ELVIS WAS DESI,SO WAS PICASSO !

George Mikes, the British humorist who was born in Hungary, claimed, tongue in cheek, that everyone in the world was of Hungarian origin. The Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR) might take exception to such a pronouncement by making the counterclaim that everyone – or at least almost everyone – is actually of Indian descent.

At its recent three-day Delhi conference – attended by international scholars and ministers Sushma Swaraj and Mahesh Sharma – the ICCR raised an old theory which traces the origins of the globally scattered community of the Romany folk – variously known as Roma, gypsies, tinkers and Zingari – to India where this nomadic tribe is said to be represented by the Banjaras.

If ICCR’s assertion were to be taken at face value – or race value – it adds an entirely new dimension to the already much-vaunted Indian diaspora and its global reach.

The diaspora has become the darling of our current prime minister – and vice versa – and the supposition that thanks to the Romany connection he could have a far larger potential fan following abroad could well spur NaMo to undertake even more foreign forays than he already does. Indeed, thanks to his itinerant ways, the PM could himself claim to be part wandering gypsy, by inclination if nothing else.