Will visa curbs prove to be a reverse brain drain?

Certainly, President Donald Trump’s election campaign has aggravated xenophobia. Similar sentiments are also reflected in European elections. Australia’s work visa restrictions make it clear that this is an anti-globalisation move. They have drawn a simplistic conclusion that if any foreign worker (particularly a worker in IT space) is working in America, they have taken jobs from the local Americans. Clearly, the idea is to stop Chinese, Indians, and other Asians from coming to America so that the jobs are distributed among the American citizens. It is partly an anti-globalisation wave, a populist wave. All the western countries are scared about job losses and they are guided by a simplistic perception that if you stop/restrict Indians, Asians from coming into their country, you save more jobs for locals. The fact is that these communities have added to America’s growth, and has created lots of jobs which didn’t exist earlier.
Prithviraj Chavan, Ex-Chief Minister, Maharashtra

Visa-related issues, be it quotas or new restrictions, have always been a key factor affecting the fortunes of the Indian IT industry. On numerous occasions in the past two decades, successive governments in India, along with industry lobbies, have taken up visa issues with the US and other countries. What is new this time is the scale of the problem and high decibel nationalistic surround sound. In addition, there is the emerging trend of so-called de-globalisation. This may be a cause of worry, given the fact that India’s IT outsourcing industry is truly a child of globalisation. Even if actual restrictions are not enforced or are not harsh enough, many Indian techies are going to head home because of the prevailing political atmosphere, social tensions, and moves like travel bans. It will be too early to say how this will impact the bottom line of Indian companies and the economy as a whole.
Dinesh C Sharma, author of ‘The Outsourcer: Story of India’s IT Industry’

These bans expose the hypocrisy of right-wing economics. When they talk about the free flow of capital, they want it to move from one place to another, but when it comes to labour, they are always silent, which is wrong. If you want free flow of investment to India, then you should allow the proper flow of money and labour when it comes to our workers going and working in the West. This shows the inability of our government to maintain pressure on foreign governments to calibrate their policies. For example, if the influence of the Indian software professionals in the US can’t be underestimated, and the influence of the Indian diaspora also can’t be underestimated, we should have been able to prevail upon them to at least make an exception for India. At the end of the day, I don’t understand how our foreign policy and strong vision of our Prime Minister is making any difference.
Sanjay Ghosh, Labour Lawyer and Columnist