From One World to the Next:Brain
Drain in India
By Carmina Osuna
Although
migration is not totally
apparent in India,
internal migration from north to south, and vise versa, and the
emigration of
qualified students is very common. In
the book, The Age of Migration,
Castles and Miller define the
migration of
highly qualified students as, “the ‘brain drain’: university trained
people
moving from less-developed to highly-developed countries” (170). One major result of the brain drain is the
decline of skilled personal and capital in the country of emigration
(139).
During my
time in India
I had the great privilege of spending a lot of time with our inter-port
students, Pooja and Neru, both from Chennai,
India. In appearance Pooja is much lighter and
taller than Neru and it was due to this difference that I asked her the
following question: “why are you so much lighter than Neru if you are
both from
the same region?” Pooja replied that in
a previous generation her family had migrated from north India
to south India. She added that because Neru’s ancestry was
originally from the south their skin color is darker and south Indians
tend to
be shorter than those originally from the north.
Among our
many conversations future
plans were among the more popular. Through
our readings and the Indian inter-port lecturer, I
learned that
the brain drain was a big issue for India. As my interest grew in this subject I felt
compelled to ask Pooja and Neru what they saw for their future. Pooja answered by saying that she plans to
move to the Netherlands
for graduate school and maybe later to the United
States or somewhere else in Europe.
Neru, although not quite sure, knows
that she would most likely migrate abroad.
The only time
I ever thought about leaving
the United States
was when thinking about travels or studying abroad.
It wasn’t until I spoke with two very
intelligent women from India
who both see the likelihood of leaving their country for their
professional
education and careers that I realized how prevalent and real the brain
drain
problem is for developing countries. Imagine
if all of the graduates from the top schools in
the U.S would
move to Europe or Africa
and if
the number of highly trained immigrants’ ceased to move to the U.S,
what
position would the country be in then?
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