Be prepared for ‘go back to America!’

We like forewarning you, dear reader, not just because it’s our job to, but also because to forewarn is to forearm. So, when we heard that in a lambi list drawn up by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement – with its poignantly apt acronym ICE – of the some 1.45 mn people slated for deportation the moment Trump sits down in his Oval Office chair, there are 1.8 lakh Indians also waiting to be sent home, we thought of a scenario. Now, there’s nothing new in Indians trying to slip out of India and into America – mostly from states like Punjab, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, whose people can afford to pay to try and slip into that country. About 90,000 Indians were apprehended in the land of the American Dream (coincidentally, that happens to be America!) in the last three years alone. But what we foresee is the possible new trend of Indians in India telling these Indians who left India and may be deported from America, ‘Go back to America!’

The history of people of a country begrudging fellow countrypersons of leaving their country is largely repressed. Till now, it was fed by envy. But with India becoming a richer developing country, envy could give way to derision. Or worse. For those who left India only to be not allowed to stay elsewhere, a halfway house could be arranged. Not in India, but in all-forgiving Bharat, of course.