Close X
Tuesday, November 26, 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

    AAP to think small again: Focus on Delhi, may not contest Haryana

    AAP to think small again: Focus on Delhi, may not contest Haryana
    Stung by its rout in the general election, where it won only four out of 440 Lok Sabha seats it contested, all of them from Punjab, the AAP is now back to thinking small and may not contest assembly elections in Haryana scheduled for this October.

    AAP to think small again: Focus on Delhi, may not contest Haryana

    History will be made Monday as Narendrabhai Damodardas Modi takes oath

    History will be made Monday as Narendrabhai Damodardas Modi takes oath
    It would be history in the making, in more senses than one. A man who once helped his family make ends meet by vending tea at a railway station in between his classes, and who once wandered around the country to find his spiritual moorings, will take his oath as India's 14th prime minister

    History will be made Monday as Narendrabhai Damodardas Modi takes oath

    Shazia Ilmi, Capt.Gopinath quit AAP, hit out at Arvind Kejriwal

    Shazia Ilmi, Capt.Gopinath quit AAP, hit out at Arvind Kejriwal
     In a double whammy for the Aam Aadmi Party, two of its key leaders - Shazia Ilmi and G.R. Gopinath - Saturday quit the party and lashed out at its chief Arvind Kejriwal's policies and attitude.

    Shazia Ilmi, Capt.Gopinath quit AAP, hit out at Arvind Kejriwal

    Sonia asks partymen not to bicker in public, learn lessons from rout

    Sonia asks partymen not to bicker in public, learn lessons from rout
    Congress president Sonia Gandhi, re-elected chairperson of Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP)Saturday, asked party leaders not to indulge in "public acrimony" over the party's worst Lok Sabha results for which appropriate lessons need to be learnt.

    Sonia asks partymen not to bicker in public, learn lessons from rout

    India's Muslims welcome Modi's gesture to Pakistan

    India's Muslims welcome Modi's gesture to Pakistan
    India’s Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi’s gesture of inviting Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to his swearing-in ceremony has raised hopes of a long-lasting peace between the arch rivals among Muslims of this country.

    India's Muslims welcome Modi's gesture to Pakistan

    Modi's gestures: Willingness to make a new beginnin

    Modi's gestures: Willingness to make a new beginnin
    There are indications that Modi may move rapidly in the matter of concluding a treaty on the Teesta river waters with Bangladesh which was blocked by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee during the Manmohan Singh government's tenure.

    Modi's gestures: Willingness to make a new beginnin