Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thoughts on Indian Immigration
Recently there has been a backlash on Indian-related immigration to the US. The chickens have come to roost finally on the immigration of Indians to foreign shores. Let me break it down for you. There were three ways in which an Indian could legally immigrate to a country which paid salaries in local currency :
1. Use the H1B visa for US - do engineering from a tier 2/3 college. Join a IT services provider on a sub-par salary. Have this unspoken covenant with them that eventually you will get to go "Onsite" and use the "Saving Potential" for a few years to make your money. Once you are onsite, you had two choices. Stay in the company and move to Sales or some other function building a long-term future in the company if you had the leadership chops. Or ditch your IT services employer and then go and work for another US company hopefully, who can continue to sponsor your stay legally in the US.
Everybody knew that this game was rigged. To get a H1B visa, the company had to show that these skills were 'difficult' to hire in the US. For this companies would give an ad in an obscure publication and hence establish that while it tried, one was not able to find the right 'talent' in the US. Suddenly an Indian engineer from tier-2/tier-3 engineering college became the sought after 'talent' which the world's best educational system in the world could not supposedly produce in sufficient numbers. Yes, one can agree that there might be certain niches where talent was deficient in the US but it spawned a systematic undermining of the flawed immigration system for 25 years. Mind you, there is no one villain here. The Indian company whose business model was dependent on this. The US immigration system which allowed this in plain sight for 30+ years, the immigration consultants and lawyers, the eager engineers who wanted to go to the US by hook or crook. Also US companies who could poach Indians once they left their IT services employers without having to do the H1B dance themselves or pay competitive salaries (the engineer is grateful that you are sponsoring his visa). No one entity is responsible. It was a collective, complicit system which benefited everyone concerned.
2. The other way was to use the Skilled visa program in some other anglophone countries (Canada/UK/Australia) and try to land up there. Of course, these countries wanted some smart immigrants as a part of their growth policies. But the problem was it was essentially a lottery that had to be won by using immigration consultants. The right documents and the right qualification would help you to emigrate. But when you went there, you would probably have to take up jobs much lesser than your qualifications. The trade off was - a sub-par job in a western country which paid dollar salaries vs making the hard grind in India. Another route was to do your graduation/postgraduation in these countries by paying full tuition and hope that you land a job after your education visa expires. The cost of this was prohibitive and families would spend substantially to sponsor a son/daughter to go to some tier-2 college in these countries and hope to land a job after graduation. (The US MS degree was relatively cheap and it gave scores of Indians a start without the H1B visa charade)
3. The third model was going to the middle east as a blue collar /grey collared worker and then move up the chain to become someone who is managerial in that country. The benefit of the middle-east was what while there was no freedom (everything brutally controlled by that country), India was a 2-hour flight away and effectively the entire GCC (Dubai/Oman/Bahrain) was populated with people from the Indian sub-continent. Most people around looked like you and while some were Pakistanis/Afghanis/Bangladeshis, the infra was way better than in India with significantly better salaries.
Now, there is a backlash across the world against Indians. It is rife in the Western world where Indians who went were sufficiently "white-collared" which led to the suspicion that the 'good' jobs were being 'stolen'. When there is a nativist backlash across the world, it is inevitable that Indians are in the cross-hairs. The reality is that very few people who emigrated were truly talented. They were just regular folks who just wanted to earn dollar salaries. This ugly truth is now being openly articulated by the populists who see that there is nothing special about the foreign visa holders. These jobs could have been done by regular Americans. They also have a valid justification that companies needed to pay just 60 K to the H1B Visa holders. Yes, some companies paid more but plenty just preyed on the desperation of the Indian to get and stay in the US by hook or crook.
The reason why there is little backlash in the middle-east is because you will find janitors and construction labourers which the middle-east locals know keep the region humming and are too rich to do these jobs. Also, the requirement that any business in the middle-east has to have a local partner meant that capital and power was always in the hands of a local. Yes the Indians did run some local banks/ companies but ultimately they were 'employees' at the mercy of the Seikh. BTW, the middle-east played a very good game. Since they did not have any natural advantages, (who would want to go and slog in 45 degree heat), it scrapped income tax. The country was anyway funded by oil wealth and they did not need the income tax from foreign workers. This was catnip for Indians who see any income tax they pay in India without any direct benefit to them.
And what of the ones who escaped ? Yes they did get their dollar salaries and as is inevitable human nature, started to perhaps brag to the cousins back in India that they have escaped. Most folks who went to the US, would look down upon others who were 'left behind' in India while constantly pining about India in the US. (the household help, the $10 dollar dosa, the 'love' of parents who they knowingly ditched). They would come to India during Christmas, stay in 5-star hotels, bring some goodies for the cousins and get fawned on by the adoring family as a world-conqueror. (in reality a database admin in some town in Texas)
In my view they were the ultimate hypocrites. I have no problem with people who have left India willingly and don't look back. If you agree to become a citizen of a given country, you have to leave your allegiance with the previous country. You cannot put your feet in two boats. (culturally Indian with a US passport). For example, the desi emigrants wanted their sons and daughters to behave as is if they were in India (no/only dating desis, filial obedience and choosing safe careers). They took pride in the classical music and dance lessons without teaching them the history/values of their now-country. Basically they want the best of both worlds. The economic benefit of that country and the real deep-seated (political and cultural) allegiance of the mother country. If you have chosen to become the citizen of a given country (nay, waited years and years for that elusive green card), then your allegiance has to be that country (US), not the country whose passport you were so willing to ditch. I have no problem in people willingly emigrating and never looking back.
They never tried to be the 'insiders' - and perhaps could not be even if they tried. They look different and act different. Yes, some of them became CEOs in the US but it speaks more about the meritocracy of the US system than the ability of Indians (BTW, none of these CEOs are Indians anymore. They are all US citizens and we Indians take false pride in saying how great we are because 10 out of 3 million Indian-Americans became global CEOs).
So why did Indians want to emigrate so badly ? Purely economic. Because the Indian economy was not able to provide respectable jobs to the vast majority of the everyday population. The rat-race is brutal in India and there is a lack of reasonable jobs here. Why is that is the topic for another post ?
So where that does leave us ? The only way is that we have to build a better economy and better jobs in our country. No citizen of a country wants to emigrate if economic reasons are not there. How many foreigners have you found in India or China who have willingly moved there because of economic opportunity ? Look around in Mumbai or Delhi or Bangalore. Not many.
