Close X
Saturday, December 28, 2024
ADVT 
India

Modi faces sea of expectations from diaspora, India-watchers

Darpan News Desk Darpan, 28 May, 2014 10:56 AM
    With Narendra Modi taking over as prime minister, a host of expectations, recommendations and advice is pouring in for the BJP leader from overseas Indians.
     
    Balesh Dhankhar, president of Overseas Friends of BJP (OFBJP)'s Australia chapter, says Modi's stunning victory had given the Indian diaspora "a hope of reforms".
     
    "With Modi coming to power, many Indians including me have started the process of returning to India to contribute towards India's progress," Dhankhar told IANS in an email interview.
     
    "We expect the BJP government to revitalise Indian culture and education system, crippled by mindless borrowing of Western systems.
     
    "Whereas countries like Japan, (South) Korea, China stand strong on their own philosophy, tradition, and languages, they excel in development and modernisation for that reason only.... We expect Modi to review the Indian traditional education system," he added.
     
    Indian-origin Kenyan banker Hiten Vaya says he wants Modi to use the vast potential India has in its youth to drive the country forward by creating jobs and opportunities for youngsters.
     
    "This is a chance for India to really assert herself on the world stage in all spheres," he said.
     
    Vaya, however, had a note of caution for Modi, who is widely seen in India and abroad as a Hindu hardliner.
     
    "I don't want him to get sidetracked by jingoism or do anything under Hindu nationalists' pressure which may tarnish his name... Modi is known as pro-development and pro-business. Let that be his strong point and legacy."
     
    Not all in the Indian diaspora are fans of Modi or enthused by the Bharatiya Janata Party's runaway victory that has made it the first party in three decades to achieve a single-party majority in parliament.
     
     
    "It's the will of the majority. I am sceptical of how his policies will translate to long-term growth of India, not just in big cities," said California-based Nandita Bhandari Verma, working as the marketing director of a software company.
     
    Belgian researcher Marianne Keppens, a coordinator of India Platform, a forum for collaboration between European and Indian universities, says the Modi victory was significant.
     
    "BJP's success and Modi as prime minister is an incredibly strong signal of the Indians that they want a change in the way their culture has been described and approached since colonialism," said Keppens.
     
    "It is a signal that Indians are getting rid of the legacy of the colonial way of understanding Indian culture and that they are rediscovering the strength and richness of their culture."
     
    Pakistani journalist Muhammad Akbar Notezai, who has worked on the welfare of Hindus in Balochistan province for years, is cautiously optimistic.
     
    "There is hope that pro-business Modi will have good relations with (his Pakistani counterpart) Nawaz Sharif who enjoyed friendly relations with Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
     
    Notezai had a word of advice for Modi.
     
    "As far as Hindus in Pakistan are concerned, they fear that any Hindu-Muslim tension will create problems for them as it happened in the 1990s. That is why the BJP must learn a lesson from the past."

    MORE India ARTICLES

    Narendra Modi meets SAARC leaders

    Narendra Modi meets SAARC leaders
    Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday met Presidents Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom of the Maldives and Mahinda Rajapakse of Sri Lanka here Tuesday.

    Narendra Modi meets SAARC leaders

    PM Modi's Cabinet: Jaitley gets Finance, Defence; Rajnath gets Home, Sushma Foreign

    PM Modi's Cabinet: Jaitley gets Finance, Defence; Rajnath gets Home, Sushma Foreign
    Arun Jaitley has turned out to be the most important person in the new government after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with three heavy portfolios of finance, defence and corporate affairs, it was announced Tuesday.

    PM Modi's Cabinet: Jaitley gets Finance, Defence; Rajnath gets Home, Sushma Foreign

    The India that Narendra Modi inherits

    The India that Narendra Modi inherits
    India is looking forward to the tenure of its 15th Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, with the expectation that he would take the country out of the muddle and disorder that is driven by deeply ingrained thoughts and beliefs. We, as Indians would have to fight battles of the mind to overcome the challenges we face.

    The India that Narendra Modi inherits

    From wannabe Miss India to cabinet minister - phenomenal rise of Smriti Irani

    From wannabe Miss India to cabinet minister - phenomenal rise of Smriti Irani
    From promoting beauty products, to contesting the Miss India beauty pageant, to becoming the country's most sought after 'bahu', and on Monday being sworn in as a minister in the Narendra Modi government - 38-year-old Smriti Irani's life has been a saga of meteoric rise to fame and success.

    From wannabe Miss India to cabinet minister - phenomenal rise of Smriti Irani

    Sushma Swaraj - an orator and a prominent face of BJP

    Sushma Swaraj - an orator and a prominent face of BJP
    A top woman leader of the BJP and one of its best orators, Sushma Swaraj has blazed some records in her over three decade-old political career including being the youngest cabinet minister in Haryana and the first woman chief minister of Delhi.

    Sushma Swaraj - an orator and a prominent face of BJP

    Rajnath Singh: The thakur from UP has been there, done that

    Rajnath Singh: The thakur from UP has been there, done that
    Almost a decade back after the BJP lost power in Uttar Pradesh under his stewardship, Rajnath Singh cut a lonely figure at his current Ashoka Road residence in the national capital.

    Rajnath Singh: The thakur from UP has been there, done that

    PrevNext