Abstract
On 9 January 2003, more than 2,000 people from around the world arrived in New Delhi to participate in an event that was touted as the “largest gathering of the global Indian family.” Banners prominently displaying the Indian tricolor lined the roads leading to the convention site, superimposed with the slogan “Welcome Back, Welcome Home.” Surrounded by intense media attention, India’s prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, inaugurated Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, proclaiming that this event commemorated the “Day of Indians Abroad.” Over the next three days, in the midst of the coldest winter Delhi had experienced in years, the Indian government and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) spent twenty-two crore rupees (US$49 million) on lectures, seminars, trade exhibition booths, lavish amounts of food and drink, and spectacular stage shows featuring Bollywood actors. Advertised widely on the Web and in the Indian news media, Pravasi Bharatiya Divas was the first government-sponsored event that brought together Indians in India with representatives of the nearly 20 million Indians who live overseas.
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