T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan: A little reciprocal action, Mr Mukherji?

Other countries want our business but treat Indians badly. Our government is a mere onlooker.

In a couple of days from now, yet another Pravasi Bharatiya Divas will be held. The Ministry for Overseas Indian Affairs will have its annual chance to preen before the media. But the truth is that Indian governments simply don't care about how foreign governments treat Indians, both abroad and, even worse, in India.

To give the latest example, the UPA government and its Communist allies have been strangely quiet about the problems that people of Indian origin are facing in Malaysia. One reason, of course, is that they are Malaysian citizens and therefore whatever the Malaysian government chooses to do with them is an "internal" affair.

But another problem is that the Indians who are protesting there have been portrayed as Hindus and not Indians. I can understand why the Malaysian government would choose to do that. But why should that matter to our secular government? No votes, is that it?

As Sunanda K Datta-Ray, the former editor of The Statesman and one of India's most respected journalists, has written in an article in The Telegraph, "The diaspora does not begin and end with Silicon Valley millionaires. Nor should Vayalar Ravi's only concern be V S Naipaul and Lakshmi Mittal, whose pictures adorn his ministry's website. Indians of another class are in much greater need of his attention."

He has put his finger on it. The main problem is that unlike Chinese Malaysians, who own 40 per cent of the traded equity, the Indians are poor. They own a mere 1.2 per cent. Mr Datta-Ray also writes that "an Indian who wants to start a business must not only engage a bumiputera partner but also fork out the latter's 30 per cent share of equity... Indians lead the list of suicides, drug offenders and jailed criminals."

Even when Indians are murdered and the authorities don't bother to investigate, they keep quiet "" as does the Indian government, of course. Contrast this with the sort of pressure China mounted on President Musharraf after some Chinese citizens had been killed in Pakistan by jihadists. It is widely believed that the assault on Lal Masjid came only after China had shown its fangs.

But there is another reason as well: our diplomats view the Indian living or travelling abroad as a nuisance. This is scandalous but true. There are regular reports about Indians being treated badly in practically every country you can think of. The usual response from the diplomats is "saalay gadbad karte hein, phir hamare pass aakar rotay hein". Even if this is true, it stands to reason that it can be true only in some cases. It simply cannot be that all Indians who get treated shabbily have done some gadbad. Yet our government can't be bothered.

Indeed, even when it comes to protecting the rights of Indians living in India when they have to deal with the consular sections of the embassies here, the experience is truly humiliating. I had occasion last year to write about the wholly racist British requirement that the citizens of some countries, India included, must get something called a direct air transit visa even if they are merely changing planes at some British airport. Barring two white countries "" and they have a large number of Muslims "" only coloured people are required to get this visa. The British government can go blue in its face denying this is not racist but who will believe it? Perhaps only our government.

Well, you may ask, isn't diplomacy all about reciprocity? Sure it is. But of a peculiarly MEA kind: the person in the consular section window at the Indian embassy treats the foreigners badly. But how does this help? Indeed, as a good government servant, he even treats Indians badly. Surely, individual nastiness can't become a substitute for government action?

The story doesn't end with the Indians who live or travel abroad. Embassies and consular offices in India also treat Indians like dirt. Is it not amazing that even countries as insignificant as some east and southeast Asian ones, even as they are lining up to get a share of the business that India is generating, continue to think that it is perfectly all right to treat Indians shabbily from the moment they apply for a visa? It is not only the queuing in the open, the disdain of the staff etc that is shameful. The sort of intrusive questions that are asked and the documentation that is needed are also completely unwarranted.

But what is our government going to do about it? Absolutely nothing "" and even the BJP was no different. It had the opportunity to set at least some of the things right but refused to. The solution lies in government level reciprocal action but there is a problem: you need courage. Remember the US requirement about having to be finger-printed? Brazil stood up to oppose it by imposing a reciprocal requirement but what did India do? Even when two of its ministers were strip-searched "" yes, two and not one as everyone thinks "" it did nothing.

If it can happen to ministers, what of the ordinary citizen?