Only three countries in the world do not have any Indian diaspora. Even in tiny countries in the Polynesian islands few Indians are settled. In some countries of considerable number, we even had / have persons of Indian origin as heads of state and politicians.
What is the reason for this Indian presence? Of course, the immediate answer is for economic reasons and for some few; it is bad state of governance. No withstanding these reasons, if we look a little beyond, one might think as a binding force of the world. Some of the Indian diaspora in foreign countries have brought laurels to the country they live in; some have established large scale industries in the their countries; some have spread the message of peace and love through their life style and so on. Is there a purpose beyond our understanding that this kind of presence is characteristic of only India? Whereas I am not advocating any kind of supremacy of India in the world, but I need to bring to focus this fact.
As a NRI, I can safely say the following about Indian diaspora, which are only beneficial to the societies they live in:
- Indians are peace loving people.
- Indians are law abiders largely.
- Indians are to a large extent hard working people.
- Indians are the safest people to work with.
- Indians can be trusted with responsibility.
Many foreign countries accept these as traits of us Indians. In my personal experience, in whichever country I have country I have worked, I have observed that the locals raise their eyebrows and are surprised when I commit a mistake in my job. It is least expected of us to make any mistakes. In a country where I worked in past, police keep checking the vehicles on regular basis. When they see any Indians and especially with their families, they do not even bother to check the documents leave alone checking the vehicle. They casually wave their hands to us to pass by. This happens even in times of emergency. Some may take it as assign of physical weakness. At least we do not spread any kind of hatred through our actions and that is more important.
Keeping the materialistic reasons aside, if we contemplate on the above traits, it is actually going a long way in spreading peace around the world, through our life styles. How much is it benefitting other nations is difficult to gauge, but one thing can be said, even if this type of peace is not spread the possibly we may have a much worse situation in the world.
Indians serve the society across the world, right from the grass root level (labors, domestic servants etc) to the highest one can think of (Head of State, CEOs, company owners etc) across nations. Thus, there is some sort of unseen thread that is binding the world together in the form of India. This may not be the entire thread but surely a part of it, which strengthens the binding force. The binding force is unseen and hence India is an unsung hero.