Society and Trends: NRI Exodus: The Dream that Died

Several Indians returned home seeking a better life. They've changed their minds.

Gagan Dhillon with husband Gursharan

Gagan Dhillon: Engineer

LEFT a job with an automobile company in Detroit to settle in Chandigarh. Declared she'd had enough after less than a year. Went back along with husband Gursharan, a medical research scientist. Has no intention of ever returning-- she's even bought a house in Detroit. "In India, you end up wasting a lot of time on day-to-day hassles. In the US, the system takes care of them."

"In India, you're a big lose."

Sunita Rajan dug into her handbag -- there were just five business cards left. She frowned, then smiled. Later that week Rajan would get a new set, complete with new address. In Singapore. On January 15 Channel V's marketing and publicity director was off to her new job as the BBC's regional director of sales.

It had not been that long since Rajan left Hong Kong to join the satellite music channel's operations in Mumbai. But even her six-figure take-home pay wasn't enough to keep Rajan "home". "It was just not happening," she says. "All around me, I see systems collapsing. I began asking myself, is this what I want?"

That's a question an increasing number of professionals asks these days. Scores of non-resident Indians (NRIs) returned "home" in the first flush of liberalisation. An Indian address suddenly, while not quite fashionable, wasn't something to be scoffed at either. Life couldn't get more perfect, you could almost hear these people thinking. There would be the smooth, professional life they had gotten used to abroad, the brands they couldn't do without and cable TV. And they would have a supportive family structure, helping them set down "roots". Anticipation mixed with nostalgia is a potent combination.

It's exploded in their faces. The NRIs are packing their bags once again. This time, to leave the country for good. No figures are available since NRIs can leave and return at will. But almost everybody these days knows of somebody who returned, planning to settle down, and changed his mind. Nostalgia, it would appear, isn't what it used to be.

What went wrong? "Nothing really held us back in India," explains Gagan Dhillon. In 1996, the electronics engineer exchanged her job in Detroit for marriage in Chandigarh. She thought she was home for good. It took Gagan less than a year to decide she would rather go back -- only this time, she'd take husband Gursharan, a medical research scientist, along. It's been two years since the Dhillons emigrated to the US and they have no intention of returning. "In the US, the system takes care of your hassles. In India, the system adds to them," says Gagan. Gursharan agrees: "It would have taken me 15 years to achieve the same standard of living in India."

Murali Balasubramaniam with his family

Murali Balasubramaniam: Executive

CAME back because he felt out of place in Pittsburgh. But the "usual reasons" for returning haven't been enough to keep this software expert in India. Decided to leave after daughter complained about the lack of freedom of choice at school. "Things take time in India, but do I have to wait? Can't I skip some of the steps?"

"I haven't breathed fouler air."

Talk to some of the people who are leaving India -- for the second time -- and what comes out clearly is a sense of disillusionment. Obviously, they weren't returning for the money; if anything, several took massive cuts in pay to return to India. Most of them came here searching for the oh-so-cliched "Indian culture" -- a sense of belonging and stability. They probably had visions of building a new, strong India. That didn't happen. Dipankar Gupta, a professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, agrees: "There was a kind of romance, an idealism. That has now worn thin. All around they see so much waste and devastation."

And they don't want their children growing up in that environment. In early 1992, Gary Pinto left London to accept a posting in Mumbai. Moving soon to Delhi as a senior executive with a multinational finance firm, Pinto's return home seemed final. He even bought a four-bedroom house in Bangalore two years ago. Now in Singapore, he's looking for a buyer for that designer bungalow. Pinto's not too happy about "running away" but he believes he owes it to his daughter. "Things move very slowly in India. I think it is demeaning if you have to play the game to survive."

In India, crib most NRIs, nothing is gained because of merit. Indeed, there are many who are convinced the glass ceiling is alive and well in this country. Pratima Srivastav came back to Mumbai from her cushy job in New York seven years ago. Today, the 33-year-old financial consultant regrets her decision. "I wonder what made me come back. Beyond a certain level no growth is possible unless you have a well-recognised second name."

The Desais would agree. Bipin Desai and his son Mukesh sold their business in Washington and returned to Mumbai in 1994. While Bipin scouted around for investment opportunities, Mukesh put his MBA degree to use as a consultant with a construction firm.

Three years in the metro was enough to teach Mukesh that working in India is not so much about "what you know" as it is about "who you know and how much you can pay". Dealing with extortion calls and framed cases was bad enough, then the economy went into a tailspin. Even as the Desais began considering their options, the managing director of their firm, Manish Shah, was gunned down by the Mumbai underworld. That did it. In less than a month, the Desais were back where they started -- the US. Mukesh now runs a gas station.

It's an exodus out there. Executives from placement agencies reveal that the number of applications they receive from people wanting to relocate, emigrate or at least get out of the country for a short while is on the rise. The US is, as always, the hottest pick, but these people will take anything: Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, even South Africa. "Over 80 per cent of those coming for placements at mid- and senior-level positions give first preference for a foreign posting," says Mathais Gomes of Mumbai-based placement agency Personnel Search. Sheela Murthy, a US-based attorney whose firm processes thousands of immigration applications every year, reveals that "an overwhelming number is from India". She adds: "It seems difficult to ignore the fact that India does not have a lot to offer those who want to focus on their work and do a good job."

Sunita Rajan: Media Director

IN Hong Kong, she reached work before 8 a.m. and left after 6 p.m. That still left her enough time to catch the ferry back home, work out at the gym and make dinner. Here, she lives 10 minutes from work and is rarely home before 11 p.m. "I couldn't seem to get a lifestyle together."

"I see systems collapsing everywhere."

It's not as if those returning to the country weren't aware of what they'd face here: power cuts, water shortages, pollution, corruption ... Perhaps what no one told them was the magnitude of the problems and just how often they'd crop up. Almost everyone who's leaving -- or has left -- India points to the difficulty in securing services here which are taken for granted elsewhere. Suresh Rao left for the Gulf in the early '90s, moving to Canada last year. Barely three weeks into his vacation in India, Rao's already had enough. Just ask him if he'd return. "Are you mad? After what I've seen? My brother earns over Rs 15,000 a month and has neither a home nor a telephone," he says.

Balwinder Singh came back to Ludhiana in 1996, after four years at Leicester's prestigious Centre for Mass Communication Research. Six months after joining the Punjab Agricultural University as assistant professor, disillusionment set in. Comparisons were painful, but inevitable -- systems in India were "chaotic". The last straw, though, was what the PhD in media research dubs the "pay and prosper" system -- donations and bribes for just about everything. Singh first noticed it when he began looking for a school for his daughter -- demands for donations, he discovered, are never-ending. Things moved swiftly downhill from there. Singh's now cutting his links with India for good; he's sold his property here and moved with his family to Canada. "I am convinced brain drain would be better than brain in the drain," he says.

The India-as-an-intellectual-slum theory has a number of supporters. Murali Balasubramaniam came back from Pittsburgh -- and a career with software giant Mastech -- for all the "usual reasons". "Everything was right, but I felt out of place," he recalls. That was six months ago, and Balasubramaniam now wonders what made him do it. "Look at the education system. Everything is by rote which stifles creativity."

Balasubramaniam, who studied in India, understood the gulf between Indian and American schools only when his six-year-old daughter Arundhati complained one evening, "They don't give me freedom of choice." He's going back to the US within the next few months.

Perhaps the only person to see something positive in the trend is economist and financial analyst Surjit Bhalla. "It's the sign of a nation in transition. We need also to look at the fact that a large number of Indians are also coming back." Besides, says Chandrashekhar Bhat, head of the Hyderabad-based Centre for the Study of Indian Diaspora, studies show many of those who are leaving would stay on "if greater opportunities were available and if a sense of fair play was more strongly embedded in the Indian ethos". That may take some time. As will sorting out the other problems in India. Meanwhile, the queue at the emigration counter just got longer.