India, explained.

A young child practices making a heart shape with his hands as people celebrate Diwali at BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Neasden Temple on October 31, 2024 in London, England. Diwali, also known as Deepavali, is the Hindu festival of lights celebrated each autumn. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

According to the Indian government, more than eight million individuals of Indian origin live in America, Britain, Canada and Australia combined (Leon Neal/Getty Images)

Indians are streets ahead of their government in foreign policy

In terms of partners, Delhi is multi-aligned, but where would most Indians prefer to migrate?

Ved Shinde

19 December 20243 min read

“India is part of the Quad and BRICS” is a remark often heard. It is true. But what gets lost in this brusque one-liner is the desifactor – a loose term to describe India’s culture and diaspora. Delhi’s officialdom might want to have a leg in all dances, but the Indian street has clearly picked sides – and the West is winning out.

According to the Indian government, more than eight million individuals of Indian origin live in America, Britain, Canada and Australia combined. If you add the approximate figures of undocumented migrants to the mix, it is akin to injecting a population the size of Switzerland into the Anglophone West. That is a ton of people.

The craze to even touch American shores is seductive. Before September this year, the average waiting time for an Indian to visit America on a tourist visa ranged from 250 to 1000 days. Such is the backlog. Recently, the waiting time has been shortened due to efforts from both sides. Serpentine queues slither anxiously outside the US Consulate in Hyderabad. A temple of a visa-granting deity is only half an hour away. There are more individuals of Indian origin in distant New Zealand than in Russia and China combined.

India’s economic liberalisation in the early 1990s led to a dizzying growth in Indians migrating to America.

Many believe that fear of a revanchist China is causing Washington and Delhi to cosy up. That might be true, but only partially. India’s economic liberalisation in the early 1990s led to a dizzying growth in Indians migrating to America. Mathematical aptitude and reasonable English skills became tools for outward migration and better social status. Today, the idea of the American Dream continues to grip India’s popular imagination.

However, it was not always the way. In the socialist era, Indian diplomats revelled in chastising America’s double standards at the United Nations, despite Oxbridge and American Ivy League schools being the top choices for their offspring. Let us politely call it a case of misplaced virtue. It was in fact the high performance of Indian migrants in America that became a powerful argument against Indira Gandhi’s sclerotic statism. Why could Indians at home not do well when Indians in America were prospering?

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer hosts a Diwali reception at 10 Downing Street on 29 October 2024 (Simon Dawson/No 10 Downing Street/Flickr)

For its part, Delhi is actively trumpeting the human connection in its major bilateral relationships. India’s current foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, called his country a “human resource power” in his IISS Fullerton Lecture way back in 2015. The implication was clear: America and its allies needed top-notch Indian talent to keep their technology-dominated corporations running. Lately, India has signed “migration and mobility” agreements with many partners in the West. Germany, Austria, France, Italy, and Britain are prominent examples.

There is a flip side though. The “people-to-people” factor, as bureaucratic jargon puts it, causes complications in some cases. Take the ongoing diplomatic fiasco with Canada over the murder of a Sikh sympathiser, Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Canada calls him a victim, while India labels him a terrorist. Both governments engage in mud-slinging and sarcastic quips of whodunnit. The result is poisoning Delhi-Ottawa relations. In such situations, deeper links between two societies bedevil ties. Domestic Indian issues are spilling into the Canadian political dynamic.

There was a time when the conduct of Indian foreign policy was in the taut clutches of bureaucrats and the political elite in Delhi.

There was a time when the conduct of Indian foreign policy was in the taut clutches of bureaucrats and the political elite in Delhi. The average Indian was considered underqualified to grasp, let alone shape, the nuances of the diplomatic razzle-dazzle behind closed doors. Not anymore. The Indian street is actively forging economic and familial links with the English-speaking world. Countries in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have also emerged as magnets attracting surplus Indian labour from southern India.

Having said that, India’s relationship with America and its allies does not stand solely on its anti-China leg. The English-language and economic opportunities make the Anglophone world irresistible. From Delhi’s perspective, groups like BRICS serve the goal of cosmetic posturing. The substance lies elsewhere.

About the author

Ved Shinde

Ved Shinde is an incoming doctoral candidate at the University of Cambridge. He has previously been associated the Asia Society Policy Institute and the American Enterprise Institute.

Topics

India Migration & refugees