From Phoenix, I went to the opposite corner of the US to visit the Boston-based branch of an Indian IT firm from Bangalore. The Indians there do the IT work and their American colleagues do the marketing. Many Indian firms are realising that in the initial customer contacts it is advantageous to have a white person with a proper accent to be engaged as the interface. Thereafter, the actual IT work is taken up by Indians.
Once their competence is established, the skin colour and accent do not matter. From Boston I travelled to the Midwest to attend the wedding of a niece. She is a doctor who studied in India and had an arranged marriage with an Indian doctor in the US and moved there some years ago.
They had a child, but later the marriage broke up. She then decided to marry an American doctor, who has a daughter from an earlier marriage. Her American husband's daughter lives with her mother. My niece and her daughter will live with her new husband. The two daughters happily played together at the reception as if they were sisters, despite the differences in colour, and seemed totally unaffected by their parents' earlier divorces.
Watching them I began to realise how people can adapt and accept different norms as they live in a different culture -a cultural transition which is an interesting phenomenon among Indians in the US.
Today there are about 2 million people of Indian origin in the US. Despite what some of our politicians say, Indians feel a greater affinity to the US than to any other country. Our common heritage of the English language is a major factor. In addition, our people have far better opportunities in the US than elsewhere.
Indians are seen by Americans generally as hard-working, law-abiding citizens who are not a threat, in sharp contrast to the average American's image of several other nationalities. Therefore, there is far less discrimination against Indians than in Europe.
Unlike in the UK, where people from the Indian subcontinent were shipped to that country after World War II to take up menial jobs and are still mistaken as people of that category, the Indians who initially went to the US over a century ago were either post-graduate students or doctors and engineers.
Therefore, the image of an Indian in the US is far better than that of his counterpart in the UK. This is also because Indians in America are relatively prosperous. The average income of an Indian household is estimated to be $80,000 per annum, as against the national average of $35,000 per annum per American household. Such prosperity helps to boost the image of the Indian in a country that is essentially materialistic.
Encouraged by all these positive factors, Indians are beginning to make an entry into politics at the state level in more than one place. To some extent their efforts are blunted by the clashes among themselves. Most Indians in the US still see themselves as Gujaratis or Telugus, Bengalis or Keralites. Furthermore, many of them are lacking in communication skills and their assimilation into US culture has been slower because our own strong Indian culture acts as a counterforce.
It can take several generations for an Indian family to achieve full assimilation there. The first generations of Indian Americans have not got properly assimilated there but they find it difficult to adjust here if they try to return. Many of the second generations of an Indian-American family may marry Indians in the conventional way. The fear that some of them may marry even non-Indians makes their families anxious to arrange for suitable matches that are acceptable in terms of religion, caste and language.
By the time an Indian-American family reaches the third generation it is normally fully integrated. But for the colour of their skin and physiognomic features you cannot distinguish them for other Americans. Their progeny in the fourth generations can be expected to be not only fully integrated but also fully Americanised.
It is in our national interest to use these American Indians to build stronger relations with the US, based on factors other than military alliances. To the US, India is an attractive partner because it is a large, upwardly mobile, non-Islamic nation.
There are several steps that can be taken to promote this relationship. Education has been the magnet for Indians to go to the US. We can provide a similar magnet to attract Americans (and willing Europeans) to come to India for education. Some of the better Indian universities and metropolitan colleges can be specially funded to offer one- or two-year courses in Indian history and culture as a composite subject.
If properly packaged and presented, several Indian companies (especially in the IT, electronics and automotive sectors) should be willing to fund such courses and to offer scholarships for Americans or Europeans to come and study in India.
To those companies, it will be worthwhile investment in cultivating potential managerial talent in their overseas markets. We must facilitate this process by liberalising the issue of visas to such foreign students. Work experience in India is something that those who come to study here would need and welcome.
Therefore, we should be more liberal in issuing work permits for foreign students completing professional courses in Indian universities. In doing so, we will only be reciprocating what other countries like the US are doing for us. By studying here and working for a couple of years thereafter, those young men and women will become our ambassadors for life. They will be more effective and more credible than any Indian diplomat.
Of course, Indian communists and their allies will see the hidden hand of the CIA in this. But the credibility of communists is low and such fears should not dissuade the Indian government from going ahead with the kind of scheme outlined above.
Fortunately, most American youngsters, compared to other regions, are friendly, transparent and unassuming, and therefore capable of winning over people. They know how to manage the over-hospitality of many Indian families with sensitivity and also to overcome the jealousy and hostility that they may face. To help them in the process it will be helpful if they have access to some Indian families to whom they can turn for advice and comfort when required.
Families of Indian Americans in our metropolitan cities should be more than willing to provide such a source if only to return the kindness and hospitality their family members enjoyed in America. It seems inevitable that India and the US will draw closer together and the younger generation will make that pull stronger.