Why 'Helpless India Goes Into Pravasi Headcount Tizzy'?

Despite approaching China and Ireland for help, the government has still not been able to find an answer to how many overseas Indians are there exactly.

The issue came up again recently as the government geared up to celebrate the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in Gujarat next week, which will also mark 100 years of Mahatma Gandhi’s return from South Africa to India.

The Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs believes that the figure is “over 25 million”. But there is no certainty on the figures.
 The high level committee on Indian Diaspora in 2001 estimated the population of Indian origin abroad to be over 20 million. Meanwhile, a few years ago, Indian missions agreed that the size of the diaspora was 21.6 million.  At the same time, GOPIO, the biggest non-government organizations for PIOs, estimated that the population could be even as high as 40 million.  In its report tabled in December, the parliamentary standing committee on external affairs had yet again criticised the ministry for not being able to obtain accurate numbers. The panel pointed out that a “credible database” was essential to begin “any commendable intervention and planning from the side of the Government for the welfare of Overseas Indians”.

 The matter came up during the panel’s questioning of ministry officials over the status of the delay in implementing the promise made by the PM Modi of merging the Overseas Citizenship of India card and the Peoples’ of India Origin card.

 The revised estimates are given by the Indian missions in various countries, which the ministry claims is “sufficient for policy issues” – a contention clearly not accepted by the standing committee.  The frequent excuse given by the ministry, is that Indian missions “not been found feasible to compile exact database of the entire Indian Diaspora residing outside India due to the political sensitiveness of the country concerned and the People of Indian Origin(PIOs), who are citizens of that country, themselves”

 Earlier, the standing committee members had pointed that countries with similar big diasporas—China and Ireland—could provide the answer to the problem.  China has the biggest diaspora at around 50 million. But, any feelers for help from the Chinese proved elusive. Ireland claims to have the highest diaspora with a figure of about 70 million, based on waves of emigration over 70 years. This figure is based on a method that “covers the nearest possible definition of diaspora that have some 21 connection to Ireland and is based on census returns and other research on heritage and ethnicity rather than citizenship”.