Indiaspora report recommends stronger OCI card in new report on Indian diaspora

Indiaspora, a nonprofit organisation comprising global Indian leaders across diverse sectors, released its ‘India and its Diaspora: Partners in Progress’ report on Monday. The publication explores the growing influence of the Indian diaspora in shaping the nation’s future through business, innovation, philanthropy, and the arts.

With more than 35 million people of Indian heritage living in over 200 countries with an estimated annual income of $730 billion, the Indian diaspora is the largest in the world and one of the most influential. The Indiaspora report highlights how this community is evolving from a traditional source of remittances into a powerful force of capital, capability, and credibility helping accelerate India’s rise as it pursues its India@100 vision of becoming a developed nation by 2047.

“We are having our event - Indiaspora Forum - in Bengaluru and the reason we wanted to release this report now is because we think it is important to connect the diaspora with India. We see the inflection points of the diaspora and India,” Sanjeev Joshipura, executive director, Indiaspora, said. The report has found that while remittances once defined the diaspora’s connection to India, engagement today is far deeper.

Diaspora leaders now contribute investment, knowledge, technology partnerships, and global networks that strengthen India’s economic growth, innovation ecosystem, and international standing.The report also captures the diaspora’s strong optimism and desire to engage. Survey respondents expressed confidence in their ability to contribute to India’s future. Many envision an India that by 2047 stands among the world’s leading economies, drives global innovation, reduces inequality, and delivers a high quality of life for its citizens.However, the report notes that structural barriers and inefficiencies still limit deeper diaspora engagement. Drawing on insights from more than 200 leaders across 24 countries, the report outlines practical recommendations for both Indian policymakers and diaspora leaders to unlock greater collaboration and long-term impact. “One section of the report is dedicated to recommendations on what India can do to harness diaspora for its potential towards a developed India in 2047.

Our recommendation on the issue of identity is to make a stronger Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card and give the overseas Indian citizen more responsibilities and rights than what they currently have. We even feel that there should be a start of the dialogue on the issue of dual citizenship, even though I know that there are multiple lenses on the subject and we know that it’s not simple.

But a large section of the Indian diaspora would be very interested in that,” Joshipura said.The report – Partners in Progress – builds on earlier studies that have documented the Indian diaspora’s contributions and is more comprehensive focussing on actionable strategies to strengthen diaspora engagement across economic, cultural, social, and philanthropic domains.The report also builds on Indiaspora’s earlier Impact reports produced with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). The first, Small Community, Big Contributions (2024), highlighted the outsized impact of Indian Americans across business, science, philanthropy, politics, and the arts and the second, in 2025, documented the extraordinary growth and influence of the Indian community in the UAE.“We are talking to prominent people in government in New Delhi now to work on next steps from our recommendations. In the area of contributions in India by members of the diaspora, we routinely hear that India operates in a manner where friction is still quite high to get things done. There are still problems. It still takes time and there are multiple issues despite many improvements that have been made. There is still some way to go in reducing friction points in terms of doing business; collaborating on philanthropy and in the area of the arts and academics,” Joshipura said.Indiaspora is now also looking at doing reports related to other countries where the Indian diaspora is active such as the UK.