The H-1B visa issue now consuming a considerable amount of newsprint in India is a storm in a teacup. It has never been anything more than that.
During the nearly 15 years that I was a foreign correspondent in the US, my desk was periodically buffeted by demands related to the H-1B issue. Most of the demands from special interests who regularly network with the Washington media were that I go on a patriotic crusade against those who want to eliminate H-1B visas or significantly reduce the number of Indians who take that route to America.
In the early years of my posting, I used to do painstaking legwork on the subject, assuming that it was an issue that could indeed curtail Indian immigration to the US. Over time, I realised that H-1B visas are subject to market forces. Supply and demand in the labour market ultimately determine what happens in the US Congress with H-1B legislation, and the inflow and outflow—yes, there is outflow of immigrants from the US, too—of H-1B personnel.
North America is a free market and its laissez-faire approach covers labour mobility as well. Few are aware that the H-1 programme began as long ago as 1952 in response to the post-World War II demand to fill specialised jobs. The hyphenated suffixes A, B and C were added to the H-1 tag later to differentiate between specific professional categories. Over the decades, the scheme has only expanded; it never shrank.
There was a time towards the end of the Bill Clinton presidency and soon after when the H-1B programme faced an existential crisis. This was in adverse reaction to a legislation—the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act—that had resulted in larger inflows of high-skilled aliens. President Clinton oversaw steady, unprecedented economic growth in the US during almost the entire eight years of his rule. The era also saw globalisation on a scale never witnessed before.
Unfortunately, this was also the period when inequality rose visibly and painfully in the US. Subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq increased sufferings and exposed the dark underbelly of the power of the American military-industrial complex. The H-1B arrivals became favourite whipping boys for the less qualified, unemployed and underemployed Americans. The visa programme for skilled immigrants fitted the role of an easy scapegoat for their failings.
External affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal’s formal and direct intervention in the ongoing H-1B debate in the US on January 3 is an important new pointer to the lay of the land on this emotive issue. “India-US economic ties benefit a lot from the technical expertise provided by skilled professionals,” Jaiswal said. “Mobility of skilled professionals is an important component in this collaboration.”
Such a clear and categorical official assertion suggests confidence that Indians will continue to be big beneficiaries of the H-1B programme in the immediate future under the 119th US Congress. It was not a coincidence that the Indian government entered the debate on the day the new Congress opened.
Jaiswal’s comments run counter to India’s consistent position that visas are the sovereign right of an admitting country and that it is entirely up to the authorities there to decide whom to let in and how many visas are to be issued to foreigners in what category. Such a significant change in diplomatic parameters is typical of what to expect with the election of maverick Donald Trump as the 47th US president.
Trump is unconventional and has no respect for the hitherto-accepted ways of diplomacy and statecraft. The US is a superpower whose actions affect other countries. Those countries, in turn, will respond in similar, reciprocal ways. The Narendra Modi government’s decision that it will have a say in future H-1B processes is an example of how countries are likely to deal with Trump’s America and vice versa.
In the past decades when the H-1B programme faced headwinds on Capitol Hill, on shop floors and among sons-of-the-soil lobbies, India confronted them by creating forceful coalitions to help defend the programme. Such alliances comprised industry groups, trade bodies, individual business process outsourcing (BPO) giants with deep pockets and Indian students across American universities, who were aspiring for H-1B status after graduation.
Individually, the offices of the Confederation of Indian Industry and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry in Washington organised roadshows to convince sceptics that Indian BPO companies were opening offices and creating jobs in the US. The technology industry group Nasscom was integral to this effort. Silicon Valley, which was looking for fresh talent from abroad through the H-1B route, became a part of this coalition.
Universities across the US lent their broad support. They were interested in the lucrative business of getting Indian students with an ‘American dream’ into their campuses. That was a time when many universities nursed hopes—false ones, as it turned out—of opening their campuses in India. The H-1B programme survived and even expanded because of these cross-cutting alliances.
The Indian government did not directly come into the picture in this phase of evolution of the H-1B process. Behind the scenes, it lent powerful support to the broad coalition to convince Americans at all levels that importing skilled immigrants was good for their country’s future.
Trump’s proposed department of government efficiency has made it easier for the external affairs ministry spokesperson to enter the current debate without appearing that he was interfering in what is undoubtedly an internal affair of the US.
Meanwhile, India’s past coalitions that fuelled support for H-1B have frayed. They were led by men like Tarun Das, Amit Mitra and Kiran Karnik, who had the ears of US Congressmen, cabinet members and state governors. From time to time, they even met the US president on broader Indian issues. All these men have assumed other public roles since and left behind large shoes that are hard to fill.
Some tinkering apart, H-1B will stay; but it may become a process in which governments like India’s may have a direct role.
K P Nayar
Strategic analyst
(Views are personal)
(kpnayar@gmail.com)