Urban Mirror

India has to course correct immediately. The number of Indians, especially those who are educated and affluent, and are migrating abroad  from India, is increasing rapidly. A large number of rich Indians, disillusioned and  disconnected from their country for some time, are packing their bags, belongings and businesses and moving out of India.  Their  questioning the abysmal delivery  of governance  is not eliciting answers, writes former IAS officer V.S.Pandey

 Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,

Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.’’

Oliver Goldsmith’s wise aphorism is not being heeded by the teeming numbers of   immigrants who are desperately striving to somehow enter prosperous America and thrive there. President Trump’s decisive  action in deporting illegal immigrants is making daily headlines. He has declared that all those living illegally in America should either self deport or else he would ensure that they are deported expeditiously to their respective countries -without any exceptions. Trump has kept his campaign promise to American citizens. Consequentially, thousands of Indians, living illegally in the US, have been sent back to India in military planes, handcuffed and shackled .Thousands more are being forcefully deported .

            The Indian government has  no choice  but to  silently  take back its people who have entered America illegally. Various political parties and social organizations have been high on optics – loudly  objecting to  the deportees being  handcuffed and shackled  and not being  . treated with more dignity. However, these people deliberately overlook   the salient fact -that entering any country without valid permission or a visa is a legal offense and it is the right of the concerned country to take legal action against such criminals. As per the laws of the country, it is legally permissible to take action against such people and any kind of rhetoric on this gross illegality is not only unnecessary but absurd.

              Illegal infiltration into prosperous countries has currently mutated into a widespread and grave problem, which is bedeviling many European nations too. The migration of people from poor and underdeveloped nations to these rich nations has assumed a  problematic and humungous form   against which  aggressive voices of protest have now become strident  and European nations have also initiated action against illegal intruders-emulating America. Clearly, the responsibility of finding a solution to this problem lies with those nations from where people are migrating- not with those nations where people are trying to enter unlawfully.

The  moot question is why, except for some developed  nations, the rest of the countries, including India, have failed to solve  even their basic problems, failed to eradicate their abysmal poverty and failed to convince their citizens that they can become the fabled El Dorado which the citizens are desperately trying to reach-  illegitimately even imperiling their lives. They include a large number of Indians who  are aspiring to coexist under  a rule of law by somehow entering  an alien land  because we are  unable to provide  Justice  or even guarantee  law and order to the people in our own  country-despite being touted as the world’s biggest Democracy!

                    Are immigrants -legal or illegal, wise to leave their native land and emigrate/escape /run away to other countries instead of making collective efforts and struggling to improve their own country? Absolutely not. Today the world seems to be gripped by intolerance, racism  and fanaticism where people are ruthlessly  ready to kill and die in the name of religion, beliefs and different ideologies. We have not learned any lesson from history. People caught in the spiraling  grip of narrow-mindedness refuse to comprehend that hatred and violence have never benefited humanity, and never will. Religion and ideology are  a matter of personal faith and free will and cannot be forcefully imposed . The closed  egocentric mindset that only I am right, my thoughts are the absolute Truth, my Faith is supreme, has always been detrimental to the progress of our civilization. Today this fundamentalism is  augmenting cleavages and is purportedly leading to a  brutal clash of civilizations.

India has to course correct immediately. The number of Indians, especially those who are educated and rich, migrating abroad  from India, is increasing rapidly. A large number of rich Indians, disillusioned and  disconnected from their country for some time, are packing their bags, belongings and businesses and moving out of India. For rich Indians, home is no longer where the heart is. They  have   questions but are not getting answers– why is  that Indians  despite being subjected to high levels of taxation are not getting commensurate  services- there are neither good public services nor a corruption-free environment in the country to take advantage of . For these rapidly upwardly mobile bright personalities, India is turning into a huge smoldering  volcano ready to erupt – with the ever widening chasm between haves and have nots. Hence, whether it is the superstars of the glamour or the sports world, affluent Indians  have chosen greener and quieter idyllic pastures -the West and the Middle East as their final destination. Most of the leading Bollywood actors, cricketers and other such personalities in this global superset, have already bought property in England, Singapore and Dubai, and visit India only for work and very rarely for vacations. There is hardly any corporate honcho of India who does not have a home abroad. According to the Henley Private Wealth Migration Report 2024, 4,300 millionaires will leave India by the end of this year. Last year, 5,100 of them left India to settle abroad.

 This issue should be foregrounded   in  the discourse on emigration- whether it is wise to flee from India, a country of immense potential, because of myriad problems or should these brilliant and successful  people put in requisite  effort to improve their country? Everybody knows that our amoral and inept political system  has retarded our progress  but still the competent are passively doing nothing, and as the famous American thinker David Thoreau had said, “Everyone puts his hands in their pockets and says what can I do and waits for someone else to come and fix things”. No Messiah is going to come .We are waiting for Godot. The corrupt political system is the basic problem of this country and we , the people of India, will have to unitedly fix it.  Germany’s famous thinker and writer Bertolt  Brecht should resonate with those avoiding  confronting their political and primary responsibility- to facilitate ethical governance :

“The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.”

Now  our   bright ,brainy and affluent   must stop deserting India and use their considerable heft and skills  to clean up the corrupt political ecosystem  to  make India great again .As Gandhiji said ‘’our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and test of our civilization.’’ We must ace this test now.

(Vijay Shankar Pandey is former Secretary Government of India)