Return of the Diaspora

Here’s an infographic that I stumbled upon. The desire to return to India certainly surfaces when you talk to Indians living and working in the US over the past 8 – 10 years. I guess there is a threshold after which NRIs would typically drop the idea of returning and get on with their life here. I guess a very few of the older professionals would develop an ear for drums of a different beat and shift eastwards. These typically might be your very successful Information Technology professionals who have amassed loads of money and want to actualize some higher purpose in life by moving to their country of origin. The rest of the NRI professionals may just continue to work here in the US.

I had earlier written about the book “The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century” by George Friedman, where the author makes the point that countries with ageing working populations will compete against each other for talent. I am not aware about the credibility of www.corp-corp.com (name sure sounds shady) but if the survey is true and is scientific, then this seems to be a correction in the bull run in Indian immigration history. First trained Indian professionals migrated to India in droves – a sizeable and noticeable proportion of them became very successful in the United States – US faced a recession and India “seemed” to be growing rapidly – they returned to India with comfortable savings and no monetary worries – found it difficult to adjust and realised that the Indian growth story played out differently – returned to the US and if they couldn’t (due to retirement or losing out in the rat race) encouraged their offspring and other youngsters to migrate to the US, thus responding to United States’ campaign to attract skilled immigrants.

Wonder what George Friedman will say to this little bit of crystal ball gazing of mine. But then he has hardly mentioned India in his book.