Sunday Posts

Every Sunday morning, I miss Kolkata. Yes, that crowded, polluted, malarial city at the frontline of climate catastrophe? That slow city, just off the tropic of Cancer, where people still rehearse for plays, read books, debate politics and go home for lunch. Where to be poor - which is not being consumed by money-culture - is still glorious. Where, despite their new-found love of shopping malls, young maidens may still fall in love with the do-nothing poet next door. Where, despite the 'free' life of apartments, people still live in large, crumbling, houses, negotiating idiosyncrasies of the joint family.   Of course, that place, of my youth, may not exist anymore the way I see it. Globalisation has reached Kolkata in the form of ugly, overpriced apartment blocks; glass buildings of IT sweatshops; separated, by malls and brands, lives of the rich and poor; chain schools and hotels by the hour; badly done replicas of global landmarks; noisy politics of religious div...

The current crisis with migrants has one, and only one, casualty - the European moral high ground!  European governments feel uniquely entitled to lecture others about humanitarian issues. They project themselves as the keeper of morality in the world, often bombing or sanctioning against other nations when they think they are on the wrong side of the moral line. Once they faced the same test that some of the Asian and African nations face routinely, they failed though - and failed miserably. Imagine what would have happened if Iran barred refugees from coming in. Or, India left them stranded in the shores. Or, a Pakistani columnist suggested that they send gunboats to stop the infiltration. Or an African President called them swarms. If they died in a locked truck in Egypt. Or, if Sudan limited the number of people allowed to come in every year to 50.  There would be an international outrage, thousands of column inches of editorials, Hollywood stars descending o...

With elections seven weeks away, the UK Higher Ed community is presumably anxious. Last election marked a decisive turning point for the UK Higher Ed sector - the Cameron Government pursued twin strategies of an inadequately thought through funding reform and a plainly disastrous clampdown on student immigration - which would have long term consequences for the sector as a whole. With the UK political debate becoming more vicious and backward-looking, the UK universities, many of whom are among the best among the world, can be understandably worried. In the last five years, Higher Education has become more global, except in the UK. Now that the major parties are all united in an UKIP-inspired fear of Europe, this may turn out to be proverbial nail - and start the eventual long term decline. One could reasonably expect some lengthier, weightier reviews of the impact of David Camerons five years in office on the UK Higher Education sector coming out in the next few weeks. However, ...

Speechwriters never get the credit they deserve, but they have changed the course of history more than once. The metaphor of an 'iron curtain' or the uncertain promise of a 'tryst with destiny' etched in people's minds a concept that would become permanent by the power of imagery, even if the reality may have suggested otherwise. Fast forward to the society of ours where sound bites and TRP points trump any real experience, the speech writers are enjoying unprecedented powers to change destinies of nations: This comes with a huge responsibility that most are not even aware of.  So, for the future speechwriters, following the case of the person who would have made the Leader of the Conservative Party in Britain, David Cameron, promise to bring down immigration to 'tens of thousands' might be beneficial. Exploiting the resentment about immigration when an open-door policy had resulted in a surge of migration to Britain and the economy had just turned sou...

Immigration is one of those issues where everyone has a view: I have mine. And, indeed, everyone has a view which is determined by their own experience, plus Daily Mail: Being a migrant myself, I have the first part but not the second.  I am also an unusual migrant: I migrated not to settle, but to experience and learn. As I always maintained, my roads finally lead back to where I started. But I did not think my education would be complete unless I travelled, and so I did. This is why I seek out experiences which take me to interactions with different cultures and set me challenges to do different things in different countries: For me, all of these are accumulating knowledge and experience for an eventual return. This makes me a permanent outsider. I am an outsider to what I should call my native land, but also to the one I live in. Whatever practical difficulties this may entail, there are some significant advantages of being in this position: You get to escape Daily Mai...

I wish to return to India and I am trying to chronicle my preparations for return here. This is not an immediate plan, indeed this journey is as consequential as the one of leaving India and hence need preparation, but this is one thing I would like to do. I have always stated this to be my intention, but let the life take its course, not forcing the agenda in any way. But, now, a break point of sorts, I am inclined to make a deliberate attempt, even over a period of a few years (as it must be), and intend to keep a record of this journey on this blog, so that it helps me to get into a conversation with others planning a similar journey. I have indeed written about both about Reverse Migration in general (see here, Reverse Migration: India's Chance , and later, Reverse Migration: Is India Ready Yet? ) and my particular desire to return (for example, Reverse Migration: A Personal Note , The Question of Return , The Never-ending Question of Return and in Being Non-Resident ) o...

A migrant is defined both by the journey he makes, of leaving, and the journey he never ends up making, of return. In that sense, I am a true migrant: I have left, and I am forever returning. Unlike the others with a stable life and steady aim, I have not fully assumed the identities of my host and not given up that of my home; nor did I do the opposite, like some others, and clung to my home identity and rejected what came my way. I have, consciously, let the journey change me, but preserved my deep desire to make the opposite journey some day. But this is not just a transmutation between the home and the host, but the desire to renew myself that makes me a migrant. It is not about search of my roots, which I know full well where they are, nor a denial of my self-chosen circumstances, but rather the pursuit of an identity, an emotional construct of a 'universal' identity that defines my being and becoming. So, this is not about giving up or taking in, but absorbing, obser...

One would have considered the events surrounding the suspension of London Metropolitan University as a farce, if its tragic consequences were not so obvious. To recount the events, the University was visited by UKBA in March, subsequent to which its Tier 4 License, which allows the university to recruit students from outside the EU, was temporarily suspended on the 20th of July. The university was reportedly audited again in the first weeks of August, and then a report appeared in Sunday Times on the 26th August, quoting a leak and reporting that the license has now permanently been revoked. In a bizarre twist, then, on the 29th August, BBC reported that UKBA is yet to make a decision , while the university reported that they are inundated with hundreds of calls from worried students and their parents . Coming right in the middle of recruitment season, this is going to have a significant financial impact: The university says that it would potentially create a funding gap of over £10 ...

The Home Office has revoked the Tier 4 License of London Metropolitan University and branded it 'a threat to immigration control', Sunday Times reports . Here is an university always in the news. It got its entire board of governors sacked only a couple of years back. However, it was popular and highly visible. It was fined in successive years for over-recruitment. It was criticised for not changing, and then for trying to change too much, as a new Vice Chancellor and his team tried to turn the university around. No wonder some of the commentators are now labelling it a 'controversial' university. Thus far, it is simple: A faltering university fell foul of the regulators. Going by the report, it allowed students whose visas expired to attend classes. It did not report students who got visa and failed to show up to enrol. It did not properly assess the students' English. So on and so forth, a list of all-too predictable sins have already been laid out. C...

London Metropolitan University, one of the bigger and popular universities in London, had its license to recruit international students temporarily suspended on 20th July. This is a result of an audit of the university's management of its international students, reportedly carried out last March by UK Border Agency. The university has now disappeared from the UKBA's sponsors' list, despite reassurances that a follow-up audit has already been carried out, and the university would be reinstated 'next week'. The chat forums are now abuzz with students complaining, and being right in the middle of the recruitment season, this is bound to hit the university, and the international students who opted to come to it, quite hard. For UK Border Agency (UKBA), it may indeed be a case of over-reaching its mandate. Let's be clear: The rationale behind the current, tough visa regime was to weed out 'bogus colleges'. No one denies the fact that there was widespread a...

Immigration is not what it used to be. Or, to put it correctly, it is what it used to be, plus something else. Boatloads of people still turn up at the doors of rich countries; but, to snatch a share of global pie, countries also actively pursue immigrants. The political rhetoric around them has changed too: Once the usual, comfortable issues like colour of skin and religion became politically incorrect, politicians who lack courage but seek votes have made immigration their proxy issue. It is not a subject you can easily discuss in a pub, or a coffee shop or gym. If you do, everyone will look at you as if all issues around the subject have already been settled. As if, immigration is BAD, everyone knows! One needs to only look at how crowded the buses are, no parking spaces, getting into school is a hassle and a lottery, no jobs, house prices are well beyond middle class salaries - the ill effects of immigration are just too obvious. Conveniently, all the things that could be blam...

I have written about this before, once rather optimistically ( see here ) and then, after couple of years of emails and dialogues with people who could or could not return, with more caution ( the second article here ). Since then, a number of things have changed, including an worsening of the economic climate worldwide and slowing of growth and employment opportunities in India. In fact, the conversations about India has become significantly downbeat, even despondent these days, and the enthusiasm about return among Indian expats, if the microcosm of a community that I live inside is any reflection, has somewhat waned. Hence, it seemed appropriate to return to the conversation one more time. Admittedly, there is a personal story here. I personally maintain deep links with India and would want to return. My story is somewhat typical: My father lives alone in India, and my brother, who used to live with him allowing me the independence to travel, passed away. I feel worried, guilty...

Someone remarked about my recurring conversations about returning to India some day: I saw it as an unremarkable everyday conversation of any migrant's life. Identities are indeed transient, but home isn't. I may adopt a certain lifestyle and work in a certain way, but having spent the first thirty years of my life uninterrupted in one city, it would not be easy to make some other place my home. This is what it really is: As long as I live elsewhere, I see this as a life out of a suitcase. I am not tired yet, and I see my identity as a traveller, but I am not resting till I finally return home. It is usually a recurrent conversation every morning, when I shall meet other expats on my regular compartment on the 833 to London Bridge and talk about nuances of going back to India: Our realities may be different, but the desires are similar. There is nothing new to talk about - the conversations follow a similar arc, the tremendous opportunity, the stifling corruption, the lack...

Kelly Services, in a recent report , predicted that approximately 300,000 Indian professionals will return to India, mainly from Western countries, to seek career opportunities by 2015. The report has indeed started off a discussion in the English language press in India, and some HR practitioners have been quoted expressing disbelief at such a high number. Their projection is much lower than that number, somewhat in tens of thousands than hundreds of thousands, and they cite the differences in living standards as the biggest constraint these homecoming Indians may face. They point out a fundamental difficulty that these kind of surveys face: While 300,000 or a greater number of Indians may want to come back to India, a small fraction actually would. As an Indian living abroad for a considerable period of time, I can see both sides of the coin. The world's employment balance is shifting somewhat, with more jobs and opportunities and higher salaries being offered in countries like...

David Cameron made a speech on immigration. This was not a policy speech - there was no new announcements made - but rather a politics speech. This speech did indicate where the government stands on immigration. Everyone should have known where the government stands on immigration, but we forget that this is a coalition government. We know where the Tories stand, but Prime Minister, who is not just leading the Tories but the Government, needs to carry the coalition's vision. Indeed, his speech was far too xenophobic to be accepted by the more liberal elements of his own party, let alone his coalition partners. Interestingly, David Cameron's objection to immigration was social, rather than economic. This is rather strange as his other policies seem to echo Thatcher's dictum: There is no such thing as society. This is also an interesting shift from Gordon Brown's 'British Jobs For British Workers' politics, almost an acknowledgement that there is a strong economic...

I would expect a Tory government to be business friendly. But it is clear that the current British government is caught in a web of its own confusion. At one end, it talks global and wants to connect to the rapidly changing world, kick-start an enterprise society and build a competitive modern economy; on the other, it needs to fulfil its promise to take Britain back to the past, play on its islander mentality, and erect, if it could, an wall around the coastlines to keep everyone out. This is obviously spilling out to its approach to Higher Education: It is throwing the whole university sector in crisis with its harshest culling of public funding in two generations, in the hope that private sector will step in to fill the void and meet the British industry’s requirements of skills and knowledge, and then, as if to make up, it is cutting out the Private Education sector from the lucrative international education market, Britain’s third largest export industry by some count, in the hope...