‘It’s time for the diaspora to give back’
WASHINGTON: It has been a good political season for the Indian diaspora. Weeks after Rishi Sunak became first prime minister of the United Kingdom of Indian descent, Indian-americans have once again done well in the American midterm elections at different levels. MR Rangaswami is the founder-chairman of Indiaspora, an influential non-profit that serves as a network of Indian-origin leaders across diverse fields. An entrepreneur and investor based in Bay Area, Rangaswami spoke to HT about the success of the diaspora, India-us ties, and India’s global profile. Edited excerpts:
Indian-americans have done well in the US midterms. What do these results mean for the community?
Over 300 Indian-americans ran for office in the 2020 cycle and the momentum has grown. This time, the election of Shri Thanedar at the federal level (Thanedar has become the fifth Indian-american in the House of Representatives), and Aruna Miller at the state level (Miller has become the Lt Governor of Maryland) shows the continuing success of our community and bodes well for 2024 elections.
What are the reasons behind the diaspora’s success across domains, particularly in the US?
That is because it is a self-selecting diaspora... We are used to the Indian values of hard work and education. The US is a country of immigrants. So, if you get immigrants who are well-qualified and hardworking, they get accepted really quickly. We have been able to seize the opportunity, being a privileged diaspora. The other diasporas who have come to the US are not privileged. Indians
like us came here for opportunity — not that we needed it, but we wanted it. It was a different kind of opportunity-seeking.
We are 1% of the US population, with 7% of the doctors, 10% of the IT workforce, 10% of the Fortune 500 company CEOS. Two iconic companies, Fedex and Starbucks, recently got Indian-origin CEOS. Or look at politics. The Joe Biden administration has over 130 Indian-americans at the top levels. The real focus for diaspora now is giving back.
One element of giving back is philanthropic. The other is supporting India’s economic progress. How can the diaspora contribute to India’s national priorities in terms of domestic manufacturing and startups?
I have been going to India for the last 12 years through the auspices of Nasscom, where we take Silicon Valley people to Bengaluru for a product conclave to do keynotes, workshops, boot camps to promote entrepreneurship. When we started this programme, there were 200-300 people. Last time, it was 2,500 entrepreneurs. Then, there have also been a lot of venture firms that have been investing in India over the decade. The new Indiaspora programme is to help Indian founders move to Silicon Valley. We had an event recently where over 100 founders moved to Silicon Valley to sell to American companies. So that’s the next wave. We are mentoring them, we are investing in them, we are joining their boards. So it’s capital, mentorship, time.
What does India need to do domestically to be able to leverage the diaspora’s strength?
Rules and regulations need to be facilitated and changed in a way that becomes very easy for investments to come in, investments to come back, profits to come back, but also help outin comes to be simpler. I know the government has changed rules, but more rules need to be changed… It also needs to be made easier for Indian companies to go public in India.
With the US government recognising the perils of tech collaboration with China, has the mood in the Bay Area shifted?
Absolutely. I think the Bay Area is very sensitive to issues of China. And it’s also, at the same time, that India has opened up. So, it gives us the opportunity to work with India even more. If we had even thoughts of going to China, those thoughts are gone — everybody has been able to see the challenges of working in China or dealing with Chinese investments. There’s a big move in the US, as is in India, to be very wary of Chinese investments and Chinese technology. So there is definitely an opening for India to seize that opportunity.
And now lots of American companies are doing the China plus one strategy. India needs to take advantage of that. I know Vietnam is a very big competitor to take that plus one, but India needs to also act aggressively. We have conveyed to the government to appoint more people to take that on, simplify rules, work with the diaspora. The diaspora is in powerful positions in many of the Fortune 500 companies, and many of those companies have operations China. So we can facilitate that and make those companies feel comfortable with India as an alternative. When delegations come from India, we are already introducing them to Fortune 500 companies and facilitating that.
How do you assess the India-us relationship?
It’s very strong. From Quad to I2U2, India is involved everywhere. It’s great to see the evolution of that relationship going from strength to strength across administrations. I think the momentum in ties is irreversible and the relationship will be strong for decades to come. There will be differences, whether it is around human rights or other issues. It’s like a marriage; there will be problems that will have to be worked on. But I don’t see a stumbling block where there is a non-negotiable issue that comes up where the two countries say we are splitting up and there is a divorce. I don’t see that at all.
What is the mood in the diaspora on India’s political story? There are two competing narratives. One focuses on India’s political stability and developmentoriented leadership. The other focuses on perceived democratic backsliding and rising majoritarianism.
That debate is going on within the diaspora. The younger diaspora feels India needs to change in certain ways. The older diaspora, people who grew up in India and moved here, have a different feeling. So there are competing voices. But Indiaspora’s role is very clear. We will not make public statements on anything. We will privately communicate with the government as to the concerns in the political sphere, because a tweet is not going to help one way or the other. But it is fair to say that the diaspora has competing ideas of how India should progress. The younger diaspora were raised in a different type of democracy than India. There is no right or wrong way. All democracies are messy.
You have spoken admiringly of India’s digital story and offered suggestions to the government. What should India do next?
China has the One Belt, One Road strategy where they encouraged countries to build infrastructure projects with Chinese loans, technology and people. And early documentation on that shows it has failed. And a lot of it has failed within the Indian subcontinent. Countries are in debt, economies are collapsing, look at Sri Lanka. Should India step into that and offer infrastructure facilities? I would say that India has a different role to play. We are conceptualising and socialising an idea and calling it ‘cloud in the box’.
India has done a terrific job with digital public goods. Even during Covid, we witnessed Aadhaar, Jan Dhan, and COWIN working seamlessly for a billion people. All these projects are funded by the government, but they are open-source and freely available. Why can’t we put citizenship services — whether it is to do the social security number or Aadhaar number, bank account information, medical information, anything that you want — in a cloud system? Couple that with even educational services. And then you offer the lowest cost 5G and India has the lowest cost 5G. And then you take it to all the 100 poorest countries in the world who need these kind of services. All the data is kept in each country within their own cloud. It doesn’t go to a foreign country; it doesn’t come to India. We merely supply the open source software and services to implement it. Out of these 100 countries, at least 25 of them have large diaspora populations. So this is one area where the Indian government, Indian private sector companies and the diaspora can work together to do good for the world.