From Brain Drain to Brain Gain

 

“The brain drain has been a curse for developing nations like India. Throughout the post WW II era, the best and brightest routinely left for search of better economic opportunities and higher standards of living in the West. Entire Graduating classes from elite so called Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) emigrated during the 1970s and 1980s.”

Every year, tens of thousands of highly specialised professionals and academics leave the developing world for what they believe to be a better quality of life in the countries of North. The majority of doctors, engineers, researchers and lecturers as well as students are tempted by more career opportunities, salaries and living conditions. A University degree is also the safest passport out of an unstable politics environment.

In this era of globalisation and industrialisation, the high skilled workers are moving freely and trapping the global opportunities. This new dimension of international migration is passing through an experience of Brain Drain and then followed by Brain Circulation in many parts of globe. In many parts of the world, brain drain is giving way to the process of brain circulation as talented immigrants return to their homeland with technology, capital, managerial and institutional know-how, to harness promising opportunities. Such evidences are already emerging in India.

In case of India, from 1950s, a strong wave of out migration of skilled workers is well marked which is still continuing with increasing magnitude. Technocrats and expert professionals moved towards the western countries such as US, UK, Canada and Australia as permanent migrants largely. In the 1960s and 1970s, the flow of scientists, engineers and medical personnel from developing to industrialised nations was thought to have almost entirely negative consequences for the source countries, affecting their university staffing and availability of industrial personnel. Recently, however, there has been growing emphasis on reverse flows of knowledge and skills and of money the migrants send home. What was once termed brain drain is now seen as brain circulation, but this has blurred important issues affecting most developing nations.

Brain migration is not always carrying adverse effects even on the sending countries if there’s exchange of scholars, researchers, engineers and technocrats, scientists, medical experts between various provinces for mutual benefits in the form of knowledge sharing. But in reality, such type of circulation is not really happening until and unless the sending nation itself become competitive enough to attract the talented and creative mass with creating opportunities and favourable work conditions for them to work. For a long period, since Indian Independence, Indian was fighting for creating basic infrastructure and for providing mere basic amenities to its inhabitants. During this period, our economy was not competitive, private sector was immature, research and development institutions were in infancy stage and because of inability to make use of migrant’s talents brain drain became an unavoidable process. Developing countries with these bottlenecks can’t offer modern professionals the economic rewards and desirable conditions.

 

But in the last few decades, India has emerged one of the promising superpower, as it is emerging as favourable destination for the young talents, remarkable progress in the development of basic infrastructure and Indian economy is sustaining the global competition, playing effectively in the multilateral marketing structure Indian multinationals have emerged as a global players within these times. R&D institutions are giving high level research outcomes in various fields like Space Technology, Information Technology, Financial research, Business and Trading, etc.

Today, India having over 600-650 million middleclass population with good paying capacity for maintain their living standard and providing better educational opportunities to their offspring. In the coming decades, India is going to become a hub of technically sound human resource which will again strengthen the knowledge based economy of India will transform the India’s image in world context. India now is moving forward in many areas like infrastructure, improving R&D in science and technology, world trade competitiveness with sustained economic growth. Much of economic success experienced by India during these decades can be attributed to her large base of human intellectual resource capabilities, knowledge industry and continuous effort in the promotion and innovation of science.  As India is ready, so it provides opportunities for brain circulation.

Talking about research and development, there’s a remarkable increase in foreign investment in R&D in India over the last few years, which is an indicator of India’s growing reputation as an intellectual powerhouse. Major developments in medical and IT research along with many other scientific areas giving signs of brilliant future for India. In 2001, to slow down the emigration of Indians IIT pass outs and other engineers, IIT Bombay set up an IT incubator at Kanwal Rekhi School of Information and Technology (KReSIT). This incubator has started building culture of entrepreneurship in the areas of making intellectual property and encouraging many IITians to work in India. On the line of this, IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur and IIT Madras have also their own business incubators.

This is a reality that only a few countries have been successful in luring their young emigrants back home. China, Korea, Iceland etc. got relative success in attracting return migration due to the opening of their economies and aggressive policies to foster domestic investments in innovation and R&D. Nations which are capable to create opportunities for R&D and innovation and entrepreneurship can stimulate return migration and capital flow. In many parts around the globe, the brain drain is giving way to a process of brain circulation.

For the developing nations, they need to open their economies, formulate effective science and technology policies, develop world class institutional infrastructure and improve physical infrastructure, high grade social amenities and supportive work environment. India is regularly progressing on these lines and one can clearly see the indication of brain circulation. For strengthening this process, India has to work more aggressively to fulfil its commitments towards implementation of required strategies, as of now Indian policy makers have great opportunities to transform the brain drain from a curse to an asset.