Outmigration of Indians: Worrying Trends

While there is a trend of Indians moving abroad for jobs and studies, such a trend would imply that India would become dependent country, writes Dr Ananth S.

Hyderabad: Movement of people from one part of the country or to different countries is integral and an important part of the history of India. Right from the migration of Aryans into the country to the present, Indians have moved around the country and to other countries in large numbers. While Indians have a right to travel and reside anywhere in the country, migration to other countries requires far more resources.

According to the Ministry of External Affairs there are about 3.2 crore overseas Indians. Among these are 1.34 crore non resident Indians (NRIs) and 1.86 crore persons of Indian origin (PIO or persons who are citizens of other countries). It is estimated that every year an estimated 25 lakh Indians are going out of the country.

Recent news stories pointed out that in the period from October 2022 to September 2023, 96917 Indians were caught trying to enter the USA illegally. This excludes those who go to other countries on a tourist visa and disappear and also excludes the thousands of young Indians who are going abroad to study: most of whom do not want to return to India after their studies.

Increasingly smaller towns are now in the forefront of students who are keen to move out for higher studies. While official data is not easily available, recent newspaper reports that Guntur and Hyderabad have topped the number of students writing TOEFL and GRE exam is indicative of the hope and aspiration to move out.

Data indicates that Indians now account for 12.3% of those appearing for these two exams in 2022 while in previous year it was 7.5% and this has now reached 1.1 lakhs in 2022 – half of these are from Andhra Pradesh and Telengana. Those moving out or wanting to move out (“out-migration”), including those who are rich.

Another report, pointed out that 7000 millionaires who had net worth of more than Rs.8.3 crores (equivalent or more than US$1 million) had given up Indian passport last year – the third highest number after China and Russia. It also pointed out that from 2013 – 2022, 48,500 millionaires left the country. The only reason why the out-migration is not higher is because of the difficulty in gaining a visa and immigration permission and the lack of economic means for most people who would like to migrate.

While these numbers seem more like a drop in the bucket and miniscule compared to India’s population of more than 1.4 billion people

Reasons

The fact that so many Indians, especially the younger generation, want to leave the country should be a cause for worry. History shows us that often the primary cause for young people and those with means to migrate out of a country is the expectations about the place where they live vis-à-vis the place they migrate to.

In the case of India, the fact that so many young people have decided to migrate out of the country is because of their low expectations of their future well being in the country and their expectation that their standard of living will be better off in another country, especially in the more advanced country. There is little doubt that the middle classes in the country have been decimated since 2017; covid only increased the pace of this decline.

A study had suggested that about 3.2 crore Indians had slipped back into poverty due to the impact of COVID5. The fact that this trend has accelerated in the past five years and that these five years have also coincided with the Indian economy increasingly becoming stagnant, not creating jobs, rising prices, rising taxes, increasingly higher cost of mediocre quality education, growing social tensions and growing suppression of dissent clearly highlights the problems that plague the country and the underlying causes that trigger an urge to leave the country.

A slowing and stagnating economy that is not able to create jobs that can help fulfill the aspirations of youth in turn bring the focus on India’s mediocre education system. In the case of India, growing number of people migrating/ leaving the country comes at a time when the working age population is increasing. It has been pointed out that India share of the working age population is expected to increase from 55.8% to 58.8% from 2020 to 2031 – which is approximately 100 million people added to the workforce.

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A mediocre education system that does nothing to equip youth with abilities to take advantage of an economy that is increasingly requires high level of skill sets does not help much. Further, the rise in cost of living has made matters worse leading to perception that their position is beyond repair and that only possibility of rising the economic and with it social ladder is only possible by migration.

The near doubling of food prices in the past 10 years has not helped6. While prices rise and fall in all countries, problem arises when people start believing that their future earnings will not be sufficient to compensate for rising prices. That perception can only be overcome when governments take proactive measures to create an enabling and level playing field for all Indians without favouring only a few.

Further, the mis-steps of demonetization, GST and a conscious policy attempt to encourage large enterprises at the cost of small and medium enterprises has only led to a gradual closing and/or restriction of opportunities which in turn has led to the perception that the future is bleak for many. The fact that an youth increasingly aspirational find that the gradual closing of opportunities at the lower and mid level due to government policy that encourages large conglomerates and the increased role of caste, religion, regional or political preferences to optimize their career has not helped matters.

In other words, the gradual erosion in the rule of law (either real or perceived) has increasingly led to citizens believing that their life will be better off on distant shores than in the country. While governments may be in denial for this, a look at increasing the number of NRIs who may have returned to their adopted country after 2019 may be illustrative.

High levels of taxes and growing tendency of the government impose taxes retrospectively and state governments not adhering to contracts in an arbitrary manner do not help.

Implications

In recent times, those with some means seem to be getting desperate to leave the country in search of greener pastures. It indicates a revival of the “brain drain” that India witnessed in the 1970s to the 1990s when educated and those with means left the country. If this were to review, it would mean that instead of competing with the other major countries, India would in essence become a completely dependent, large country.

Hence, there is an urgent need for the government to take urgent, remedial measures. First and foremost, governments need to invest in decentralization and more investment in Rule of Law. At the same time, we cannot have a system where only rules exist and there is decreasing space for the optimum evolution of the human abilities.

Hence, the existence of fundamental rights on paper but more restrictions including fear of attacks do not help. Second, governments need to take a complete relook at the present system of direct cash transfer to beneficiaries and instead start investing in quality infrastructure especially those related by education and health.

A preferable model to cash transfer will be investing in free, high quality education and health rather than giving cash transfer. But, that will require large investments in schools, colleges, universities, reskilling centres and hospitals of different sizes across the country. Medical education is illustrative: governments need to ask the question why increasing number of students are going abroad to study medicine at far higher cost than India?

One obvious reason is that while there is huge demand for quality education, supply is scarce. Third, there is a need for India to go back to a system that provides equal opportunity and level playing field for all irrespective of political affiliations or personal preferences. Fourth, there is an urgent need for the economy to become more open to global economic forces and its policy and surveillance mechanisms need to be less intrusive.