Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella and Alphabet & Google CEO Sundar Pichai were conferred with the Padma Bhushan by the government on the eve of the 73rd Republic Day on Tuesday.

Though it was nice to see people from Business world getting this recognition, however, I fail to understand the reason for Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai getting such honour.

By giving the recognition and one of the prominent civilian awards to the business leaders of Indian origin i.e. Sunder Pichai and Satya Nadella, who are actually working for the global giants like Google and Microsoft, Head-quartered in USA, what message we are trying to give to our current and future generations.

If I see these awards in light of the Brain drain, I can’t stop myself from asking some disturbing yet important questions.

How does the success of Indian origin business leaders help India?

They winning such honour is a story of building brand India or they represent lost Indian Talent?

Is it absolutely fine to study in India and get subsidised education and then move to another country? 

Is it completely fine to keep serving those countries in order to enjoy better lifestyle and facilities and on the top of it you would be awarded with the third highest civilian award for contributing into the economy of other countries?

Though the ideal situation would have been to include some Indian Business leaders instead of the ones working for global giants abroad and are not contributing in growth of Indian business story. 

Our obsession with celebrating their achievements

Few months ago Indian born techie Parag Agrawal replaced Jack Dorsey as CEO of twitter and he joined the elite list of Indian origin executives leading the prominent global organisations.

Many Indians celebrated that achievement and we are kind of obsessed with celebrating such feats on all social media platforms and the news makes headlines all over.

But if you think we are generous enough to do this for all Indian origin people’s achievements, we are badly mistaken here. 

On the same weekend Ajaz Patel, Indian origin cricketer who represents New Zealand, created a world record by taking all 10 wickets in an inning in test match in Mumbai (his birth place), against team India.

Forget celebrating that, many aren’t even aware of that, maybe we don’t celebrate such achievements because we believe that such achievement came against India and that player played against India.

But the question is what makes you believe that these Indian origin business leaders working for firms in the USA are playing for India. They are working for a privately owned firms in some other nation and it is foolish to believe that they would favour India any which way.

Part of the answer is that these IT and social media giants themselves make it a trending news and create the buzz around such announcements. Which makes us believe that it’s one of us who got this success, so that the trend of brain drain continues.

The Great Indian Brain Drain

For those of you who are not aware of brain drain or might be thinking that the brain drain is no more a threat. 

Since 2015, nearly 9 lakh Indians have given up their citizenship.

As per a report, by WION  more than half of the first-rankers of standard 10th and 12th board exams between 1996 to 2015 – the brightest Indian minds – migrated abroad and are still employed there.

Studies have found that 23,000 Indian millionaires have left India since 2014 costing the country billions in tax revenue. 

India ranks number one in the list of migration of the rich and educated beating China and Philippines, that is 65% of the world’s migration numbers.

In Budget 2019-20, India allocated INR 6.43 lakh crore of public funds towards education, part of which went into subsidising the studies of skilled emigrant Indians.

For the second most populated country in the world, may be it should be considered normal to forget the talent because they have that in abundance. 

Specially the country that believe in “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam – The world is one family” and that’s been ancient tenet of our philosophy.

Since 1970 when even globalisation didn’t start, brain drain became the buzz word for us. We lost human capital to western countries when we needed it the most to build our nation.

Reason for Brain drain:

They say ‘brain goes where the money is’

Some say ‘brain go where the brains are’

Others say ‘brains go where they are valued’

Though it’s wrong to believe that money doesn’t play its role, it’s actually the biggest factor.

In academics its close to 6X, in IT sector it’s more than 2X and in management more than 3X in other countries as compared to India.

Money being one of the factor, you have education, quality of life, social security, gender equality etc. behind brain drain.

For some it’s Higher Education

In the primary education we have done some great progress in India, but as far as higher education is still a challenge. Even our Steller institutions like IIT and IIMs doesn’t make it to the list of world’s top universities. And some of the quality institutions in India have sky rocketing cut-off

That’s why thousands of Students leave to study abroad to get the better paying jobs and on the top of that they get better quality of life there.

As per associated chamber of commerce Indian students studying abroad cost us around 17 billion dollars per year in lost revenues. 

When they leave India they are in the most productive phase of their lives and when they return, if they return at all, they are the spent force with ideas & skills that is no longer required.

For some it’s “Colonial hangover” and for some “tag of NRI is a badge of honour”. 

Some find the idea of living abroad glamourous, thanks to Bollywood for their portrayal of the NRIs and foreign locations.

There is no one reason for leaving and not returning.

Brain drain leads to reduced economic growth, limited innovative capacities and lack of skilled manpower. India is losing its doctors, engineers and entrepreneurs to other countries, it’s losing much of its skilled human capital.

Exodus of the brightest and best minds diminished India growth prospects; Conflict, political instability, lack of opportunities and health concerns are prime reasons for the same. 

Whilst there is urgent need to understand this to arrest the slide and reverse the trend, we are conferring one of the highest civilian honours to the lost talent.

We are setting an example that you don’t lose anything by leaving India, you are actually awarded to do that. 

Looks like it’s a reward for reducing burden from the shoulder of government to generate enough jobs for everyone or they want everyone to follow the suit.

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Disclaimer

Views expressed above are the author's own.

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