By Viknesh – Recently I saw a video going around about India Today erroneously saying that “Indian-Origin/Tamilian” Tharman Shanmugaratnam will be taking over Lee Hsien Loong as the new prime minister of Singapore. The blunder aside, I find it problematic that they had to claim every Indian around the world as their own, even if the individual wasn’t even born there.
This isn’t about ethnicity.
Singaporean Indian, American Indian, British Indian etc. These descriptors are enough to describe someone who is ethnically Indian but started or built their lives elsewhere. It is redundant to add the word “origin”. Honestly, whether you say “Indian-Origin Singaporean” or “Singaporean Indian”, people would come to the same conclusion about who you are talking about.
They are evidently trying to emphasize and remind their audience that these individuals they are describing originated from India. In essence, claiming credit for “producing” these individuals as if this credit means anything. This is despite these individuals not being Indian-born, or sometimes, not even having lived in India.
Call me Indian, but never say that I am “Indian-Origin”.
I have never step foot into India, and I will not let India take any credit for my life. You don’t hear any other nations doing this, not even China. Imagine if they claim that every ethnic-Chinese as their own, “China-origin Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong”, or even “China-Origin Shou Chew”. The world would view them very differently.
Shut up India for f*cks sake.
