OBCs) leave only a handful of seats for students belonging to “forward” castes. Many of the latter, even if they have near-perfect scores in exams, cannot get admissions into good universities. Never mind that many students belonging to the SCs and OBCs come from economically prosperous and politically powerful families, and many of the “forward” caste students come from poor families. And most of the PIO students will leave India after their 4-year stint.
These economically and politically disadvantaged “forward” caste youth will now have to also contend with the PIO students with hard currencies brandishing their high-decibel audio systems, camcorders, and cellular phones.
How can a society prosper when it does not nurture competition, reward talents, and weed out incompetence is a simple question that all Indian politicians have learned to duck and obfuscate.
In Real Estate: The real estate values in posh Bombay/Delhi suburbs in dollars are close to those in New York or San Francisco. Giving access to PIOs to buy immovable properties will simply raise real estate prices even more. For millions of fixed-income people earning in rupees, owning their own 700 sq. ft flat will remain just a dream.
As it is, close to 50% of the income of an average Indian household goes to food. With home mortgage eating up another 30% to 40%, not much is left for anything else.
On Investments: The bulk of NRIs/ PIOs investing in India keep their hard currencies in the capital markets that can be withdrawn at short notice. India does not have effective self-correcting mechanisms that mature industrial nations have. When opportunities soften, as they surely will, these investors will flee with their hard currencies, leaving the Desi Indians in a hell hole.
In any case, the bulk of the middle-class people in India in fixed-income earning in rupees will become second-class citizens in one more dimension, as was the case during the colonial rule. What makes it worse for them now is that their masters this time are people of their own breed. END