There are/have been 28 Heads of State or Government of non-Indian countries who are of Indian origin. Out of these, six are incumbents, two are from European countries (Ireland and Portugal), two from Asia, one each from S.America and Africa. Other than Mr Mahathir Mohamad, who hid it from his constituents in the initial days, not one of them think it necessary to discard their Indian heritage.
Then, there are 20 other non-Indian subcontinental countries across the world that have 100s of Indian-origin politicians holding important positions, some of them actually as ministers within the ruling parties!
We are proud of each of them. We rejoice when a Nikki Haley or Kamala Harris is in the running for POTUS, or a Leo Varadkar becomes the Irish Premier, or a Harjit Sajjan enters the Canadian cabinet, or a Rishi Sunak is appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK.
We are proud of Indian-origin CEOs of MNCs. So much so that we go around talking as if we personally own Google or Microsoft because Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella run things there. We are proud of Indra Nooyi and Vikram Pandit. We also like to puff up our chests when Tata buys JLR or Mittal buys Arcelor as if we made some individual contribution to it. I remember someone talking proprietorially about Vijay Singh, when he became the World Number 1 in golf for 32 weeks in 2004-05, even though he was a Fijian-born, Fijian-trained, USA-resident!
We are proud that we exported Buddhism to the world (though we killed it in our country), that there are goras who are Hindus (never mind that many of them are seen as crackpot “Hare Ramas”), and that people across the globe practise yoga or use our numerals or have adopted something with the most tenuous, and sometimes dubious, links to India (from turmeric to tandoori chicken to the sari to shampoo to spices). We are proud that English has borrowed so many words from Indian languages. We are even proud of a Sushmita Sen or an Aishwarya Rai winning a made-up contest, or Priyanka Chopra or Irfan getting English-speaking roles.
We keep speaking of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (literally: the world is one family) as an integral part of our culture.
But we have a problem with a woman who followed the love of her life to India, gave up her Italian citizenship to take up an Indian one, refused to leave even as her mother-in-law was shot dead and her husband blown to bits in line of duty, runs the daily risk of the same happening to her kids and grandkids, learns Hindi, absolutely slays the sari, relinquished extremely tempting offers at one time to lead the nation as PM, shows humility in front of democratic and Constitutional norms, supports the government during a national & worldwide calamity, follows every propriety that a public figure is expected to (in both action and speech), never ever speaks of her Italian heritage proudly, and keeps reiterating that she is Indian in face of humiliation and extremely offensive behaviour. All this while silently suffering from cancer.
We have become exactly the opposite of what we want to portray and go out of our way to prove to the world, even if no one is asking us to. An outsider looking in would find the narrowest of minds and the tiniest of hearts, with a self-inflicted & longstanding inferiority complex and an inborn & overwhelming small penis syndrome, come together in us to create a toxic cocktail of hate, envy, privilege, lust, entitlement, and condescension which slowly but surely corrodes our insides, not just individually but collectively as a society, and gathers at the base of our throat to be ejected and ejaculated as vomit full of the putrid-smelling acid that has built up inside of us since the day we started to hear, and has lain in wait for an eruption at the slightest of the slight slights, whether real or perceived, though mostly perceived, for that is what we have become: more reptilian and less human.
Shame on us. Really.
P.S: I don’t care whether Sonia Gandhi speaks Hindi or Italian at home. Or whether she wears a sari out of choice or for optics. I don’t care if she is or isn’t proud of her Italian heritage. I don’t care if she refused to be the PM voluntarily or was forced. But apparently, she does. Because she knows we do. Which is another reason to feel shameful of our own narrow-mindedness. Her choices do not reflect her character. They reveal ours, since it is our constant judgment of her character and the parameters we apply to do so that actually keep revealing (the lack of) our own.
P.P.S: I came out of hibernation to say this. I will go back now. Yes, it was acidic. Yes, it is vomit. Yes, it shows my own character than those I am pointing my fingers at. Yes, I am proud of it. Yes, I am included in the people described above. After all, I am from the same stock. I am no exception. I am you.
