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Analysis
Happy Homecoming
The Reversal of the Brain Drain
By
Ramesh Menon
"A
moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out
from the old to the new, when an age ends and when the soul of a
nation, long suppressed, finds utterance." – Jawaharlal Nehru
at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947
when independence was born.
 The winding
queues outside foreign embassies for visas may not be getting any shorter,
but it is not of desperate Indians anymore wanting to make a career in the
west. They are mainly students wanting to experience studying abroad or of
well heeled tourists. Instead, Indians who were working abroad for many
years are now making a beeline for India. They want to come back home, work
here and live a life they longed for.
The India they see today is not the India they left around ten to twenty
years ago. It now has the ability to offer good jobs, attractive salaries,
comfortable lifestyles, good education for children and also a lovely
shopping experience with affordable prices. No more is the west seen as the
land of the rising son. India is the fastest growing economy in the world
after China.
A couple of years ago, India’s main concern were losing its young educated
talent to the west. It is no more a source of worry. The young are staying
back of their will as there are opportunities galore in India. A ticket to
go west may be still attractive for further studies and thereafter, a short
stint at a job to gain experience of working in a different culture, a
different country.
But after that, they are looking for opportunities to wing back home in a
changing India to take up challenging jobs. Welcome to reverse brain drain.
Earlier, every middle class father and mother dreamt of their son or
daughter finding a slot in any foreign country to work and settle down in.
Not anymore. A growth of eight per cent in the last few years, had added a
new confidence.
Shubham Rai, who found a good job at Kotak Mahindra after his MBA, has now
quit it to be on his own. At 25, he has emerged an entrepreneur. He has
whipped up an online service that helps people rent houses or anything for
that matter without having brokers fleecing you. The changed market
situation has helped him find the courage to do this, he says, and would
rather be in India experimenting with new things than go abroad and do a
boring job. In many ways, Rai symbolizes the new India where the youth have
a different dream. India is their playground. Rai knows the risks he has
taken, but is confident of doing well in a buoyant economy.
India still has its contradictions, but that is okay, the west has its ones
too. There is no racism here, life is inexpensive, houses are affordable and
the joy and freedom is incomparable. Says Ravi Kant Singh, who threw a
highly paying job in Singapore to work in New Delhi: “I did not regret even
once after coming back. I love the free air here, the new job opportunities
and the joy of celebration.”
Fareed Zakharia, one of the most respected journalists in the United States
who now an editor with Newsweek International, wrote that in the last ten
years he had not seen any country like India in the world which had captured
the world’s imagination at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The perception of India is changing rapidly in the eyes of the world. No
more is it associated with a dungeon of poverty. It is seen as a vibrant
democracy in the throes of positive change. For the first time, India is
being seen as one of the biggest emerging economies in the world. No wonder,
foreign players are all over India wanting to invest in it in hope of
spinning a fortune in the years to come.
If the world’s largest democracy had finally had the confidence to put up a
sign in Davos that read, “India Everywhere” it was with good reason.
Incredible India, may be the Tourism departments golden slogan, but just sit
back and think. The Indian growth in numerous sectors has been incredible.
Outsourcing, IT, real estate and the media have become icons of growth and
promise.
Privately run companies have been India's great success. It has shown what
private enterprise could do breaking away from red tape and bureaucracy that
has straddled public sector enterprises since independence. The booming
telecommunications industry, created by intelligent government deregulation
and re-regulation is a shining example of what the new India can do.
So, it is with good reason that the world wants to court India. If the
United States has made friendly overtures in the recent past, it is only
because they know that their future is linked to doing business with India.
Foreign Direct Investment is up with new players coming in everyday. India
is looking outside to invest. Oil majors are all over the place competing
with the world in investing in oil fields. Automobile majors are also eyeing
foreign takeovers. Ditto for steel magnets.
A survey by Indus Entrepreneurs, an association of Indian IT professionals
in the United States showed that 60,000 of them have returned home. What is
the reason? Lifestyles that were as good as the ones in the US, the need to
shield their children from western influences and the economic turnaround in
India that offered attractive salaries were the main reasons.
Apart from this was the fact that the Western economy was slowing down. Pink
slips were a fear that was hanging like a sword and the fact that immigrants
would be the first to take the brunt, were other reasons. India atleast
ensured that they would no more be victims of racism and one could ensure
that children benefited from the rich Indian culture and way of life.
The IT boom in India has thrown up numerous opportunities. This is one
reason for the NRI’s wanting to come back. This has been mainly seen in the
cities of Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai. IT firms are more than
happy to receive them as they have a global worldview and an experience that
is vital for Indian companies that are growing globally.
A 2003 study by Goldman Sachs predicted that India will be the fastest
growing economy in the world over the next 50 years. In another ten years,
its economy will be larger than Italy and in 15 years, larger than Britain.
By 2050, its per capita income will be 35 times the current level. Indian
companies are growing rapidly with yearly gains between 15 and 25 percent.
Look at how the Tata group is growing. Just around ten years ago, it was
collapsing and workers feared becoming jobless as its units in Pune were on
the brink of closure. Then came, it’s indigenously made car, Indica, and it
was back to business. Today, it not only makes cars and trucks, but also is
into steel, software and consulting. There are many such examples.
In the last four year, Japan has awarded the coveted Deming Prizes for
managerial innovation to more Indian companies than their own. As the
economy grows and develops, there is more money floating around. The highest
personal consumption in the world is in the United States is 70 per cent of
the GDP. Guess who comes second? It is India with 67 per cent. China is 42
per cent.
The credit card industry is growing at the rate of over 35 per cent a year.
This may not necessarily be good news as individuals and families are now
moving towards a lifestyle of living in constant debt. They move from month
to month on plastic money-just as the west does. But living on loans is no
more seen as a bad thing. A lot of youngsters today pick up a flat even
before they are in their thirties-as loans are easily available. All this
has resulted in a noticeable change in urban India forcing the NRI to look
at India differently. It is no more the country he left a few years ago.
India today is on the verge of blooming into a truly independent democracy,
hopeful, boisterous, vibrant, empowering its citizen economically and
politically and open to change. What the NRI who is returning finds
particularly attractive is the fact that finally India is getting off its
shackled and over-regulated private sector. It has ended the license Raj.
Let us however, not gloss over the reverse brain drain and romanticize it
more than it deserves. It is a good thing that is happening as India stands
to gain. But India needs to do a lot to put its act together. There are
serious problems that need emergency attention: More than 300 million people
are still living on less than a dollar a day. India is home to 40 percent of
the worlds poor. It has the largest number of Tuberculosis patients and the
second largest HIV population.
It has a huge slum population in every city, but even in the slums things
are changing. Slum dwellers are entrepreneurs doing small business and many
have color televisions and a fridge.
India has to deal with growing casteism, communalism, terrorist attacks,
crime and urban chaos. It has to improve governance if it has to grow
consistently. It has to cut down poverty levels. It has to improve
educational standards, push up vocational education and deal with rising
unemployment due to its huge population.
If the reverse brain drain has to be ensured, India has a lot to do. It must
learn from China on how to take a courageous leap. In 1960, believe it or
not, India had a higher per capita GDP than China. Today, it is less than
half of the Asian giant. South Korea has the same GDP as India 58 years ago.
Today, it is ahead by 13 times. According to the United Nations Human
Development Index, India ranks 124 out of 177, behind Syria, Sri Lanka,
Vietnam and the Dominican Republic. This is gauged by income, health,
literacy and other development parameters. Female literacy in India is as
low as 54 percent.
Politicians in India have hardly been the stuff icons are made of. But for a
change, India has got Dr. Manmohan Singh, one of the brightest economists
today as its Prime Minister. He was the one who opened the economy in the
early nineties, the fruits of which we are reaping today.
To Indians both inside and outside, it feels good to see the country headed
by a man who not only understands issues like education, economic growth and
empowerment of his people, but is also known for his honesty and simplicity.
He has been involved in no scandal and is unlikely to ever be in one. He is
definitely one of the best leaders India has had at the helm. He has got a
finance minister and a commerce minister who are hammering out reform as
much as they can despite, a myopic left party that is a part of his
coalition government.
The real challenge for him is to make good economics and good politics go
together. But that is not so easy.
“Brand India”, has come to signify many things to those outside India.
Today, India brings images of an Asian tiger straddling the economic
highway. India is a nation of youngsters with dreams of economic growth,
prosperity and well-being. In a country that is the fastest growing free
market economy, it may well become true.
India has done well despite its politicians. That is no mean achievement. It
speaks volumes of the resilience and tenacity that Indians have. No wonder
they have done well wherever they migrated to. Now, ofcourse, the new story
is of how they are coming back to India to see a new life, a new day.
June 1, 2008
Image under license with Gettyimages.com
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