ASIA!

India is again facing a huge and fast growing brain drain. But it is one its government is actively encouraging. In a reversal of the situation that prevailed until as recently as 2004, the drain now starts from the US and ends up in India.

Starting June or July 2004, an average of nearly 1,700 Indian technology professionals have returned to their homeland, after years or even decades of living and working in California, Boston and other high tech hubs. All in, some 30,000 have made the move. They are lured by India’s resurgent economy and rosy job prospects for high tech personnel, especially those with experience from working in the West.

For some, “return” may not be the correct word. An increasing number of those who have “returned” to India do not come from there. They are of Indian descent, no doubt. But they were also born in the US, children of those who moved from India to the US in the past few decades. To these people, employment is not the only reason that prompted their relocation.

"I sense an altruistic pull to return to India to help build their home country to a greater power than the country had ever hoped to achieve," Lori Blackman, a recruitment consultant in Dallas, told the New York Times in an interview.

Altruism is well and good, but money speaks loud and clear— and India’s IT industry is certainly swimming with money. Foreign investments are rolling in at record rates. In the second half of 2005, three American IT giants—Microsoft, Intel and Advanced Micro Devices—have announced an investment of $6 billion in the country. This will create nearly 10,000 new direct-jobs that pay nearly as well as those in Silicon Valley. In Bangalore, for example, it is not uncommon for a top executive to get $400,000 to $500,000 a year. And even those who come home to a smaller pay cheque do not find life onerous, as the cost of living is much lower in India.

“Two cars, two live-in maids and a nice house in a gated community where everyone is a returned expatriate,” boasted an Indian software engineer to the local papers. In America, where he stayed for years, his salary was higher, but maids were something only the rich could afford, he said.

The flood of “returned” Indians has its inevitable effect on the local economy. In many new neighbourhoods in Bangalore and Hyderabad and, to some extent, the suburbs of Delhi, housing prices have doubled or even tripled, and rental has soared many times.

New housing communities modelled after that in the US help to make the passage back less of an ordeal for many Indian expatriates used to living in the West. But life in general has improved tremendously in India’s IT hubs. In the old days, when the first generation expatriates made their move to the West, the highlight was a weekly visit to a dingy cinema hall with a leaky roof.

Today there are numerous cinema multiplexes in equally numerous spanking new shopping malls. And where once the would-be mobile middle class had little choice but to select a made-in-India car—a choice of only two models, today there are dozens of foreign cars available. Of course, not everything has changed—the roads of Bangalore are still full of potholes and the pavements are still unpaved. But things are improving, and will continue to do so as long as India’s IT industry continues to boom.

In India, the general consensus is that the boom will continue, as the returned expatriates have started a cycle that encourages those who reside in other countries such as Britain and Germany to also come home. This deepening pool of experienced professionals in turn helps to lure foreign IT firms to invest in India, which creates employment and attracts more returnees.

In 2004, returnees were limited to those working in IT.  Today, the field has widened to other areas—electronics, physics, genetic engineering, microbiology, physical chemistry, aerospace engineering, aeronautic and space technology. The cycle of jobs attracting returnees who attract foreign investments that create jobs is repeating itself over and over again. It is no wonder optimism is running high in India.

In the US, which feels the brunt of the reverse brain drain, the mood is starkly different. A high tech lobby group recently released a report with a title that said it all: “Losing the Competitive Advantage? The challenge for science and technology in the US.” Its conclusion: countries like India and China, through the drastic restructuring of their economy, are rapidly increasing the skill sets of their work force, which may one day pose a challenge to the US leadership in technology.

“Public-private partnerships (in India) have invested in technical universities and communications infrastructure to create cutting-edge technology parks in places like Bangalore. This will only make India more competitive and alluring to investors and multinational companies," said AEA, which was formerly known as the American Electronic Association.

The lobby group said India is embarking on further reform to provide labour flexibility, freer flows of capital, and desperately needed infrastructure improvement. "They are dramatically increasing the skill sets of their workforce, investing in research and development (R&D), and adopting advanced technologies, all to create wealth and spur economic growth," it warned.

To one Indian scientist, it is not a question of whether India will pose a threat to America’s technological superiority, it is when it will overtake the US.

This is the opinion of Dr R A Mashelkar, chemical engineer, author, advisor to presidents and a driving force behind India’s research and development efforts for two decades. Looking at India’s foreign investment and its “silent scientific repatriation”— an academic term for reverse brain drain—he estimates that, by 2020, India will emerge as the world’s top knowledge production centre.

Whether this is hyperbole remains to be seen. But the attraction of India as a high tech working place has been given the final endorsement. Many foreigners, including those from the US, Sweden and Ireland, are now willing to relocate to India to work.

If the IT jobs are being outsourced to India, many foreigners figure they might as well go with them, said commentator Prashant Govil. Or, in the words of an American looking to work in India: “In this economy it is not possible to be picky, if the move to an Indian company is a good career option overall and you have no major family or location obligations, it might be a good idea to make the move.” Sound advice, but also delicious irony: In the past it was the Indians who moved to the West to compete with the locals for jobs. Today, many westerners are coming to India to fight for jobs with the Indians, returnee or local. Things have come full circle.