Page 39 - ELT_3rd_1st May 2020_Vol 372_Part

2020 ] BRAIN DRAIN : A NEED FOR REVERSAL A97

And, of course, another benefit is of human capital development in host country
(by brain gain) as well as parent country (by exempler works of non-resident na-
tionals). Moreover Legends like - Mahatma Gandhi, Pt. Nehru and many more
are evidence of the fact that a migrant is most likely to foster fundamental pro-
gress and potential developments in society and polity after returning from
abroad. A positive consequence worth mentioning is of expansion in diaspora
which increases the soft power of the parent country. Huge diaspora of a nation
somewhere is destined to improve its foreign and trade relations with diaspora
holding nation. On the other hand, reverse brain drain also has a positive impact
on the parent economy as those brains bring in handsome foreign investments
and create investment opportunities for domestic economy (startups, bond mar-
ket strategies, etc.).
Moving towards the negative consequences of brain drain, chief among
them is human capital loss of the parent country as the investments of Govern-
ments in subsidizing human resource development pays in other nations. Con-
sequently the parent nations remains devoid of their potential developments
which emigrants would have resulted to. And brain drain also disturbs the em-
ployment structure of the parent nation. Moreover, draining brains drain away
the revenue from their nations, which they would have paid when employed in
their nation. Further brain drain creates a vicious cycle of underdevelopment.
This phenomenon is clearly visible in many African nations like - Nigeria, Kenya,
Ethiopia, etc., which remained underdeveloped even after educating their youth.
Another con comes into picture when it becomes a general tendency amongst the
youth to prefer courses which would help them migrate after acquiring quality
education in parent country and this parts them with their cultural background.
While turning towards the consequences on host country, we can see that the
native skilled population often face disappointing competitions from the immi-
grant workers. This discourages them from pursuing higher education in their
own nation and gradually host country becomes habitual of choosing meritori-
ous immigrants over their nationals. As a result, when reverse brain drain takes
place, it leaves the host country with a lack of native human capital.
Now, if we have a look at the case of brain drain in India, ‘International
Organization for Migration’ in it’s ‘Global Migration Report 2020’ revealed,
“India has 17.5 million migrants (the largest in world) living abroad in 2019
which keeps India atop in the list of size of diaspora in the world resulting India
to receive highest remittance ($ 78.6 billion)”. Kerala’s economy has benefited
hugely from these remittances. But besides the economic benefit of having such a
large diaspora, the UNDP estimates that India loses approx $ 2 billion a year be-
cause of the emigration of computer experts to America. Indian students going
abroad for their higher studies costs India a foreign exchange outflow of approx
$ 10 billion annually. India is also facing shortage of highly qualified profession-
als in various other fields. For example, till 2000, approx 10% of the total physi-
cians trained in India moved abroad which is 10 times as compared to other
third-world country like China. Thus despite acute shortage of healthcare profes-
sionals (approx 1 doctor per thousand), India has the highest expatriation rate of
doctors which affects mainly the rural population. It keeps the citizens devoid of
the quality healthcare they deserve (by paying taxes) after educating the doctors
at a subsidized rate. Many Indians are teaching at various US Universities and
other Institutions of higher learning, where on other hand there is dearth of
skilled professionals in Indian Educational Institutions. Consequently many tal-
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