To be an NRI, a non-required Indian, is celebrated by the regimes that rule us. Those of us who opted to stay and work and generate wealth for India are treated with scorn in our ?motherland?. This is the bizarre and unfathomable reality of our lives. When Manmohan Singh suggested recently that he would allow NRIs who are citizens of other countries and nations to vote in India, one was horrified. On what ground realities would they exercise their franchise? Those of us who live here through the never-ending trials, contortions, anarchy, corruption, tribulations and misgovernance have issues and impossible truths to contend with and overcome, based on which we cast our vote. Those who ran with their tails between their legs because they could not make good in a tough and unrelenting environment, who became second-class citizens elsewhere with their spanking new passports swearing allegiance to their new homeland, and who worked hard to make good, are now looking for new pastures in an old landscape that they fled from.

Those runaways are returning in hordes demanding special citizen status and are getting their way as foreign nationals of Indian origin. It makes one sick. This bait of foreign investment by such individuals has titillated many governments. The BJP has led a continuing and distasteful attack on Sonia Gandhi, who is an Indian citizen and has put citizens of other nations whose ancestors were born in India, on some grand pedestal. What blatant hypocrisy! The horrific laws of past centuries, irrelevant to the contemporary world, govern bona fide Indian citizens. We are exploited, trapped in a sticky web of corruption and zero governance. We are humiliated for doing well and adding wealth to the larger exchequer because anyone who does well is immediately targeted and pulled down in India.

Myths of return

Indians have broken loose and developed this country despite the government and its redundant norms. Instead of celebrating them, giving them relief, our rulers are wasting time and energy to evolve ?relief? for those who were at one time renegades who ran away. Surely Doctor sahib should set his priorities and address us ?locals? and our dreadful realities first and then tackle the supercilious needs of the NRIs who see opportunity and potential wealth in India, the last of the resource bases in the world. Is this a reverse colonial exploitation? Or is it just easy to instruct some government department to lift all restrictions on NRIs but continue to impose them on Indian citizens?

One can understand the need of the NRI for some sort of special status. It must be desperately humiliating to find themselves singled out as darkskinned potential disrupters of peace in societies that they embraced and served decades ago. In this world of political terror, somewhere deep down they must know that they could be seen as ?suspicious characters?. They just do not want to admit it. So, the solution is to scurry ?home? and become a first class citizen as Indian citizens continue to wallow in their second-class status at home.

If these disconnected aliens begin to vote in India, God alone knows what kind of neo-nationalism will infiltrate our resilient, democratic, multicultural, multilingual polity. It is scary, to say the least, particularly in a mad, polarized and unthinking world where failed dictatorial leadership is looking for fresh pastures to operate within. The US, for example, treats Indians who travel to that country in a despicable fashion starting from the visa window onwards. No graciousness nor any semblance of dignity is meted out. There is supreme condescension much like master to slave, white to black. Nothing seems to have changed despite economic growth. Exploitation continues unabated.