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Non-Resident Indians' Proud Feelings Towards India : A World Survey

Professor P.L. Joshi

University of Bahrain, Bahrain

There are over twenty two millions Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) living in different regions of the world. Over 44% of them are concentrated in Asia, Middle East, Australia and New Zealand and approximately 26% are in North and South America. This is a significant population that is talented, resourceful, and quite sensitive towards the development. Majority of them are technically qualified people who immigrated to other countries for various reasons and have been playing a key role in transforming their socio-economic environment of these regions. At the same time, NRIs have been playing a multifarious role and is not just restricted to sending remittances. According to one estimate, their contributions in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) have been about 18-20%. They are one of the main investors in India. The presence of several hundreds NRIs making waves abroad and through their influence also help Indian organizations to get outsourcing projects, collaborations, joint ventures and flow of capital into the Indian businesses. NRIs are now showing long term commitments to integrate with the local businesses in India

The NRIs have been labeled with various titles, for example, non-returnable Indians, non-reliable Indians, not-required Indians, not-really Indians, non-respectable Indians, non-responding Indians, non- resident investors, Indian Diaspora, Overseas Indians, Expatriates, etc. Recently, there have been a lot of discussions on NRIs to the effect that once they leave India in search of green pastures e.g. to North America and Europe, they start berating India. Influenced by such contentious discussions, Dr. P.L. Joshi, Professor at the University of Bahrain, has conducted perhaps the first global survey of its kind on NRIs attitudes examining “what makes them feel proud of India? Using a convenient random survey technique, 1441 questionnaires were sent by emails to NRIs living in 29 countries. Ten statements, which may make the NRIs to express their proud feelings towards India, and five statements, which may hesitate not to say so, were included in the questionnaire after a two-stage Delphi method was used to develop the questionnaire. A total of 162 replies were received; however, only 90 questionnaires were usable. A Likert scale ranging from strongly agree (5) to strongly disagree (1) was used to measure the responses. There was some response bias particularly from North America where the maximum number of questionnaires was sent. More than 50% of the respondents were executives and managers together with a few business people. Over 31.1% of responses were received from Middle East alone in which over 40% of NRIs population live. Again, over 50% of them have post-graduate qualifications and over 45% were in the age group of 36 to 54 years who responded to the questionnaires. The survey provides a number of insights and the respondents also offered several comments. The main findings were:

1. On an overall basis, NRIs strongly feel that (1) ‘the history and rich cultural values of India”, (2) ‘India’s third-largest pool of scientists and engineers in the world (technical human resources)”, and (3) big strides in ‘technology, software and other developments” are the three main achievements/characteristics of India, which make them feel proud of contemporary India. These three variables received more than 80% responses from the respondents in this global survey. It seems that although India has certainly modernized to some level of Western countries, most of the NRIs still take pride in Indian customs, traditions and cultural values for the simple reason that perhaps it is the only country in the world with multicultural diversity, immense demographics and ethnic communities living in peace. Of course, there were statistical differences in their perceptions when data was analyzed by NRIs living in developed versus under-developed countries, Middle East region versus rest of the world and USA/Canada/UK versus rest of the world. The respondents living in developing countries gave higher score on the ten variables compared to NRIs living in developed world. Furthermore, respondents from Middle East were more positive in their attitude than respondents from the North America. The reason may be explained by the fact that most of the NRIs living in Middle East are unique as they will not be naturalized and ultimately will return to their home land.

The respondents were not very much impressed with the claims that India has become self –sufficient in agricultural food grains. It received seventh ranking in the ranking order and only 36.7 percent of respondents agreed that India has achieved self-reliance in food grains. The perceptions of respondents living in developed countries and developing countries were similar on this point.

A perusal of Chart 1 indicates that by and large, respondents from the various continents have similar perceptions on the above characteristics/achievements of India.

A few hard comments were also stated in the above context. For example, one respondent from Canada argued, “The investors will come because India is in a selling mood and this will last a long time. I belong to a minority which is concerned with the essentials of culture, which is not the priority of the elites and of the middle class. That is why I view India as a cultural failure”. One respondent from Singapore stated that “India is a country of diverse nature and culture. It has many tourist attractions, such as wild life parks, elegant palaces, pilgrimage centers, hills, historical monuments etc. But, in order to market this, we must improve our infrastructure facilities, cleaning, hygiene, public utility services and awareness among citizens on good manners, and welcome treatment of tourists”.

This is a reflection of a stereotypical NRI’s point of view on India’s perspectives. Furthermore, it seems that respondents’ attitudes to India from Middle East and Asia were more positive than NRIs living in the Western countries because NRIs in Middle East are unique as they are not naturalized there and ultimately will return to India.

The respondents were also aware that India has one of the largest entertainment industries in the world and India’s international recognition of economic and military power (e.g. its ability to compete with China and EU) also motivate them to have a positive thinking towards India. This is further substantiated from a recently released Public Opinion Study - The United States and the Rise of China and India by Chicago Council on Global Affairs http://www.thechicagocouncil.org/hottopics_details.php?hottopics_id=50, which reported that both Asians and Americans view India’s economic growth as a positive. Fifty-six percent of Chinese and 53 percent of both South Koreans and Americans say India’s growing economic power is good. Opinions were mixed about the prospect of increased Indian military capabilities, however. 56 percent of Chinese see Indian military power as a plus—despite the two nations’ ongoing dispute along their Himalayan border”.

Furthermore, many of the NRIs are really Bollywood freaks. Perhaps, the effective promotion campaign by Bollywood film producers and artists and the reach of International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) in several countries might have created a big impact in the mind of the NRIs

2. Among the five statements tested in this survey NRIs strongly perceived that (1) lack of basic infrastructure, 60 years after independence, (2) unscrupulous and hypocritical issues in the Indian’s way of life (e.g. gross inequities and prejudices that are still prevalent in some of Indian life; big gulf between rich and poor etc.), and (3) corruption in the governance and administrative system (e.g. look up most corrupt countries index and the reality) are the areas or characteristics which may hesitate them to feel proud of India. These negative characteristics perhaps hesitate the NRIs to invest in India. Many of them quoted the example of China which has made comprehensive progress on all fronts: poverty reduction, literacy, gender empowerment, food surplus and rapid industrialization because of excellent infrastructure facilities developed over the years. Their perceptions on

There are some differences in the mean responses of the respondents by continent . For example, respondents from Asia rank at the top “ Lack of basic infrastructure, 60 years after independence”, while the respondents from North-America state that “Unscrupulous and hypocritical in the Indian’s way of life (e.g. gross inequities and prejudices that are still prevalent in some of Indian life; big gulf between rich and poor etc.)” is of main concern to them . On the other hand, the respondents from Europe rank “Corruption in the governance and administrative system (e.g. look up most corrupt countries index and the reality)” in their list which may hesitate them to express proud feelings towards India.

The survey suggests that, in order to create more interest and participation of NRIs in Indian affairs, the Indian government and its various agencies need to launch more awareness programs through seminars, conferences, cultural exchanges, instituting a number of achievement awards and recognition for the NRIs. Indian media, particularly the Satellite Television Channels should start special programs for NRIs news, views and other affairs in order to generate interest and a feel of pride for this country, so that they can play a more positive role in India, in the same way as non-resident Chinese have played a major role in economic development of China.

As NRIs have been retaining an influential edge in various countries, they can contribute significantly in convincing the world‘s big corporations in exporting their outsourcing activities to India. Furthermore, they can enhance their entrepreneurship wealth and venture capitalists into the emerging sectors as the investment environment is becoming more conducive for them. One crucial question remain to be seen whether NRIs can contribute in achieving the goal, recently set by the Prime Minister, Dr. Man Mohan Singh, to make India a global manufacturing hub or workshop as well as a center of innovation . At the same time, Indian government will have to remove or at least curtail all procedural wrangles, tax and other laws to attract investment and other direct participation of NRIs into India in order to give them a high sense of feeling proud towards India.

  Chart 1: Characteristics/achievements which may  make NRIs proud feelings

                Towards India : (Continent-wise mean responses)     

 Note: S1 … S10 indicates the statements tested in the survey

                                              Appendix

Scale used to measure the responses:

5 (Strongly agree)  4 (Agree)  3 (Neutral )  2  (Disagree)   1 (Strongly disagree)

(A) TEN   characteristics/achievements which  strongly make you   feel    proud of India.

Dr. PL Joshi  Professor,   University of Bahrain,  Bahrain.  The author is also Editor  of two  International journals in UK and  a very well known academician.   He is listed in Marquis Who’s Who in the World and International Who’s Who, USA.