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'We have to become more powerful, as a group and wield power'

THE UNWELCOME INDIAN
Views edited slightly

Name: Srinivasan Varadarajan
Email: svaradara@hotmail.com
Message: Unfortunately, the truth is partly both.

The Indian government has never been as vocal as American (which has been known to use ONE death as excuse to start bombing -- though it refused to recognise its responsibility for 240 Marines in Beirut) or even UK, in the matter of its citizens' interests. Fact that INS could do illegal raid only corroborates this.

To some extent, immigrants have caused strong reactions:

(1) Sikh workers asking exemption from safety-dress codes on various worksites (turban instead of helmet/hardhat) for religious reason-->if you know that this conflict may occur, why do you apply there in first place?

(2) Unskilled (and uneducated) immigrants showing bad public face. An example from Calgary. From 1971-1976, we were able to use lecture-halls (weekends) at University for showing Bollywood films. Several viewers oft showed up drunken, and made much noise and mess there --resulting in these films having to find another location for showing.

Analogy to this may be seen in bad report card: student claims teacher dislikes him, teacher claims student is simply lazy (oft both are true).

Name: Indian
Email: aqaa.cc
Message: Indians in large numbers have been sneaking illegally into Western countries and that is a known fact. Majority of the Indian community settled in the UK is illegal. This also includes Pakis and Bangladeshis. Let us realize nobody tolerates any outside community in any one's area. Take for example, Mumbai, and you would find that the Maharashtrian community feels that they have been deprived of jobs because of people coming in large numbers from North and South India. When it comes to Western world, they have been liberal in their policies in accommodating Indians, but at the same time, their mind is overtly racist. Our so-called NRIs live like third grade citizens in Western countries. They may be earning money but it is not without losing self-respect. So east or west, India is the best. And amazingly the so called spoilt young kids of these Indian immigrants think that they are not Indians but British, American etc. By drinking Coke, putting on sunglasses, rapping and barking like a MTV popper does not make one a Westerner. The Westerner's view towards these people always remains the same -- these people are from the same dirty blood that is Indian and they are very rightly Indian dogs. If the situation goes out of control , they will make sure that everyone gets kicked out of their country.(eg.. recently elected Govt. in Austria having a partner in Haider).

Name: x
Email: x
Message: Racism is not the only factor in such decisions like the one by the UK immigration. UK is such a case wherein there are numerous immigrants who have illegally settled and are now actually citizens of that country. Most of them are business minded and have been found to be indulging in illegal activities like paying bribes, evading tax etc. Since they carry the same Indian culture over there, they sometimes land in serious trouble while doing such activities because come what may, a policeman in the UK will rather die than take a bribe. Whoever you may be, Sonia, Jayalalitha or a film star, if you act oversmart, you will be behind bars. The end result is that because of such kind of people, it is a general overview of the Indian people that is getting spoilt in the minds of Westerners. The good people with no evil intentions will also face their wrath because the Westerners feel all Indians are dirty dogs and they have come with a begging bowl in our country. So the Indian community is themselves to blame for all these incidents in the Western world. If they do not obey visa rules, then they are to suffer.

Name: NRI
Email: nri@yahoo.com
Message: I am a Non-Resident, but emphatically an Indian ever since my birth and would wish to be a citizen of India until my breath lasts.

I read about the opinions vented by "Devil's Advocate" and Rajendra Rao. "Devil" has made up his mind to die a thousand times before actually it consumes him. He has nothing good for India. I do not know if he is the emigrated NR-Indian or a born abroad Indian.

Yes, we have problems in India and majority or all of them created by ourselves. But that's the life and everyone of us has the responsibility to correct it. Instead, we don't lose time to blame each other and attempt to assert only our rights. Things are bad in India, one agrees with it no doubt.

I am not against people going out to make money. In fact even the Americans go out to make money. If that's untrue, then the State of America will not have so many of their soldiers sent out of America to defend someone or offend others. They also crave for the plush life and wherever it's available, they will go for it. American soldiers are there outside USA not to defend their nation but to make money, not out of any love for the place or country whom they undertake defend.

However, there is a major difference between the Americans and the Indians. Americans do not deride their nation but have high regard for their flag whereas Indians they not only cast aspersions all that of India and Indianness but would not mind joining hands with the enemies to further damage the images.

Rajendra Rao had spent $500K and sent "beautiful daughters" to Harvard. Rao's Dad, once upon a time, also must had sent Rao to some good institutions in India and the learnings he had from there attracted America where he went to work and reside. India today have several institutions of repute which sends out hundreds of highly skilled personnel to the international market.

Name: Rohit Kaila
Email: rohitkaila@email.com
Message: The root of the problem lies inside us, the govt is just a reflection of the people. When the blacks were brought to the US and kept as slave labourers they stayed that way until they got "liberation", but are they still liberated? When American Indians' were ruthlessly killed did they protest, fight and win?? Indians in comparison are not even nearly as bad, possibly because we have the brains but not the guts. So, we will continue to be used. The British used us, the Americans are using us. Its reflected completely in our country when every powerful person uses every less powerful person for his/her gains! This is the basic fact of life.

What can we do? We have to become more powerful, as a group and wield power. A powerful American protects a less powerful American against us, but remember that will be true only until his interests are met. If we use our intelligence to carve our a niche for ourselves, we will win too! Look at how the Chinese are doing this. It has to start inside us and spread out...

Those were my two-paisa (or cents whatever u like!) --rohit.

Name: ramaiah n murthy
Email: mash2811@hotmail.com
Message: Why can't the Indian embassies in US/abroad keep track of Indians and help them solve their problems in a foreign land? In this infotech age, it's so easy to reach anyone across the globe by interacting thru websites/emails and also reduces time and distance for free flow of communication. Let's do it for making the lives of we Indians more comfortable and not more risky and entangled with problems..

Name: Deshi
Email: deshi67@hotmail.com
Message: I worked in Govt of India for seven years as a Scientist. I know how the favouritism, regionalism and casteism dictate things in our Govt organization. How they mismanage the funds and fool the citizens? 6000 crores would have been spent on LCA (making fancy buildings? giving jobs for their relatives, foreign tours, and other luxuries). This is other than the salary, value of land, electricity, water and other stuff. That itself would have crossed 6000 crores. What we have got in return. See how our systems failed in Kargil.

I came to USA recently and I feel environment is far far better than India, no open racism or favouritism. We boast we are doing lot of stuff India. Till yesterday we were doing Y2K stuff and some maintenance software. How many software products we have developed and marketed as Indian software work? How many years we may have to wait for an Indian Operating Systems? We have to go very far. Last 51 years, we were trying to find our identity in the world. Today we discovered and established. Show our presence to the world with our educational knowledge. I think 70% H1b visas are from India. Other countries trying hard to capture this. Do not leave an opportunity for that. Explore the US IT market and so that our words will be louder. NRIs can invest lot of money in India than taking loan from World Banks.

In USA laws are followed 95% of the time and 95% of the laws are followed. In India may be 30%. People are talking about IT and economy because our senior citizens had an opportunity to work in developed countries.

Name: Rama Krishna Y
Email: ramakrishna_yala@hotmail.com
Message: I think both the government and the immigrant have an equal share in this.

I think it has been happening around the globe.

A gurka from nepal comes to India and guards India in the night for lesser money than Indian watchman.

The government never takes any serious steps for protecting our rights.

In short the foreign ministry is a bunch of useless rotten bureaucrats who cant move their fat arses until its a deadlock.

We have seen a live demo of this in the hijack case.

Name: Indian
Email: x@y.c
Message: Indian immigrants and Indian govt, both are to be blamed for such a situation. First of all, Indian immigrants should learn to behave when in an alien country. There are some who never buy tickets, unnecessarily bargain in shops, pick up all the chocolates on the receptionist's desks, pee in a corner, as also shop lifting. A few years back, an Indian cricketer was caught stealing a pair of socks at a London showroom. Also, there was an incident of a son of a big Indian industrialist caught shop lifting. This is the standard that we set for ourselves in front of the Western world.

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