India's Brain Drain and Future Prospects

Aratrik Tarafdar

10 Aug '24

7 min read

India as of 2024 is the 3rd largest economy in the world after the United States and China. With a growing population and economy, India is expected to play a key role in shaping the geopolitical scenario of the world in the coming years as the traditional powers age and go into a slow decline. Yet all is not well for the ‘land of many cultures and diversities’. In 2023 alone, as many as 216,000 Indians gave up their citizenship in quest of securing the passport of a different country. Indians constitute the largest group of migrants into the United Kingdom and the second largest group into the United States. Despite having a growing economy, why does India fail to retain its youth talent?

Over a century and two decades ago, in 1867, Dadabhai Naoroji published the famous ‘Drain Theory’. India then under British control was being looted by the British colonialists, losing around 200-400 million pounds every year. The ‘Grand Old Man of India’ in his book ‘Poverty and Un-British Rule in India’ gave a six fold technique with the dint of which the Britishers were shipping off the nation's resources to their homeland in Europe. The Indian Independence in 1947 ensured that this insult on the Indian people came to an end. However 77 years into independence, the nation has begun to suffer from a different kind of a drain. This is the epic ‘brain drain’.

The term ‘brain drain’ is used to refer to loss of intellectuals by a nation. There can be many causes behind this although most commonly it is in search of better living standards and career development facilities in other nations. Brain drain is nothing new for India. Soon after securing independence, the first wave of the Indian brain drain began when many Indian doctors migrated to the United Kingdom in the 1950s and through the 1960s. This was the time when India was struggling from the ‘licence Raj’ issue and businesses were having a difficult time expanding. Between the 1960s and the early 1990s, the Indian government had devised a system of providing licence of operations to businessmen. As per this methodology, as many as 80 different government agencies had to be satisfied with the goodwill of the businessmen before being shown the green light. Many of these approvals were extremely difficult to obtain while others required a certain extent of bribing in order to secure the pass. With the lack of corporate operations, the economy remained stagnant and the job market worsened. In the 1980s, many educated Indians left the nation in order to lead a better lifestyle. These included engineers, degree holders and specialist doctors.

The Narsimha Rao government of 1991 began the economic liberalisation which promoted business operations. Big corporations were formed and special SEZs were set up to help businessmen. Bangalore became the IT hub of India while a large number of manufacturing businesses were set up in Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. The Indian economy enjoyed an amazing phase during the 90s with the growth rate reaching an all time high of 8.8% in 1999. During this period, a certain number of Non Resident Indians returned to India in the hope of a new beginning.

However, not everything went according to plan. The new business culture helped to promote a certain number of mafias who used their muscle to extort money from the rich businessmen. The underlying corruption of the ‘license Raj' didn't disappear either and soon began to damage the fledgling corporate culture. India enjoyed steady growth even in the 2000s but the emigration issues began to take a turn for the worse. In 1999 alone, there was a staggering 31% increase in emigration from India to foreign lands as compared to 1998. This showed that a number of Indians who had returned to Indian in the 90s were returning back to foreign shores. Even India boasting of a huge growth rate in the next few decades could stop this incessant loss of talent.

In order to understand the reason behind the preference of educated Indians to migrate to developed countries, a lot of emphasis must be put upon the major economic issues faced by India. The South Asian Country is plagued by the law of ‘diminishing returns’. Consider the example of a dosa maker who has one chef in his restaurant. At maximum ability he is able to produce 60 pieces of dosa per hour. Due to rising demand for dosas, the owner of the shop decides to employ a second chef into the business. By mathematics, the restaurant should now be able to churn out 120 pieces of dosa per hour. Yet when the owner of the restaurant made an inquiry, he found that the chefs were able to turn out just 100 dosas. The reason- the restaurant could only furnish one dosa machine and hence the chefs were unable to use their full potential.

This encompasses India's modern problems. The system is unable to capitalise on the talent available and hence, many are choosing to leave the nation for better prospects. Another major issue with India is the rising number of unemployed degree holders. People are completing their course but are unable to find a job because of the limited employment slots. Yet quite ironically there is a huge deficiency of specialist workers across several departments of the nation.

In the medical field, as per a government report in 2023, there is a whopping 80% shortage of surgeons, gynaecologists and such. At the same time, there seems to be a flood of Indian doctors abroad. As per a 2022 study by the University of Oxford, Indians formed the largest unit of foreign healthcare specialists in the United Kingdom. As many as 20% of the doctors and a staggering 46% of the nursing staff migrated from India. This proves that Indian doctors are preferring to work in Western nations over their own.

The reason could be attributed to the better facilities available to help a doctor with his duties. The medical system is extremely robust which prevents the overcrowding of hospitals. This helps for a better environment for medical personnel while guaranteeing a healthy work life balance. The pay is also comparatively better especially considering the work pressure.

With that being said, things have begun to improve for India. The birth rate which was above 3.3 in 1999 has plummeted to around 2 births per woman in 2024. The ‘Hum do Hamare do’ slogan is finally reaping dividends. As the Indian population nears its peak, international events are also helping India retain her talent. Most of Europe is suffering from an overload of migrants which has catapulted several right wing parties to power buoyed by the rising anger against foreign cultures and societies. As many of these nations hasten to pass a bill that would limit immigration, difficulties have begun to appear for the Indian students who desire to shift to foreign shores. Additionally, the Indian of 2024 is rapidly making progress in every field. Several top research institutes like the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi have managed to break into the top 100 rankings in the best universities of the world.

Another major boost for India has been in the field of space exploration. On 23rd August, 2023, the Chandrayaan 3 spacecraft successfully managed to reach the South pole of the moon. This helped India squeeze into an exclusive group of nations to ever send a rover to Earth's only natural satellite. India was the fourth nation on the list after the United States, the USSR and the People's Republic of China to achieve the feat. Even though ISRO lags behind its contemporaries like NASA and Roscomos in terms of space experience, this particular success displayed to the world the scientific ability of a postcolonial nation like India.

India's rise in global standing is a guarantee. However, when and by how much depends on the limiting of the ‘brain drain' from the nation.

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Footnotes-

Category:Education

Written by Aratrik Tarafdar

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