India holds a unique position in international migration. It is an attractive destination for unskilled migrants, whether legal or illegal, from the neighboring countries in the subcontinent—primarily Bangladesh and Nepal. In the 21st century, however, India has drawn worldwide attention more as a country of origin for the migration of so-called “knowledge workers,” mainly IT professionals, to developed countries, with 80 percent of the emigrants migrating to the United States.

Knowledge workers have been emigrating from India since the late 1960s. Traditionally branded as “brain drain,” the cost of migration of such highly educated Indians is seen as a financial investment loss in education, a social skill loss of trained personnel, and as the loss of catalysts of necessary political change in the exodus of young unemployed graduates. Conversely, the primary benefits have been identified as monetary remittance, the transfer of technology through programs like the UN’s TOKTEN program, and return migration of those Indians further educated and experienced abroad. However, the perception of these costs and benefits have changed with shifts in the paradigm from “brain drain” of the 1960s and 1970s to “brain bank” of the 1980s and 1990s, and subsequently to “brain gain” in the 21st century; the complete turnaround is reflected in ongoing euphoria over increasing quotas for immigration in developed countries, mainly the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia, and New Zealand, among others.

Yet, there are emerging contours of costs and benefits in international migration that have remained uncharted so far. These could be seen as arising from three key aspects of international migration from India in the 21st century that are potentially very significant:

The Primacy of Temporary Migration

Recent publications testify that while the growth of permanent settler admissions in developed countries has slown, the number of temporary worker entrants has grown more rapidly in the 21st century. This is a result of the new emphasis on return migration as part of effective migration management policies instituted by receiving countries in Europe and North America. In the case of legal migration, particularly involving educated and skilled migrants, the British work permit, the German “green card,” and the US H-1B visa, even the so-called “GATS visa” proposed under the General Agreement for Trade in Services of the WTO negotiations, are all examples of policies invoked to encourage temporary instead of permanent migration of highly skilled professionals.

Other developing countries where emigrants originate in South Asia, particularly Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, have been overwhelmed by the bandwagon of a return migration policy, one which is aimed at benefiting them in all respects. These countries have not been internally sensitive enough to understand the social costs of return migration policy on individual workers and their families, especially concerning unexpected violations of human rights and undesired outcomes on the humanitarian front. When return is imminent, for example, in most cases only the primary worker would move and the immediate family would remain in the country of origin for much of the time. The family dilemma arises because of the possible constraints of the spouse’s job and the children’s schooling in the home country. Under such circumstances, temporary migration entails a compulsory separation between the members of the family, making both the worker and the family nomadic travelers. It also makes the return of the worker to the home country a kind of forced migration, although all the decisions within the concerned migrant's family tend to remain voluntary.

The Primacy of Student Migration

Highly skilled persons from countries such as India have migrated not only through the employment gate, but also through the academic gate. Figures presented in Open Doors 2004, the annual survey of the US Institute of International Education, revealed that during the 2003-2004 academic year, Indian students accounted for 13.9 percent of all foreign students in the United States, the largest percentage for the third year in a row, followed by China, Korea, Japan, Canada, and Taiwan. In the 2004-2005 academic year, India remained the largest academic emigrant country for the fourth consecutive year with a total of 80,466 students abroad in the United States, although it registered only a modest one percent increase over the previous year's enrollments. The rate of growth was undoubtedly much slower than the double-digit increases of the earlier three years. However, this modest increase has been more than made up for by the increase of 23 percent, the country’s largest, in the number of applications for Fall 2006 overseas admissions, closely followed by China’s 21 percent.