Dear Editor,
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is making a Caribbean visit in November; Guyana has been chosen as the host. There should be a public diaspora programme for the PM as has been a tradition in very country he landed.
Modi-ji has had a lifelong history of engaging the diaspora. He did when he was a student meeting visiting Indians in Delhi and elsewhere in India during 1970s engaging Shri Raviji-Maharaj and Indrani Rampersad of Trinidad and Swami Aksharananda of Guyana as well as students from other countries. He engaged the diaspora when he a pracharak (volunteer) in 1980s and 1990s and as assistant to BJP leader LK Advani (1990s), as General Secretary of BJP (1998-2001), as Chief Minister (2001-14), and as Prime Minister (from 2014). In visits in New York and New Jersey, he engaged Guyanese and Trinidadians. Ditto at international conferences in in Washington and Trinidad, and in his private visit to Guyana (2000). He and Ravi Dev exchanged ideas when they sat at the same dais in a 1993 conference in Washington. He and Dr Vijay Naraynsingh held discussions in Washington and again in Trinidad. He engaged Swami Aksharananda and Ravi and met other Guyanese, including me, in Trinidad.
In all of his global conferences in USA and in Trinidad and his visit to Guyana, he has cherished mingling with and engaging diaspora people, and in fact he has always looked forward for those experiences. He has yearned to know about the diaspora experience. Modi is yet to turn down a public engagement with the diaspora in all of his travels. Meeting the diaspora has energized him. He expressed how pleased he was when he traveled abroad and had seen Indian culture being embraced in other countries. He has lauded foreigners for embracing Indian culture and the diaspora for maintaining ancestral culture and links to India.
Wherever Prime Minister Modi visited overseas, the diaspora felt honoured to host him. Modi’s engagement with the Indian diaspora has become a regular feature when he travels abroad, deepening ties with the motherland. He was hosted for a conclave with the diaspora in so many countries including Fiji, Mauritius, South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Singapore, Seychelles, Malaysia, and other countries that received indentured Indian labourers.
Modi is yet to visit Caribbean countries (as PM) that experienced indentureship. A visit to Guyana is being finalized as the PM travels to Rio for the G20 Summit in November (18, 19). Caribbean people are looking forward for a visit that is long overdue. It will be an honour to have a public diaspora programme for the visiting PM to showcase, to the 1.4 billion Indians in India our Guyanese and Caribbean hospitality and culture.
Yours sincerely,
Vishnu Bisram
