Insight

THE INDIAN CONNECTION

Author:
Dhawal Dhal
MBA-IT

We have acknowledged and have been proud of the accolades won by the people of Indian origin, abroad. There have been two cases in the recent years which we boast of- Sunita Williams was the first lady astronaut to go have longest successful stay in space and the second was Bobby Jindal elected as the Governor of Louisiana.

Of late there has been many debates going on Women Empowerment and the visit of Sunita Williams to space has given the boost and rejuvenated life in the women of India and they now aspire to be like her. But before going in Space nobody in our country even knew her and also she never visited India as a state guest. We were quite happy that she took with herself Samosas and she’s still an Indian by heart. Is it right to consider her as an Indian when she is a citizen of US and should we feel proud of her accomplishments and associate ourselves with her achievements.

Bobby Jindal is elected as the Governor of Louisiana at the young age of 36. He received more than 50 percent of the votes in a state, which is very conservative and is not very friendly to minorities. It’s a notable achievement. Has he kept his Indian values intact? He changed his name at a very young age from Piyush to Bobby after being inspired by the popular TV show ‘The Brady Bunch’. His desire to fit him in to the majority white society soon manifested around another act of rejection: he spurned the religion into which he was born and converted to Catholicism as a teenager.

Should we associate ourselves with the accomplishments of the people who are of Indian origin but now are the nationals of other countries? We want to follow successful people and by any means if we tend to relate ourselves with the so called successful people we feel a sense of pride in it but our pride is misplaced as we don’t want to be successful but instead we want to replicate and follow success achieved by other people. If Italy does it in the same way as we do then they would be more proud than us as a lady of Italian origin is running the Government of India and is the President of the largest and the oldest party of India.

We feel proud that they have won themselves a name worldwide but the question before us is 'Do they have a sense of belonging for India and they care for India in the same way as we do?'