Migration to developed countries will turn short-term, says Indiaspora founder

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Global demographic trends make both movement of people across national borders and political blowback against it inevitable but India can have a calibrated approach that turns this into an opportunity, according to M.R. Rangaswami, founder of Indiaspora, a global platform of people of Indian origin.

Mr. Rangaswami was speaking to The Hindu on the sidelines of a convention of Indian diaspora members from various fields and from 35 countries. “There is rhetoric against immigration in many countries but the reality is that these countries need skilled people,” he said.

Mr. Rangaswami said the Government of India and Indian institutions should facilitate “proper training, proper socialising and proper certification” for millions of workers who will be required in the developed world in the coming years. Going forward, countries might look for short-term foreign workers and India should prepare for them to return to the country.

“India should expect and work for a new framework where, maybe, there is a special visa that allows Indian people to get jobs in other countries, but it’s for a short term, let’s say three to five years, with an opportunity to extend those visas depending on the economic situation in those countries… When you look at the Western world, all of Europe, Japan… these countries, they’re aging rapidly. They’re going to need doctors, nurses, practitioners in that field to be available in those countries. Where are they going to come from? Local population is going down. So they’re going to have to rely on a country like India, which can train quality doctors, nurses, medical practitioners etc. to go to these countries and actually deliver services,” Mr. Rangaswami said.

To make the optimal use of this opportunity, India should pay attention to skilling, certification and diplomatic efforts to smoothen the export of human resources, he said. According to Mr. Rangaswami, despite the ongoing anti-immigrant rhetoric, the movement of people will not stop. “They still need educated people. They still need students to go to their colleges. Politicians in the West will have to balance between the sentiment and the reality,” Mr. Rangaswami said, adding that Indiaspora also sought to educate politicians about the positive impact of the Indian diaspora in host countries.

“In 2024, we did a report in the U.S. in partnership with the Boston Consulting Group where we really documented the impact of the Indian-American diaspora on the U.S. and on the U.S.-India relationship. It was a data-driven report, where we talked about the number of jobs Indian immigrants have created in the U.S., the numbers of doctors who serve patients in the U.S., academics who teach college students there… That’s our way of telling the people in each country we live in, the impact, the positive impact of our diaspora. We’ve done the same thing here in the UAE — which documented how the Indian diaspora in the UAE is creating jobs, is serving patients, is sending money back to India.”