Sanjaya Baru’s Secession of the Successful examines 200 years of Indian migration with a focus on the drivers and impacts of the recent exodus of the country’s elite. Linking India’s flawed governance and socio-economic inequality to global immigration trends, the book raises urgent questions about India’s democracy, development, and diaspora, though it would have benefitted from a stronger theoretical framework and broader literature review, writes Rahul Gupta.
Drivers of Indian migration
Indians take pride in being the world’s largest democracy and the fastest growing major economy, but the realities of governance in a vastly multicultural country pose a great challenge. Several systemic weaknesses are contributing to outward migration, from India’s archaic tax regime and bureaucratic overreach to deep socio-economic inequalities and a widening trust deficit among the country’s diverse ethnic groups. And it’s not just blue-collar workers: relatively well-off Indians are emigrating in growing numbers. As a result, Indians have become the largest diaspora in the world, a trend that has accelerated in the last two decades.
In Secession of the Successful, Sanjaya Baru, a political economist and one of India’s foremost public intellectuals, analyses different waves of Indian emigration in the past 200 years, tracing the changing socio-economic nature of each wave. The book is situated at the intersection of public policy and governance studies and adds to the existing body of literature on migration from the developing to the developed world. It comes at a time when debate over immigration and the tightening of immigration policy is raging worldwide, with no sign of abating.
As India’s elite increasingly move overseas, by taking up residency or acquiring citizenship, they disassociate themselves from India’s future.
According to Baru, Indians have historically migrated to distant lands, but emigration in large numbers can be traced back to the early 19th century when the colonial state transported people as indentured labour. This first wave was followed by a second one in the 1960s that comprised of semi-skilled workers travelling to Gulf in search of higher wages. Baru clarifies that he prefers the term “overseas” over “diaspora” as the latter does not capture the social, economic, and regional diversity of overseas Indians (90). Referring to overseas Indians as Pravasi Bhartiya (Non-Resident Indian) is also faulty, he contends, since it fails to inspire overseas Indians to either return or invest more in the home economy, an explicit objective of the Indian government (39).
Brain and wealth drain or “secession of the successful”
The book is more focused on understanding the third wave of emigration, beginning in the 1970s, and the fourth wave, coinciding with the dawn of the 21st century. These two waves, comprising largely of middle-class professionals and high-net worth individuals (HNIs), is what Baru collectively refer to as “elite migration”– a term he adapts from Devesh Kapur’s work on the domestic impact of international migration from India. This group, constituting India’s social, economic and power elite, comprises the major chunk of those emigrating in the third and the fourth waves and amounts to what Baru calls the “secession of the successful”. This is because as India’s elite increasingly move overseas, by taking up residency or acquiring citizenship, they disassociate themselves from India’s future. The fourth wave is, however, distinct from the third, as the push and pull factors coalesce to the “ease of living” overseas – broadly implying better living standards and less state interference – compared to India.
The flight of India’s elite is in turn reigniting the debate over “bran drain” in developing societies (44). Whether the emigration of Indians is something to celebrate or regret is a recurrent question the book raises. By referring to the works of economists like Dadabhai Naoroji, Jagdish Bhagwati and V.M. Dandekar, among other international economists like Harry G. Johnson, Herbert Grubel and Anthony Scott, Baru unpacks the debate of around the effects of migration from developing to developed societies. The combined effect of skilled labour migration is an international transfer of resources in the form of human capital, often referred to as the “brain drain” (49). While several top Indian officials and leaders, from Manmohan Singh to Narendra Modi, have hailed brain gain over brain drain, Baru suggests this official endorsement for emigration has accelerated and legitimised the latter (61). This loss of human capital is accompanied by a drain of wealth due to the flight of HNIs (138), both of which negatively impact the economy. Another impact of the mass emigration of India’s youth means that ageing parents are left without care. This calls for the Indian state to make policies that cater to the needs of the elderly (164).
Religious and political implications of emigration
Another emerging trend among the Indian diaspora is growing public assertion of religion fused with political mobilisation (196). Unlike previously, when India sought to protect the interests of its diaspora in countries with significant communities of overseas Indians, such as in Fiji, Mauritius and Sri Lanka, rising political divisions among this diverse diaspora, particularly in the West, is hurting its image and harming India’s bilateral relations with friendly countries like Canada (204). Baru gives the example of overseas Hindu Indians, showing how their political activism and religion-infused nationalism have promoted the cause of “Global Hindutva” (207).
The irony with such ‘Globalised Indian Nationalists’ is that their religious nationalism does not translate into a desire to return home
The irony with such “Globalised Indian Nationalists” is that their religious nationalism does not translate into a desire to return home (212). In fact, most of the professionals and wealthy overseas Indians rarely return, whom Baru calls “Non-Returning Indians” (43). Moreover, concerns from host countries over their political activism and potential impacts on India’s democracy has prompted Indian diplomatic efforts to counter alleged anti-India activities (218). This has made overseas Indians, as Baru says, both a diplomatic bridge and a political challenge to be managed.
India and rising anti-immigration policy worldwide
Overseas Indians, until now, have reaped the benefits of liberal immigration regimes in the West, while enjoying a favourable portrayal as “good citizens” in the Gulf. But this may be imperilled as anti-immigration sentiments grow worldwide. Already, protectionist leader Donald Trump has curtailed the issuance of H-1B visas in the US, curtailing a key access route for skilled labour and qualified professionals from abroad. In a scenario of reduced opportunities in the world labour market, managing migration has become increasinlgy difficult and contentious for sender and host countries.
The book could have been improved by incorporating a broader range of existing academic works on development and governance in India. For example, Dipankar Gupta argues in his book The Caged Phoenix (2010) that India’s phenomenal growth has not translated into development due to high levels of income and wealth inequality. Baru does cite data on economic and wealth inequality in India, but does not clearly link it with his main argument. Moreover, in in his 2019 book, India’s Power Elite, Baru situates his analysis of the changing caste and class composition of India’s elite within the existing theoretical literature on elites to build a strong argument. Secession of the Successful lacks a similarly robust and compelling theoretical framework to make its case.
Nevertheless, the book grapples with pressing questions. It will be a valuable resource for both a general audience interested in the causes and effects of Indian emigration, and public policy officials dealing with managing migration. Overall, Secession of the Successful make a significant contribution to the understanding of the future of democracy, and debates around the ease of living in India.
Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Main image: Graphic Gears on Unsplash.
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