Ruby Dhalla at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in Chennai on Thursday. Picture by Jay Mandal/On Assignment

Chennai, Jan. 8: Perhaps this is being a little unfair to Ruby Dhalla, at 34 “the youngest woman MP in the Canadian Parliament”, but when she gave a rousing speech today at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas here, she won over a number of delighted admirers who summed up her impressive performance with two words: “Sarah Palin!”

The Indian diaspora, now estimated to be 30 million strong and dispersed across 130 countries, does not have a desi version of a “hockey mom” — not yet, anyway — but there was much in Dhalla’s demeanour that was peculiarly reminiscent of the Republican Party’s vice-presidential candidate in the US elections.

Dhalla, a Sikh, was born on February 18, 1974, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, to immigrant parents from Punjab and was elected to the Canadian House of Commons in 2004.

A member of the Liberal Party, she is the shadow social development minister and has firm ideas on how the Indian government should strengthen its growing links with the diaspora — which is, after all, the main intention of the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, now in its seventh year.

Ageing politicians and middle-aged senior businessmen squirmed in their chairs as Dhalla demanded: “Where are the young people?”

She began: “They always say women get the last word.”

She certainly did.

Pranab Mukherjee, who was seated next to Dhalla on the platform, had to bear the full brunt of the young Canadian’s fiery speech. He responded at one stage by affirming India could have a young Prime Minister — one Rahul Gandhi.

Dhalla referred, Sarah Palin-style, to “my fellow delegates” and wondered “who could have imagined 62 years ago that Punjabi would be the fourth most common language in the Canadian Parliament”.

“Yes, my friends,” she said, warming to her campaigning theme, “India has come a long way.”

But “as you look around this room,” she declared, “where are the young people here today? We need to make sure that in future conferences our youth are there. As the youngest female member of Parliament in Canada, I believe there must be initiatives to encourage young people. Opportunities must be given to the young people of India to run for political office.”

After Dhalla had spoken and demanded everything from a national holiday to mark the achievement of Indian women to voting rights for overseas Indians and the freedom to run for high office in India, a couple of persons got up from the audience and said hers was the most inspirational speech they had heard for a long time.

By this time, photographers realised that something special was happening and milled round the front of the platform, snapping away at a smiling Dhalla.

The chairman of the panel, author and former UN official Shashi Tharoor, kept Dhalla till the last. She was preceded by six men.

Trying to be gallant, Tharoor said one woman would be equal to six men. He was being cheerfully gallant but never was a truer word said in jest. Everyone had spoken in English, of course, but, apart from being prettier than the others, Dhalla had another advantage. The audience could actually understand what she was saying. And, at times, Ruby Dhalla, it has to be said, sounded a lot like Sarah Palin.

Dhalla has worked as an actress and played a role in Kyon? Kis Liye? (Why? For What?), a Hindi film shot in Ontario.

There is another similarity with Palin — Dhalla finished second in the Miss India Canada beauty contest in 1993. But there is a difference.

Rather than moose, she seems to prefer gunning for older politicians.