E-Paper
Country profile: Other Diaspora
The Committee studied in depth the Jewish, Polish, Lebanese, Italian, Filipino, Japanese, Korean and Chinese Diasporas in order to derive lessons for India.
The Committee studied in depth the Jewish, Polish, Lebanese, Italian, Filipino, Japanese, Korean and Chinese Diasporas in order to derive lessons for India. It found that:
1. Many countries, such as Italy, Poland, Israel and Lebanon have granted the right of dual nationality to members of their Diaspora.
2. Many countries with successful Diasporas have created viable structures for handling issues related to their Diaspora. The Greek, Italian and Polish Governments had created well-staffed departments within their respective Ministries of Foreign Affairs, which are apart from the several semi and nongovernmental initiatives both at home and abroad complementing official efforts to cultivate their Diasporas.
Poland's Parliament has committees dealing with Diaspora issues. Its Ministries of Culture and for Education are also involved in servicing the Diaspora's educational and cultural needs. Japan has created a "Council on the Movement of People Across Borders" to advise the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs as well as a cell in its foreign affairs ministry on the Japanese Diaspora.
Italy has devised supplementary mechanisms to strengthen links with its Diaspora and is considering enabling legislation to give it representation in the Italian Parliament. South Korea has created a 15-member ministerial "Committee of Korean Residents Abroad", headed by the South Korean Prime Minister, as well as parallel autonomous organisations.
The Committee has drawn on this survey for its conclusions on the Organisational Structure for the proposed central agency dealing with the Diaspora.
3. The Committee also found that many Diasporas had contributed immeasurably to post-war reconstruction efforts of the mother country such as the Jewish, Italian and Lebanese Diasporas. While commending the Jewish Diaspora's support for Israel, the Committee felt that its historical experience was suis generis and Israel's present requirements were also very different from India's.
A telling example is that besides Israel's interest in strengthening links with its Diaspora, which it shares with all the other countries, one of Israel's foremost priorities is the large-scale return and therefore 'immigration' of its two-thousand year old Diaspora, Israel being the only country to be entirely re-populated by its Diaspora rather than the other way around!
Poland is perhaps the only other country to have a legislative provision, the Repatriation Law, guaranteeing the rights of people of Polish descent to resettle in Poland, while Greece, Japan and the Philippines have administrative provisions for facilitating return and re-integration of members of their Diaspora.
However the Committee felt that the contribution of the Diaspora to Israel in the economic, political and cultural spheres contained important lessons for India. The activities of Jewish lobbies outside Israel, particularly in the US Congress, their extensive fund-raising abilities, large-scale funding for the scientific and technological development of Israel, their global networks which link Jewish associations and organisations worldwide as well as with the State of Israel; could serve as an example.
The scheme of Israel Bonds, issued by the Government of Israel, to strengthen the national economy and infrastructure, could be adopted in the Indian context.
While the remittances sent home by the Lebanese Diaspora have played an important role in Lebanon's economy, the Philippines, which has a large emigrant blue-collar population, has passed legislation, created new institutions, boosted the strength of its overseas Missions and tightened its laws aimed at providing security to its overseas workers, which are very relevant for India.
