It may, or may not, have been coincidental, but at the same time the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) coalition Government announced plans to mobilise and engage the “Guyanese Diaspora” to aid in the development of Guyana, India was hosting its 14th “Pravasi Bharatiya Divas” (PBD) – Overseas Indian Day. Launched in 2003, the 2017 iteration brought over 6000 delegates drawn from 64 countries to India’s IT capital, Bengaluru – which was so recently “Banglore”.
The emblematic “Diaspora” had been formed out of their dispersal of the Jewish people subsequent to their conquest thousands of years ago, when most had been driven into slavery to Babylon and Egypt. In more modern times, the process was not much different for several other “peoples”. Between the 16th and 19th century, two sets of “diasporas” were formed when millions of Africans were snatched from their native lands by Europeans and shipped to the “New World” as slaves – Africans and Europeans of several nationalities.
Following the abolition of slavery in the 19th century, Portuguese, Indians, Chinese and some other groups were shipped as “indentured labour”. The shipments of Indians and Chinese created two new Diasporas that become very significant because of their numbers. Intellectuals from people of African descent – from the USA, the West Indies and Africa – were the first to organise their Diaspora and launched the 1st Pan-African Congress in 1900.
When the 5th Pan-African Congress was held in Manchester in 1945 at the end of WWII, the individuals who were to become leaders in the struggle for independence – such as Eric Williams of Trinidad and Tobago and Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana – honed a common strategy for their countries, which included a strong development component. As a matter of fact, several West Indian intellectuals, including George Padmore, repatriated themselves to the emerging independent countries in Africa, to assist in their development. Walter Rodney, who had helped craft the agenda for the 7th Pan-African Congress, had evidently decided to return to Africa after the People’s National Congress Government targeted him in 1979.
The successive governments of post-Mao China much more self-consciously mobilised its Diaspora and very successfully tapped into the skills and resources in its drive for development starting in the 1980’s. In 1989, Non-Resident Indians (NRI’s) – who were mere mostly first generation immigrants to the USA – organised the “First Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin” (GOPIO) in New York City to bring together the Indian Diaspora.
But it exposed a new problematic – the descendants of those Indians who had been “exported” in the 19th and early 20th century to European colonies, were now part of secondary diasporas and had some different concerns from the NRI’s – particularly when it came to the “development” of India. The NRI’s generally were focused on increasing their business contacts with India and within their community in the USA, while the “Girmityas” – those arising from the “agreement” of bound labour – were focused on the development of their “new” homelands, and in maintaining cultural links with India.
When the Government of India initiated the annual PBD in 2003, it attempted to accommodate both imperatives – the drive for India’s development by harnessing the skills and resources of its Diaspora and the desire for cultural contacts of the latter. With the advent of the new Government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, a decision was made to host the event biennially, and to have preparatory structured meetings and discussions in New Delhi with representatives of the Diaspora on identified subject areas. PBD 2017 demonstrated the success of this new strategy when in the course of three days, the separate day for youths, and the sessions following the plenary gathering addressed by PM Modi allowed the entire Diaspora to express themselves both to each other and to the Government of India.
For Guyana, the experience of its delegates to PBD should be tapped to facilitate its own aspirations to tap into its Diaspora.
