A blog for discussions on media, political and cultural issues of South Asian and international significance

Sunday, May 22, 2005

Must NRIs Return Home?

Last week, I sparked off an email war on the listserv (and off it as well). This particular battle was on whether citizens of the developing world can contribute more by returning home than they would if they stayed away from home. Here's what I had to say -

I feel that the assertion that returning to one's home country will make things better there is a simplistic one (atleast so far as my home country, India, is concerned), and there's someone far more eminent who agrees with me, see The Migration of Knowledge Workers: Second-Generation Effects of India's Brain Drain by Binod Khadria (Sage, 1999). Prof Khadria is Professor of Economics at the Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.

His basic argument is that while the first generation of immigrants from India did cause a net loss to the Indian economy (i.e. net remittances were less than the amount invested in their education and training in India), the second generation of Indian emigrants (those who left after economic reforms in 1991) is pumping huge amounts of money (in the form of investment in infrastructure, the stock markets, purchase of government bonds etc.) into the system. Also, a large amount of investment in non-profit sectors and charitable organisations comes from persons of Indian origin living outside India. It may also be argued (and I diverge from Khadria here) that the presence of highly trained Indians abroad contributes to a greater international awareness of India, and the emergence of Indian political groups in the US, the UK and Canada may be evidence of this heightened political awareness. Finally, Indians abroad have a significant voice in the governance of India as well, perhaps as a result of the money they're pumping into the economy. The government seems to be making a special effort to appease non-resident Indians with a slew of policy changes designed just for Indians living abroad (for eg, there is a newly formed Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, currently considering a serious proposal for providing tax breaks on investments made by Indians living abroad). Clearly Indians abroad wield a lot of influence with Indians back home (probably more than they would have if they stayed home. I had an interesting conversation with a fellow member of this list last term which went something like this - "Before I got here, home was the place I would eat, sleep and chase my dog around. In the past 9 months, I've received 8 wedding invitations, 3 marriage proposals and an invitation to guest lecture in about half a dozen universities. Suddenly home is a lot cooler").

Concerns have been raised about whether this position I am taking denigrates and devalues the position of those who wish to return to India. I strongly feel that it does not. I believe that one's choice to return to India is a personal one, and should not be externally imposed on others. Hence, while this personal choice is necessarily individual specific, I think there is no systemic, institutional or public obligation to return to one's country.

This is without prejudice to the broader question of whether one should contribute to one's home state at all. I believe I should, but someone who has a more cosmopolitan (or more communist) world view than I do may well disagree. I just think that it is totally possible to enjoy the academic freedoms and research benefits which institutions in this country offer and still give back to the people of one's home country, perhaps more than one could by being back home.

Prithvi.

Sunday, May 15, 2005

Taking over the ad world?

I was recently looking for some Indian ads which I was very fond of on the Internet (because a friend had forwarded me the unusual "Manno Bhabhi" ad). In the process, I discovered an incredibly interesting cultural revolution which seems to be taking place in the West - the use of Indian themes (and in several cases, Indian professionals) to market products which have nothing to do with India. There are several examples of this -
  1. By far the best of the lot, Absolut's "Mulit" ad. This is an ad featuring an all Indian cast, but is a pseudo history of the mullet (as in the hairstyle), shot in a Bollywood-spoof style by a European film director. Mulit has spawned an underground fan following, but the funny thing is that it is an ad film intended for Western audiences, not for Indians.
  2. The Cobra beer ads. I think these are the ones which started the whole trend. It makes sense that Cobra advertise their beers in this manner, given the origins of Cobra as the beer which goes with curry, and their India launch(see here for a brief write-up on Cobra beer). In addition to this, they're really funny. I would put the Tennent's beer ad in the same category.
  3. The Coke Spanish Bollywood spoof. This is clearly not intended for Indian audiences, it uses a sort of Bollywood asereje, and is in Spanish. It is interesting however to see how wildly popular this ad has become, and the awards which have been heaped on it.
  4. The Peugeot 209 ad. This ad has no non-Indian aspect to it - it's shot in Rajasthan (you can see from the buildings, the clothes the people are wearing and the car registration plates), features an Ambassador, a man talking to an elephant in Hindi/local dialect ("baitho, baitho"), a poster of Pukar on the wall and so much more. The soundtrack is Bhangra Knights v. Husan, which while incredibly popular in Europe, is an Urdu song. So here's the funny part - this ad has never been released in India (because Peugeot has pulled out of the Indian car market). This ad is made for the European market (maybe even the American one), and is incredibly popular, but it has no European symbolism.

What's interesting here is that with the exception of the beer ads, there is no ostensible connection between these ads, the product being sold, and the market in which they're being advertised. In spite of this, they've grown wildly popular (though I have no exact figures about how they've influenced sales). Why is this? Is the much anticipated Indian cultural summer finally here in Europe? Or is it just another form of product placement through cultural stereotyping (like the Cable & Wireless ads on Caribbean cellphones)? If it is the latter, given the poor consumer visibility of South Asians in Europe, is it just more economic sense to stereotype Indians rather than Eastern Europeans, the French, the English, the Germans etc?

Prithvi.

PS. Thanks to Manish Vij and Sepia Mutiny for the links.

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