In the anniversary year of George Floyd’s death, one incident from the past has come to remind us that racial inequality is still a stark reality, and more so in the oldest democracy of the world. It has taken exactly 100 years for the state of Oklahoma to include the Tulsa race riots of May 1921 in the school syllabus. For reasons best known to the state administration, this incident, arguably the worst of its kind in the USA, has all this while been a guarded official secret, even though Greenwood in Tulsa, the most prosperous African American neighborhood in America a century ago, was wiped out in a blaze of bombing, fire and gunshots in a matter of hours. The oldest survivor from that time, Ms Viola Fletcher, 107, had this to say while testifying at a recent hearing of the House of Representatives: “I will never forget the violence of the white mob when we left our home (in May 1921). I still see black men being shot, black bodies lying in the street.” These racial incidents gain greater importance as in 2021 there have been a spate of attacks on Asian Americans, higher than ever in the past.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has previously described himself as a “son-in-law of India” owing to his former wife’s Punjabi Sikh mother. According to reports, he is a self-proclaimed Indophile. While in office, he has also put on record his fervent Sinophilia. But can he really be both? An article by Gray Sergeant tries to answer this poser.

Ambassador Malay Mishra who is our Global Advisory Board was part of the set up when the erstwhile Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs was created in 2004. He became Joint Secretary (Diaspora) after serving as Joint Secretary (NRI) in the Ministry of External Affairs. He writes with anguish at how the diaspora feels lost nowadays since the ministry as well as a number of its autonomous organizations has been taken away from it.