Must NRIs Return Home?

Last week, I sparked off an email war on the listserv (and off it as well). This particular battle was on whether citizens of the developing world can contribute more by returning home than they would if they stayed away from home. Here's what I had to say -

I feel that the assertion that returning to one's home country will make things better there is a simplistic one (atleast so far as my home country, India, is concerned), and there's someone far more eminent who agrees with me, see The Migration of Knowledge Workers: Second-Generation Effects of India's Brain Drain by Binod Khadria (Sage, 1999). Prof Khadria is Professor of Economics at the Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.

His basic argument is that while the first generation of immigrants from India did cause a net loss to the Indian economy (i.e. net remittances were less than the amount invested in their education and training in India), the second generation of Indian emigrants (those who left after economic reforms in 1991) is pumping huge amounts of money (in the form of investment in infrastructure, the stock markets, purchase of government bonds etc.) into the system. Also, a large amount of investment in non-profit sectors and charitable organisations comes from persons of Indian origin living outside India. It may also be argued (and I diverge from Khadria here) that the presence of highly trained Indians abroad contributes to a greater international awareness of India, and the emergence of Indian political groups in the US, the UK and Canada may be evidence of this heightened political awareness. Finally, Indians abroad have a significant voice in the governance of India as well, perhaps as a result of the money they're pumping into the economy. The government seems to be making a special effort to appease non-resident Indians with a slew of policy changes designed just for Indians living abroad (for eg, there is a newly formed Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, currently considering a serious proposal for providing tax breaks on investments made by Indians living abroad). Clearly Indians abroad wield a lot of influence with Indians back home (probably more than they would have if they stayed home. I had an interesting conversation with a fellow member of this list last term which went something like this - "Before I got here, home was the place I would eat, sleep and chase my dog around. In the past 9 months, I've received 8 wedding invitations, 3 marriage proposals and an invitation to guest lecture in about half a dozen universities. Suddenly home is a lot cooler").

Concerns have been raised about whether this position I am taking denigrates and devalues the position of those who wish to return to India. I strongly feel that it does not. I believe that one's choice to return to India is a personal one, and should not be externally imposed on others. Hence, while this personal choice is necessarily individual specific, I think there is no systemic, institutional or public obligation to return to one's country.

This is without prejudice to the broader question of whether one should contribute to one's home state at all. I believe I should, but someone who has a more cosmopolitan (or more communist) world view than I do may well disagree. I just think that it is totally possible to enjoy the academic freedoms and research benefits which institutions in this country offer and still give back to the people of one's home country, perhaps more than one could by being back home.

Prithvi.