SAMP­SON NAN­TON

Deputy Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor

samp­son.nan­ton@guardian.co.tt

In­dia Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di has told mem­bers of the In­di­an di­as­po­ra here that they will soon be el­i­gi­ble for Over­seas Cit­i­zen­ship of In­dia (OCI), as he praised the strong cul­tur­al and his­toric ties be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and In­dia.

In an ad­dress to a crowd of hun­dreds at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre in Cou­va last night, his first of­fi­cial event af­ter ar­riv­ing in here yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, Mo­di en­cour­aged more peo­ple of In­di­an de­scent to vis­it In­dia. He ex­pressed ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the ef­forts of the di­as­po­ra in for­ti­fy­ing the con­nec­tions be­tween T&T and In­dia.

“There must be some­thing mag­i­cal in the dou­bles and dhalpourie be­cause you have dou­bled the suc­cess of this great na­tion,” Mo­di said.

He recog­nised Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the late prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day as dis­tin­guished mem­bers of the di­as­po­ra for their con­tri­bu­tions. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he paid trib­ute to the late em­i­nent schol­ar Rudranath Capildeo, the late mu­sic icon Sun­dar Popo, and re­tired crick­eter Dar­ren Gan­ga.

“Just con­sid­er the im­pact that you all have on this beau­ti­ful na­tion,” he stat­ed, not­ing that hav­ing been shaped by the ad­ver­si­ties of the in­den­ture­ship pro­gramme that brought In­di­ans to Trinidad and To­ba­go, peo­ple of In­di­an de­scent are now de­fined not by strug­gle but by their suc­cess­es, sto­ries, and val­ues.

He an­nounced that the gov­ern­ment of In­dia has em­barked on a pro­gramme aimed at doc­u­ment­ing the vil­lages and cities in In­dia from which the di­as­po­ra has orig­i­nat­ed.

In this re­gard, he ex­tend­ed a spe­cial gift to the seg­ment of the di­as­po­ra gath­ered here in T&T.

“To­day, I am de­light­ed to an­nounce that OCI (Over­seas Cit­i­zen­ship of In­dia) cards will now be made avail­able to the sixth gen­er­a­tion of the In­di­an di­as­po­ra in Trinidad and To­ba­go. We are not on­ly con­nect­ed by blood or sur­name; we are unit­ed by a sense of be­long­ing. In­dia cares for you, In­dia wel­comes you, and In­dia em­braces you,” Mo­di said amid loud ap­plause.

An OCI card is a dis­tinc­tive type of visa that al­lows in­di­vid­u­als of In­di­an her­itage to live and work in In­dia in­def­i­nite­ly. While it does not equate to dual cit­i­zen­ship, it con­fers many of the same rights and priv­i­leges as In­di­an cit­i­zens, such as the abil­i­ty to own prop­er­ty and make in­vest­ments.

His ad­dress, at times in­fused with Hin­di, strong­ly con­veyed the pride which he said he feels for the di­as­po­ra.

Mo­di had pre­vi­ous­ly vis­it­ed T&T be­fore he be­came In­dia’s prime min­is­ter, as part of a World Hin­du Con­fer­ence del­e­ga­tion.

“Friends, dur­ing my last vis­it 25 years ago, we all ad­mired the cov­er dri­ves and pull shots of (crick­eter Bri­an) Lara. To­day, it is Sunil Nar­ine and Nicholas Pooran who in­spire the same ex­cite­ment in the hearts of our youth,” Mo­di said, prompt­ing an ap­pre­cia­tive re­sponse from the au­di­ence.

He ac­knowl­edged the vi­brant cel­e­bra­tions of Ram­leela in San­gre Grande and Dow Vil­lage, as well as the fact that the names of vil­lages in In­dia are al­so names of places in this coun­try.

Mo­di al­so shared with the au­di­ence that he had brought holy wa­ter from In­dia as a to­ken of de­vo­tion, which he hopes will bless the peo­ple of T&T.

He urged T&T na­tion­als to come to In­dia, in­di­cat­ing that it was an op­por­tu­ni­ty for them to “vis­it the vil­lages of their an­ces­tors and walk on the soil they once walked.”

“Bring your chil­dren and your neigh­bours. In­vite any­one who en­joys chai and a good sto­ry,” he not­ed.

Mo­di will re­ceive the coun­try’s high­est dis­tinc­tion, the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, from Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo at Pres­i­dent’s House to­day, and will then ad­dress a joint ses­sion of Par­lia­ment.

He is set to de­part T&T for Ar­genti­na lat­er to­day.