As the American Dream Gets Costlier, India Must Turn This Opportunity Into a ‘Reverse Brain Drain’

Hundreds of thousands of our youth have been migrating to the West, a majority to the US, after being disillusioned with India and its myriad problems and chasing the American Dream over the last five decades. But now, the dreams of thousands waiting with a US ticket in their hand are shattered with President Donald Trump’s punitive H1B1 visa fee of one hundred thousand dollars.

Indian youth made a beeline to the West over the last few decades, disillusioned with India. This migration began in the mid 1960s. And then it steadily increased with successful stories of wealthy doctors and engineers in the US doing well for themselves.

When news broke a few years ago that yet another Indian, Arvind Krishna, had become the CEO of IBM, a Fortune 500 company, following in the footsteps of Indra Nooyi of Pepsico, Sundar Pichai of Google and Satya Nadella of Microsoft and others, there was effusive praise about the rise of Indians in the US.

An exodus which turned into a flood

That triggered a further exodus which turned into a flood. Who wouldn’t be proud? But the joy of their achievements is overshadowed by the loss for India. Is it the state of affairs of our country, our own failings, or is it simply the lure of lucre that draws them like a magnet to the foreign shores?

It has been a steady loss of Indian talent over the last five decades. When the educated Indians left, these were among our most gifted young men and women from our premier institutions who migrated after securing subsidised education.

Now has come the ‘Trump shock’. A stiff, one hundred thousand dollars fee on every new applicant desirous of H1B1 work visa that permits one to stay in the US for work, which came into effect a few days ago with no notice and which has created utter chaos and upended the life of many Indian immigrants.

Even those with the visas in hand and about to board a plane and those already living there are in panic, uncertain about their future under the reign of unpredictable US President Donald Trump. I felt an acute pang of pain at their plight and desperation to hold on to the Eldorado of the ‘American Dream. ‘

But India also sends others, millions of them, flocking to the oil rich Middle Eastern Arab nations working as construction and oil rigs labourers and other menial jobs. They work and live in cramped dormitories, separated from their families. Then there are thousands working in hospitals as nurses, clerks and accountants, shop assistants and many in hotels, restaurants and spas. The Indian diaspora. is larger than the local Arab population and is the backbone of the economies of those countries.

The labourers of Arab Countries are in a way akin to the indentured slave labourers who were shipped to sugar plantations in Mauritius, Trinidad, Tobago and Fiji and other countries by the British, and who stayed behind in those countries after they became independent of colonial rule.

There are other categories of illegal migrants desperately seeking opportunities outside India which is sadly unable to absorb the burgeoning population into its economy. They sell their meagre possessions and lured by unscrupulous agents embark on hazardous journeys risking their lives and try to enter the US and Canada through the notorious ‘Dunki routes’ landing first in South America and trek their way through the night.

Many are loaded on tiny boats and attempt to gain entry to Europe and the US. Some perish en route. Some are caught, imprisoned and deported.

There is another class. The trading community from Gujarat who first settled in Africa and then expelled and found their way to Britain and the US. Very enterprising, thrifty , hardworking and well knit among themselves, they have prospered, setting up “Patel’s Motels’’, and retail stores catering to the Indian diaspora.

I thought also about the numerous Indians who had gone abroad for higher studies to the West, around a century ago, who gave up successful and lucrative careers in the US or Britain and returned to India.

And they did so during India’s bleakest times and became a source of inspiration and beacons of light to countless people who joined them to win independence from the mighty British Empire and strove  to remove poverty, ignorance, social evils and injustice.

They saw the same India as the others and sought to make it better, rather than to dismiss it as hopeless and make their lives elsewhere when they had the chance to do so.

From Gandhi, to Nehru and Ambedkar, those who chose to return from abroad

The most well known example is of course Mahatma Gandhi, who had a fairly prosperous legal practice in South Africa after becoming a barrister in England, and who returned to India to work for independence. The saga of B.R. Ambedkar is even more stirring and inspiring.

A Dalit who grew up in extreme poverty, whose family suffered untouchability, and who went on to study in two of the most iconic institutions – Columbia University in the US and the London School of Economics. He earned from these institutions not one but two doctorate degrees in economics. He was also a barrister at law from Gray’s Inn, a scholar in economics, law and political science and the architect of our Constitution. He dedicated his whole life to the upliftment of Dalits.

Or think of Jawaharlal Nehru, born to a wealthy father, Motilal Nehru, and educated at Harrow and Cambridge and who too became a barrister after training in the law at the Inner Temple, gave up everything and sailed to India to join the freedom movement. The tale of Subhas Chandra Bose, who returned from Cambridge, and his leadership in the Congress and later of Azad Hind Fauj is electrifying. Vallabhbhai Patel saved up money to go to London and trained in law at the Middle Temple Inn, became a barrister topping his class but took a ship back to India to later join Gandhi’s freedom struggle. Aurobindo Ghose, Sarojini Naidu, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, alumni of the best educational institutions came back too.

Their stories and their struggles, the adventures of their minds, their reformist zeal and inextinguishable optimism, and their love for the country invigorate and fascinate you. They returned to a country in its darkest period of oppression by the British, riven by factions and internal strife, a caste and communal cauldron, and to a people mired in poverty.

They faced beatings and bullets and long prison sentences. And it is troubling that while those extraordinary individuals chose to return to repair our society‘s ills, those who are making a beeline for America and leaving the country are doing it because of our overwhelming problems – of lack of opportunity, casteism and reservations, social and communal strife, corruption.

Why have our young become anaesthetised to the ills of our society and are turning their back on India and heading to the West? Why is a similar zeal and fervour missing today? Have globalisation and technology desensitised and deadened our nobler feelings and sentiments? Is it a blind worship of the West and its opulence that has dulled our senses? Why are those who have settled abroad, despite their good jobs, more insecure today and increasingly jingoistic in advising their kin here to “preserve our culture” and “Hindu supremacy”.

In the years before Independence and post-Independence, right uptil 1974, when US and Western sanctions kicked in, the likes of Nehru and Indira Gandhi, and Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai would recruit and send hundreds of freedom fighters, scientists and engineers, artists and academics, leaders and managers abroad and provide them opportunities to come back and serve India.

Thus, Jayaprakash Narayan, was initially fired up by the son-of-the-soil patriotism of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, returned from the University of Wisconsin and joined the Indian National Congress on Jawaharlal Nehru’s invitation and became a hero of the Quit India Movement, later going on to oppose Indira Gandhi and Emergency, galvanising the youth of the country and the opposition parties.

Then there’s Verghese Kurien, whom the Nehru government sent off to study nuclear engineering but who came back to be sent to Anand to build the Amul dairy movement. Hundreds, if not thousands, of nuclear and space scientists and engineers went abroad thus and came back to serve India’s strategic programmes; others built the civilian science institutions and workforce; still others came back to teach at IITs and IIMs and AIIMS, etc.

Other countries already wooing Indian citizens

Those who cross the oceans to discover and ‘conquer’ new lands should be celebrated for their achievements  with generosity, whatever our reservations about them that impelled them to leave our land.

With the harsh imposition of  Trump's sanctions on H1 B visa holders and the increasing racism against immigrants in the US and other Western nations, India must welcome them back, from all religious  identities and with open arms to help build the Indian economy and create jobs. India must turn this opportunity into a ‘reverse brain drain’.

Indians and others who may find it difficult to get an H1B visa are already being wooed by other countries, such as China and Britain who are easing their visa rules. At the very least, India should provide a conducive environment for its own citizens to return or stay back and work in and for this country.

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