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Indian expatriates seek their right to vote

DUBAI - With the general elections due to be held in India in a few weeks' time, Indians living in the UAE have called for a mechanism through which they can participate in the electoral process and cast their votes.

The demand for overseas voting rights for NRI's based in the Gulf region has been consistently made by the Indian association's in the UAE since the past 15 years, but to no avail. Many federal and state ministers have visited the region in this period, who have promised to take up the Gulf NRI's demands with the centre, but so far, nothing has come out of their visits.

Even forums such as the Pravasi Bhartiya Divas, which were created mainly to address the issues and problems faced by NRI's throughout the world, have failed to satisfactorily tackle such issues.

Ram Buxani, Dubai-based businessman and a panelist at this year's Pravasi Bhartiya Divas, said: "Voting is a constitutional right given to every Indian irrespective of where he stays. Any citizen who holds an Indian passport should be granted the right to vote, as even the constitution has not discriminated against the voting by Indians outside the country.

"This whole argument of the difficult of creating an infrastructure through which voters can cast their votes due to the complex nature of our elections is all nonsense."

Bharatbhai Shah, last year's panelist at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas and Dubai-based businessman and social worker, vociferously opposes the idea of voting rights being granted to oversees Indians, as it may harm the image of Indians in this region and may lead to further complications.

"I am strongly against the idea of demanding voting rights as this will create a lot of problems in the Gulf region, where Indians are generally looked on as law abiding citizens who come to earn their wages and maintain their family back home. If we get the election scenario here, we will end up washing our dirty linen in public and nit much will be gained by such a step. Just ponder over it, our 573 representatives only visit their constituencies during election time and forget about their promises in the next 5 years, so how can we expect them to care for us, who are living in this region."

But there are others who feel that taking into consideration India's complex electoral system, oversees voting is not only difficult but might turn out to be a logistical nightmare.

"Considering the complexity of the electoral procedure whereby candidates from various political factions from different constituencies stand for elections, it is extremely difficult to find a practical solution through which oversees votes can actually be cast.

Another aspect to take into consideration is the fact that the Indian community here has lived in harmony with each other for many years and bringing the idea of elections here can trigger an uneasy situation," said K. Kumar, President of the Indian Association, Dubai.

Also, since the Gulf NRI's account for nearly 4.5 million of the over 20 million NRI population spread across the world, many people feel that the government is not paying Indians living in the gulf region, their fair share of attention. Said B.R.Shetty, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of the New Medical Centre Group,: " The Gulf NRI's contribute almost $6 billion worth of remittance to India out of the total $18 billion that the Indian exchequer receives.

But despite this substantial contribution, we have not been granted voting rights, which is quite shameful. I'm sure that it is possible to set up an infrastructure at the consulate whereby we can register our votes as we want to participate in our country's representative process as well."

Still others argue that since oversees voters of other nationalities in the UAE, are able to participate in their country's elections, similar mechanisms should be adopted for the Indian elections as well.

"Voting rights have been granted to oversees Filipinos and other nationalities and I just cannot imagine why we have been deprived of this facility. I can understand that it might be difficult for the government to set up a voting system here but it is high time that our voices are heard and the government should sit up and take notice," said Vijai Narain, Vice President of a bank.

Concerned individuals have suggested several alternatives regarding this issue; which ranges from the nomination of a Gulf representative to the parliament to adopting electronic voting systems.

"A suggestion that we have been putting forward since a long time has been the representation of a member of the Indian Diaspora from the Gulf to one of the houses of the parliament. He or she can then address our grievances to the government directly," said Mr. Kumar.Mr. Buxani added,"It is the duty of the election commission to facilitate voting for Indians living outside the country either through a postal ballot system or through electronic voting."

Drawing a blank

The mount of money that millions of expatriate Indian in the Gulf states remit home every year is astounding, and yet, their cries for voting rights have been just a voice in the wilderness,

Here are some number crunching figures that should give an idea of what hard-working Indians send back home every year, year after year. Gulf non-resident Indians account for nearly 4.5 million. The total number of NRIs spread over the globe comes to a staggering 20 million.

But do they count when it comes to the national elections? No. This despite the fact that "the Gulf NRI's contribute almost $6 billion worth of remittance to India out of the total $18 billion that the Indian exchequer receives.