Recent articles have highlighted the increasing numbers of Indians leaving India for good - even giving up citizenship. Is this something worrying, new, getting worse?

There has been many SM posts, articles, Op-Eds and other forms of commentary online and in mainstream media about Indians migrating abroad in higher numbers. Naturally, the pro-Congress ecosystem presents these as “proof” that Modi has failed. But the truth is much more nuanced.

The most recent article that triggered this post of mine, is by Prabhu Chawla link, a senior journalist. In that article, Chawla spends a lot of time proving his point - that it has become fashionable to quit, and more are doing so. Let us grant that. There is no point quibbling about statistics even if they are wrong or unreliable and I am not even saying that. And anecodotal evidence is hard to counter anyway.

Turning to his analysis he says “Primary reasons .. appear to be pathetic civic infrastructure, breakdown of law and order in many cities, suffocating pollution and a complex tax structure”. The rest of his article elaborates on this a bit.

Wrong diagnosis?

There can be no denying that civic infrastructure in India is pathetic, despite all the money poured into metros, subways and what not. Law and order a fair point too. And I have been the loudest critic of complex tax structure. Less said on pollution the better.

Does that mean Chawlaji gets it right?

NO! Let me explain why.

It costs money to run away!

Even when it comes to illegal emigration (or undocumented as liberals call it), it takes a certain amount of money to get to where you really want to go. For example, for an Indian, trying to go to EU or US, you can’t simply cross the border like Mexicans do. Or a short boat ride like the Moroccans or North Africans. We are too far from the most welcoming shores for refugees. Most of them use mules or agents that charge hefty price to deliver you to the country of choice - they often fail or dump you in odd places, that is a different story. But the point is, it costs money - tens of thousands of dollars. A desperately poor person simply cannot afford this! But once you have a certain amount of money in the bank, it becomes an option.

Remember, family sponsored migration which drives the bulk of Punjabi Sikhs going to Canada etc., is another thing - it has its own set of drivers. You have one pioneer that goes and pulls in a dozen or more relatives over several years, each in turn facilitating further migration. Western visa norms encourage this - for example Australia has a scheme for “sole surviving sibling” to join her brother or sister on very liberal terms.

Why am I mentioning this? Because, when it comes to legal migration, the topic of Chawla’s piece as well as this, it is certainly truer!

I will give you a simple example - anecdotal. One young man I know very well recently went to Chiang Mai in Thailand. I too went there for a short break. It occurred to me that buying up a studio there could be an attractive option. When I mentioned this, he agreed and said he too thought about that! This is amazing because for a under 30 middle class Indian, this was unthinkable until recently. Our salaries were way too low! Mind you he’s no startup millionaire or early achiever - if this thought occurred to him, you can bet, it will occur to tens of thousands working in Mumbai, Gurgaon or Bangalore.

So, to cut the long story short, the very success we have achieved over the years is feeding the emigration wave!

Top drivers, IMHO

1. Post COVID surge in remote work as routine. Yes, there is push back among CEOs and there are signs things are going back to “normal”, but I suspect a much BIGGER proportion of knowledge workers will continue to WFH. If I am a manager running a project, I may be seething with jealousy that my top analyst or coder is happily clocking his time in Bali, posting selfies, but if it is that or losing him and seeing the project collapse, I know my choice. Then there is a whole host of freelancing and smallbiz services like website design, digital marketing and a zillion others where location hardly matters. These were not there “in the India I grew up in” as liberals love to say. Whoever heard of event manager or wedding planner in 80s or even 90s?!

2. HUGE incentives to so called nomad workers, mainly by SEA countries and some Latin American, even European ones. Even Japan, which doesn’t really need this money, is jumping the bandwagon. Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand have all rolled out programs. So has Costa Rica, Portugal, Estonia, Canada and others.

3. India’s increasing economic clout - as reflected in average salaries is driving mass tourism abroad. Many countries are liberalising visa for Indians, overcoming past concerns about illegal immigration and overstayers. If 2-3 million Indians go to Malaysia, spend billions, a few hundred staying back becoming parata flippers or barbers doesn’t really bother the government - especially if they are short of parata flippers and barbers that locals don’t want to do! Recently, Malaysia extended visa free facility for another 2 years - obviously their experience has been positive. A side effect of this is, once you go there, you start thinking of “why can’t I stay here more, if the rules permit?” And as I pointed out above, the rules ARE increasingly encouraging this. Even as a simple tourist, you can stay 60 days in Thailand and apply for extension - that is a lot of days. Many “expats” aka white single males from EU/Australia/US, do this routinely.

4. Of course, Indian destinations are overpriced and far more messy. It is ridiculous that for a Mumbai family, holidaying in Goa is more expensive than going to Bangkok, but often it is. On a recent flight out of Chennai, I walked past the check-in counter of a flight going to Thailand, I was shocked to see the crowd as well as its composition. Without being condescending, these are very ordinary locals that you will see in the local trains or buses! Not the boxwallah elite types at all, if you get the drift. There is a ‘democratisation’ of overseas travel - which feeds into emigration as more knowledge is more possibilities.

5. $250,000 or whatever it takes to “buy” a passport or residence, is NOT a huge amount for many Indians these days. It was unthinkably huge not too long ago.

6. Increased connections and flight options - you can always come back if you need to. Remember, even those that get overseas passports do have family here they visit often. As it becomes more convenient to fly back, family reasons that precluded settlement abroad is slowly vanishing. In fact, if your parents or someone has a medical emergency, the overseas son will reach as fast, if not earlier than the one in some other Indian city! It may take 3 hours to drive to Bengaluru airport but same time to fly to Bangkok or a bit more for Singapore.

7. The sheer convenience of travel - this is crucial for many businesses and businessmen. This drives surrender of citizenship. It is a hassle applying visas for each trip and countries with strong passports, like Singapore are huge draws. Imagine flying to EU or US at few hours notice, almost like going from Delhi to Mumbai. As more countries liberalise visa for Indians, this should reduce as a factor. As India gets richer, government of the day can squeeze the countries into being more reasonable, not 100 pages forms and life history or property records. Some like USA give long term visas but others like Japan or Korea often dont or impose too many conditions.

8. Lastly, this is a problem for most Asian countries - even rich ones like Singapore loses a lot of residents to places like Australia, even as they gain millionaries from places like China or the West and Indians running away from factors Chawlaji listed. This is how things work. Grass greener on the other side. Tax is NOT the driver - you hardly pay 5% on income in Singapore that you may pay 30-40% in EU or Australia. Actually, the effective tax is even LOWER because lots of things are NOT taxed in Singapore or Hongkong - like capital gains, dividends, even interest from local banks or government securities, lottery winnings, crypto profits to name a few! Nor is civic infra, public transport or safety, crime etc - on all these, Singapore or even Hong Kong is far superior to most places it loses its prime citizens to. And in case you didn’t know, I mentioned it earlier, Singapore passport is very strong and you can visit almost the entire planet without bothering about visas.

9. The West itself - especially after Modi came to power, has been fuelling this! Point is very simple - they have asylum laws that protect you against “tyranny, oppression” etc. And the woke left media, unable to digest the fact that Indians have dared to elect someone that doesn’t meet the approval of Soros or the NYT Editorial board, have been running relentless propaganda against BJP and Modi, bemoaning loss of religious freedom, crushing of dissent etc. etc. None of this is even remotely true, especially as compared to their favorite nations like Pakistan or these days, Bangladesh. But then if a few thousand wash up on your shores and claim asylum on that basis, are you going to deny? Or say that NYT and WaPO are lying? In fact, one Sikh leader even openly admitted in an interview to charging ₹30,000 (IIRC) for each letter he writes to overseas authorities about “oppression”! It has become a good business for many.

What can government do?

The key is, India must improve its governance for the sake of those staying - out of choice or compulsion - not the ones that can fly and do fly. There is nothing wrong in emigration - we need not discourage it or treat them as unpatriotic. History of humanity has been a history of migration. From the earliest days out of Africa to today.

If there is too many of them that is a problem for the receiving country - as Americans, Canadians are fighting over now. But we don’t need to bother about this.

Specifically here are a few suggestions:

1. Closely study the nomad visa models of nearby SEA countries and see how we can treat gig workers better - in terms of taxation to start with. We can never match the beauty or ‘cool’ factory of Bali or Chiang Mai but chopping away at some of the factors driving this could help. I have long argued that earned income from overseas should be taxed lightly, if at all. When I say earned, I refer to income for doing real work - not dividend, interest, capital gains. This should help Indians tap the huge gig workers market without having to go abroad to escape our tax babus. We can limit it to, say, $50,000 so it covers most ordinary workers but not millionaries and crypto kings.

2. Simplify the tax residency norms - Indians should be able to visit more without non-resident status turning into resident. Although this may sound counter-intuitive, this will foster more love for the country, more visits, more spending here. Small tax collection loss will be more than compensated.

3. Carve out enclaves where citizens that can afford to, get top class services run by private entities - it is far easier to do than changing entire cities. Something like a gated community but much larger - including retail, entertainmnet, schools etc. Money from this can actually make life better for others that can’t afford it. That’s socialism, not the screwed up system we have now that pulls everyone down to third world hell.

4. Bring a constitutional change that prohibits prohibition! As responsible national parties, BJP and Congress should stop demanding this to get votes. I appreciate the communists for this one factor. They are not regressive. I know this sounds trivial, but banning alcohol is medieval barbarism not practised in any civilised country. Even Islamic ones like Malaysia or Indonesia don’t. I was once sitting in a pub stones throw from the Istanbul Blue Mosque, marvelling at the country Attaturk built. We are building a country that even Erdogan will find too conservative! For today’s yuppies and knowledge workers having a drink or two after work in a decent pub or discuss business is something they can enjoy practically every country in Asia except of course, Pakistan or Afghanistan. And Bihar, Gujarat, maybe TN one day. Although no one will openly say this as a reason for running away, I am pretty sure most young Indians are disgusted by this. Protecting women etc., are useless reasons - in most countries I have gone to, including Malaysia, Thailand or Vietnam, they are a lot more productive, safer than India.

5. Liberalise norms for opening overseas bank accounts, share broker accounts etc. This should allow HNW to remain in India without annoying paper work and delays to get simple things done.

I do hope some of these will be looked at!

Added later: There is a bit of mixup of overall emigration which can be anything from retired parents moving to be with children to billionaires shifting and illegal ones. Most articles including the one I cited don’t seem to make distinction simply because we lack fine grained statistics. Me too!

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