Borderless India In the process, another acronym has entered the Indian lexicon - PIOs (persons of Indian origin) - and the Idea of India has been given another delicate twist. As per a scheme cleared by the Cabinet, PIOs will now be entitled to visa-free entry into India besides a host of economic, educational, financial and cultural benefits.

These range from being allowed to import 100 kg of silver and 10 kg of gold into India, maintaining rupee accounts, enjoying concessional tax rates to accessing local educational facilities. More importantly, it is viewed as a concrete step towards dual citizenship, a longstanding demand of Indians settled abroad which has over the years divided opinion back home.

Critics have argued that bestowing dual citizenship and its attendant advantages amounts to rewarding desertion of the motherland. They are particularly sore at the government's continued neglect of brain drain. Statistics deeming India the third largest pool of scientists and engineers often omit the fact that the creamy layer, armed with world-class training at the Government of India's expense, is year after year scooped up by western companies and research institutions.

Besides, the contrast between Indian and Chinese expatriates is inevitably thrown up. The Chinese diaspora is credited with giving a major impetus to China's dramatic economic development and lobbying relentlessly on Beijing's behalf for an increasing say in world affairs.

The Indian emigrant, on the other hand, is portrayed as a self-seeking mobile republic whose patriotic instincts are aroused only at the whiff of profit and more profit. While NRIs have for decades been cited as an untapped source of foreign exchange and investment, it took a stupendously lucrative scheme like the Resurgent India Bonds to mop up a sizeable sum of $4.2 billion - that is, at interest rates any investor would have jumped at.

On balance, however, the argument must tilt in favour of the government's decision. If the NRI potential has not been tapped so far, there is no ground to declare it a dud and persist with racist depictions of the Indian shopkeeper abroad.

For, dual citizenship has to be fortified with hard-nosed, realistic plans to create a conducive environment to utilise NRI-PIO capital and expertise - a good example being the software industry. At any rate, dual citizenship cannot be reduced to economic considerations, because above all it is an emotive issue.

Cultural ties between the diaspora and the subcontinent have dramatically soared in the nineties and attempting to partition ''Indian"and "NRI"art, literature, cinema and music would be an exercise in futility. Exclusivity has never served the country well, and in these discordant times ''end to geography"paranoia can only have a multiplier effect.

And any remaining sceptics will no doubt be converted by the cricket test of patriotism: there is no venue anywhere in the world where expatriates don't cry themselves hoarse cheering the India XI.