The new CEO of Twitter is Parag Agarwal. An Indian-American. Originally from Ajmer, Rajasthan. Graduated from IIT Bombay. This is an interesting case since it can be approached from two perspectives. Some people say that it is a matter of pride that Indians are so successful in foreign countries. It makes India proud. Others, however, label it as a brain drain. Memes are shared with "Indians study, for America to prosper." People blame things for caste reservations for this Brain Drain. Do they have a valid point? How should we look at this? Let's take a closer look.
An Indian-origin person becoming the CEO of a big American company, has so many examples, that you'd be surprised. After 2014, Satya Nadela became the CEO of Microsoft. Since 2015, Sundar Pichai has been the CEO of Alphabet Inc or Google. Since 2007, Shantanu Narayen is Adobe's CEO. From 2020, Arvind Krishna is IBM's CEO. Anjali Sood is Vimeo's CEO since 2017. Amanpal Bhutani, GoDaddy's CEO since 2019. During 2006-2018, Indra Nooyi was Pepsi Co's CEO. During 2010-2020, Ajay Banga was MasterCard's CEO. The list doesn't end here. The trend isn't seen only in American companies. It is also seen in Australian companies. Stockland's Tarun Gupta. Orica's Sanjeev Gandhi. Link's Vivek Bhatia. Pact's Sanjay Dayal. Newcrest's Sandeep Biswas. Cleanaway's Vik Bansal. Some examples can be seen in British companies as well. Like Laxman Narasimhan, Reckitt Benckiser's CEO. The examples that I quoted, friends, Most of these people are of Indian origin. Meaning that they were born in India Grew up in India. Completed their education from some popular Indian colleges like IIT-Bombay or IIM Ahmedabad, BITS Pilani or Manipal Institute of Technology, After completing their studies, they moved to another country, In some cases, they even took the citizenship of other countries. And now, they are working in high positions at companies of those countries. Throughout North America, Australia, and Europe, you will see many such Indians living there.
How about Asian countries? Are there similar examples in China, Korea, Japan, Singapore, the UAE? to answer that, it is very rare? You are unlikely to come across it. Like Piyush Gupta, CEO of the Singapore-based DBS Group. In 2015, it was announced that the CEO of the Japanese Bank SoftBank could be Nikesh Arora, a person of Indian origin. It was decided and sparked much controversy. This is extremely rare to occur in a country such as Japan. After this decision was overturned, a Japanese person continued to serve as CEO. It is almost impossible to find such examples in a country like China. India is not the target of some conspiracy. It has to do with the fact that these Asian countries have a very closed culture. In this country, foreigners are not readily accepted to the point where they could become the CEO of a company. You wouldn't find it too weird because we have a similar culture in India. It is so closed-off in India that it is almost impossible for a foreigner to become the CEO of an Indian company, even Indians don't have the opportunity to become CEOs of Indian companies, as most of them are run by families.
Have you ever noticed that the names of many Indian companies is based on the surname of the family? Adani, Tata, Birla, Godrej, Bajaj, Mahindra, Jindal, Mittal, Oberoi, Goenka, Byju's, Shiv Nadar, Using one's family name as the company isn't out of the ordinary, but the problem arises when the top leadership positions of these companies are occupied only by the family members. We get to see an unhealthy amount of Nepotism here and Meritocracy is strictly lacking. Think about it, for an IIT graduate, it is much more difficult to become the CEO of Godrej, Mahindra, or Bajaj group as compared to becoming the CEO of Google. Because there are so many family businesses here. In most companies, people from outside the company are hard, if ever, given the position of CEO.
Another interesting trend is that most of the Indian-origin CEOs work in the field of technology. Software engineers who studied in the IT field make up the majority of these Indians. Then they went on to work for these big tech companies and product companies and took their careers to the next level. The best way to do this is to study Data Structures Algorithms, System Designs, Data Science, and such topics. Almost all CEOs studied Software Engineering, so you might think that engineering in India has a lot of scopes.
The question is, what is reality? Approximately 95% of India's graduates are not qualified to work in software engineering, according to an Employability Assessment Survey by Aspiring Minds. Tech Mahindra's MD also stated that 94% of engineering graduates in India are not suitable for employment. Apart from these prestigious universities, engineering colleges in India are of very poor quality if you ignore the top colleges like IITs. This problem stems from the fact that low-quality engineering colleges churn out engineering degrees while failing to teach college graduates the actual skills they need. Their graduates lack these skills. This makes them unqualified for employment.
As Indians, we feel very proud if an Indian origin person becomes the CEO of an American company. But in how many Indian companies are from America, Nigeria, China, Japan? In fact, how many examples are there of a foreigner being the CEO of an Indian company? It is very rare. One example that I can think of is the CEO of Tata Motors, Guenter Butschek. He was the CEO between 2016 to a few months ago in 2021. But such examples are very rare. Similarly, Indians feel very proud when a person with Indian ancestry, gets to a political position in a foreign country. Like Kamala Harris and Bobby Jindal in the USA. Priti Patel and Alok Sharma in Britain. Jagmeet Singh in Canada, Deepak Raj-Gupta in Australia, Mahendra Chaudhry in Fiji, Anerood Jugnauth in Mauritius. But when it comes to Sonia Gandhi, then the very first point of criticism that we have is Sonia Gandhi's Italian origin. How can an Indian politician be born in a foreign country? How can they have ancestry from abroad?
Millenniums ago, our Upanishads talk about the concept of "The World is my Family" (vasudhaiba kutumbakam) Every people in the world is like a family member. Today, you can describe it with one word Cosmopolitan. While on one hand, countries like Australia, the USA, and the European countries have accepted the ideology of Cosmopolitanism, On the other hand, India and many other Asian countries, have not embraced the spirit of this concept yet. Just for the sake of saying it, we say "Guests are like God", but the ground reality is that we get to witness attacks on Africans, we see Xenophobia, distrust of the foreigners, and hatred against the foreigners.
The situation was so bad in 2016, that African Heads of Mission had issued a statement regarding this in New Delhi. Asked the government to counter this racism and the attacks against Africans should be stopped. Our then External Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj, responded to this by saying that stringent actions would be taken against the culprits. Not only the foreigners, for people traveling from one state to the other in their own country, it becomes difficult to do so. We get to see such examples in states like Maharashtra and Gujarat, how the UP and Bihar migrants have to suffer atrocities there. There are attacks against them. "The boys that have come from UP, Bihar with fake certificates, have been driven away, And people from Maharashtra should get admission here." Kashmiri students are attacked in states like Rajasthan, UP, Haryana.
In 2021, ICSSR commissioned a Government Study. They interviewed about 1,200 people across 6 metro cities, It was found that North-eastern people have to go through so much harassment ever since the Covid outbreak. They are often insulted and harassed by calling them Coronavirus. Or take Nitish Kumar's campaign from the 2015 Bihar elections, in which the campaign uses the slogan "Biharis versus Outsiders"
Apart from this regionalism, we also see the problem of religious communalism. The multitude of clashes in the country in the name of religion. We also see the problem of casteism. Run this Google search. You'll get more than 50 news articles on it. There are so many such incidents, every week, every month. And when we talk about the issue of Brain Drain, about how Indians go abroad and become the CEOs of foreign companies, the blame is often put on Caste Reservations. But if you think about it, do you get caste reservations in private jobs? There are no caste reservations in private jobs. There are no caste reservations if you want to start your business or your company. Caste reservations are in the government jobs only. And the government jobs form a very small percentage of the total workforce. There are caste reservations in colleges as well, but the people that have gone and become CEOs abroad, have studied at prestigious colleges. In many cases, they've studied at Indian Universities and Indian colleges. Even then, why did they choose to go abroad? In comparison to staying in India. The real reason behind it is that the societies of these countries, are very open and accepting of outsiders. And these countries do not have Casteism, Communalism, Regionalism like in India. Neither is Nepotism seen in family businesses.
It is easier to do a job or a business without having to face these discriminations. And obviously, the other reasons, The law, and order of the country, a lesser degree of corruption, having to face no political harassment, also play a part. It's not that America doesn't have extreme right-wing people, or that there are no racist attacks. Many cases have been seen in Australia, Canada, Racist attacks against Indians in America. But these cases are very rare, first of all, and the second and more important thing is that the police take these things seriously there. They work to maintain law and order. Politicians don't come out with rallies in favor of racist people. There have been some recent examples like Donald Trump, but generally, the police there work diligently, to maintain law and order. The third thing is that the governments often acknowledge these problems. They don't look the other way. Like in 2009, the Australian Prime Minister, condemned the racist attacks against Indians.
In comparison to all other countries, America stands out most as a Cosmopolitan. We often say that America is a land of opportunities, and we are right. This is a major reason why the United States could become a superpower. It is largely due to the fact that America attracts good talent from abroad. Whether it is NobelPrize winning scientists Har Gobind Khorana, Albert Einstein, Astronomers like Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams, Artists like Charlie Chaplin or Priyanka Chopra. Or business executives like Elon Musk or Parag Agarwal. All of them are immigrants who became successful in America because America gave them the opportunity to. If you look at the list of Fortune Top 500 Companies of 2017, you'd find that 57% of the CEOs of the top 35 companies are immigrants. Either they are from outside America or they are the children of immigrants. And of all the immigrants, Indians are the dominant group for tech startups.
Hence, the big question that arises here is how India can become a Land of Opportunities? There is still so much talent in India, not that all 12-13 talented people have become CEOs of American companies. What can be done to capitalize on it? A few solutions are offered here. India needs to become a safe country where law and order actually work. A safe, secure society needs to be built. Where there is no discrimination on the basis of caste, religion, region, or family. Not only degrees, but skill development also needs to be taken seriously. This will ensure that individuals are actually prepared for their jobs. The government should allocate a larger portion of its budget to research and development. There should be a simplified tax system and business registration process. And made so easier that it could be done without needing the help of a CA. In conclusion, Brain Drain is better than Brain in the Drain. Get it? The purpose of blackmailing people into staying in the country and telling them to seek out opportunities in the country is pointless. Therefore, people should be allowed to move abroad if they feel there are more opportunities abroad and that their talents can be better utilized. Talented people should not be forced to stay in India and use their skills only there. It's better to use the talent somewhere rather than wasting it. The focus should be placed on improving the opportunities for the country.