Gurdaspur-born Nahar is Spain’s Senator

NEW DELHI: Having made successful forays into legislatures in Canada, the US and the UK, Indians are now entering politics in continental Europe as well. Gurdaspur-born Robert Masih Nahar (43), earlier this year, became the first Asian to be elected to Spain’s Upper House (Senate), representing Barcelona.

Robert Masih Nahar says he will try to become the voice of a lakh-and-a-half South Asians in Catalonia (Spain). Tribune Photo

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 29

Having made successful forays into legislatures in Canada, the US and the UK, Indians are now entering politics in continental Europe as well. Gurdaspur-born Robert Masih Nahar (43), earlier this year, became the first Asian to be elected to Spain’s Upper House (Senate), representing Barcelona.

He replaced Santiago Vidal, a former judge, as Senator representing Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) — a Left-wing party which has been seeking independence for Catalonia from Spain.

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Situated in the northern part of Spain, Catalonia has called for a referendum on October 1 to decide its political future. Nahar says almost 80 per cent of Catalans are “willing to celebrate the referendum to decide in favour of a better future”.

Trained as an event manager, Nahar speaks six languages — Catalan, English, Spanish, Hindi, Italian and Punjabi. A businessman and a cricket enthusiast, he has founded the Catalan Cricket Federation. He has also launched the Indian Culture Centre in Barcelona.

“I am trying to promote cricket and cultural exchanges with India in Catalan society,” Nahar, who is in India to meet his relatives, told The Tribune.

In Barcelona since 2005, Nahar sees cricket as a sport which can bring India and Catalonia closer. He founded the Catalan Union of Clubs in 2010 which went on to become the official cricket federation of Catalonia in 2013 with 56 clubs affiliated to it.

“We inaugurated Catalonia’s first official cricket ground in 2015 in the presence of ICC president Zaheer Abbas,” he says. Describing India as the fastest growing economy, Nahar says besides culture and sports there are many areas in trade and business in which India and Spain can work together. On Indian immigrants in Spain, he says: “Unlike the UK, the US or Canada, where second and third generations of Indian immigrants are leading a successful life, we are the first generation of immigrants in Spain, and life is not that easy for us.”

Asked how he had landed up in Spain, Nahar says he left India for Mexico in 2002 and worked there as an English teacher. During his visit to Italy to meet his parents in 2005, he decided to visit Barcelona and could not leave that place.

Nahar, member of the International Cooperation and Development Commission, says he will work for the Catalan society at the international fora and try become the voice of over 1.5 lakh South Asians in Catalonia. On his political journey in Spain, he says, “I was always active in sports and culture. I joined the ERC in 2012 because of its Left-leaning ideology that was against corruption and favoured equal rights to citizens, irrespective of the colour of their skin or religion.”