Why Indians have urge to study & work in other countries.

It took a Chicago conference for India to identify Vivekananda. It took a revolution in South Africa for India to recognize the Mahatma. If even these dazzling suns are sometimes hard to discover amidst 1.3 billion people, what chance do the tiny little electric bulbs like us have in getting discovered?

Momentum and Recognition

Even in the modern times, guys like Sam Pitroda (unsung hero of our first modernization), Manmohan Singh and Raghuram Rajan were brought to help India after seeing their accomplishments elsewhere.

For some people, the stint abroad is a time to learn new concepts, time to get the momentum in individual careers and time to get identified in populations much smaller than ours. This gives the push for doing bigger things in India. Dhirubhai worked in the middle east before founding Reliance. Netaji, Nehru and Patel went through education in London. Raghuram Rajan got educated at MIT and worked abroad before returning to India as RBI governor.

Not just these biggies, but look around for creative new businesses in many sectors – chances are that they got their momentum or learning or the cash while working elsewhere. Many entrepreneurs thus leave India to start-up in California or New York. Some of them do return back like Mahesh Murthy did after getting experience at Oglivy, HK. Even recently, a flight instructor from the US returns back as a dairy farmer in Mumbai and could be at the starting point of a revolution there.

Career Opportunities

In many sectors it is hard to grow vertically upward. People at the lower ranks are usually treated pretty shabbily in India. On the other hand, the lower ranks in software, investment banking or consulting are treated a little better in the US. You might be a master of Hadoop or Scala or Robotics, but unless you are in the valley right now, you might not get the ecosystem to be the rock star you deserve to be.

Thus, it is slightly easy to establish yourself abroad and return to India at the Vice President level in about 15-20 years. Once you get to a Vice President level of a major company anywhere, you get a lot of door opening in India. You will have the creed, resources and expertise.

Escape Poverty

A couple of people came from quite poor backgrounds. Their fathers were postmen (not a well paying job)/ other jobs. They could have found jobs in India, but it would take a long time to escape from the generations of poverty. Moving to US and Australia helped them get their entire family out of poverty’s vicious mouth.

Another example is a person having 8 siblings and none in his family is educated. Had he taken a job in India, he might be able to get out of poverty, but might not have had enough resources to get the rest of the family out. He now makes six figures in the US and has changed the destiny of his whole extended family.

Different life

We are not all made the same. We have different requirements and different aspirations. Some want to travel a lot all over the world. It is relatively easy to do that sitting in Europe (both from airfare and visa perspective). Some want to get on to unorthodox careers that their family in India might not approve of. It is easy to do that when your family sits across the world and thinks you are doing “software engineering”.

Perpetual Winners

For some people, the motivation to leave India is because – “the whole system is screwed up”. They take whining to be their core hobby and believe that there is a green grass on the other side. A lot of times they realize that the grass is not that green anywhere and they get stuck unable to be either a Videshi or a Desi. India doesn’t really lose when these people leave.

Leave a sorrowful past & start a new life

Another example is where a lady lost both her husband and her mother in quick accidents. By the time she was 24, she was both without a parent and a husband. India is sometimes a scary place for such girls. Staying in Seattle helps her get out of that depression (where no one reminds her of what happened in her life) and also do more constructive work that distracts her. In India we have not yet progressed enough to let them lead a normal life. Hopefully some Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar 2.0 will make things better.

All said, the motivations to move abroad are increasingly getting weaker as India is progressing quite fast.
One tip for those embarking on this adventure is, attempt to boldly see the world in a positive frame of mind. Accept your identity and realize that every house has its woes. So, stop wasting time with negativity, but see the positive stuff around. In that mindset, India is where you keep one foot and like the Vamana avatar of Vishnu you try to use the other leg to cover the world.

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