Green pastures have turned brown – Get back on your own

 An article in a newspaper starts off, “... from Mahatma Gandhi, B. R. Ambedkar and Jawaharlal Nehru to Amartya Sen and Manmohan Singh” had gone abroad to pursue higher education. To my knowledge, none of these people had asked for or got assistance from the Government of India to return home. They did it on their own. It is a different matter that at least one of them was supported by the king of a princely state; still, it is a fact that the onward trip abroad had been sponsored and probably the return would also was likewise.

The above is a curious start to an article that pleads for Government of India’s assistance in and arrangements for having the students who had gone to Ukraine for medical studies back on home soil.

The article appears to focus on “aspirational students”, whoever they may be. For me, it more or less says that these students, if they could have had it their way under normal circumstances, would not return to India for service but come back to India only to get married and fly off to perhaps another foreign land (Ukraine, though it has been in the news on and off for the past eight years or more, is not a glamorous country).

Not very long ago (less than half century), India thought of such college-bound emigrants as a burden on India - “Brain Drain”. The same group is now called, “brand ambassadors” – the brand is India. They are also called, “living bridge”, as though those who had gone earlier and have been settled abroad for decades are desiccated wood! See, what a few decades do to society’s view of its citizens! So fickle, it is!

I am not aware, but going by what the article says, those who had stayed back to pursue higher studies in India treat those who went abroad with contempt. This does not sit well with the writers of the article; “benefits in terms of soft power, knowledge transfer and remittances,” apparently more than compensates.

As Ukraine is currently a severely troubled country, Indians who had gone did not bargain for it. They did not assess their risks – visible in plain sight since 2014 – properly and did not provide for the same. So, the lender of last resort – the Government of India.

What really gets my goat is down a column inch, authors say that bringing these students back is the “duty of any responsible government and any moral people (my emphasis),” Why is the action of the Indian government of the day brought to bear on my, the individual, morality?

Let us see this issue in clear terms. When the students went abroad for their studies, it was their individual economic calculations that set them out. “I have the wherewithal, so I go abroad.” True that many of them, perhaps not from the top fifty percentile of the population per their economic positioning on the ladder of Indian economy, took out loans from banks to enable them to go abroad. Now, they find that their calculations had led them down the primrose path. They wish to be rescued from their own miscalculations. It is to this end authors have invoked “moral people” in their justifications.

I do not have any problem in GoI extending any help to these students. But to put a heavy moral burden on the people of India is unnecessary, and indeed unjustifiable. We are inching towards a libertarian regime – doing a robust risk analysis before venturing out on a path is sine qua non. You do not do this; you must be on your own.

Let us look at it from another angle – moral hazard. Given this example (and earlier efforts of the same kind), students could start to make claims on GoI, even before a risk appears in the horizon. We already lose our sights (literally and figuratively) reading through the fine print in any loan paper. Now, it just got expanded – political risk would not be tagged under force majeure; it would be the specific risk to be borne by the borrower. If GoI comes to the aid of students stranded in a foreign country in one occasion (not connected to any action of GoI), how long would it be before similar claims, apriori, would be made? Don’t answer that! Lay out the red carpet for moral hazard.

The next claim takes my breath away! The “ecosystem” that enables transferring risk to the government helps in “transferring advanced knowledge and best practices.”  Oh, we have seen mounds and mounds of this, to make the vaunted Tirumala Hills in Andhra Pradesh green with envy!

Then comes another demand, on the host country – the responsibility for the safety and safe return of students from Ukraine thrust upon the besieged Govt. Of Ukraine!

The final statement is the one I have an antidote for: “When the achievements of Indians abroad are ours to celebrate, so is the responsibility to safeguard their welfare.” My antidote – celebrate the successes of individuals as successes of individuals and not of any collective.

I am able to enjoy the fading images of M. S. Dhoni as the success of M. S, Dhoni only and not of the team Chennai Super Kings. When it comes to celebrating the successes of Mumbai Indians, it is of that entity and not of the individuals that make up that team.

Do not hang onto the tailcoat of individuals to make the case for the collective. This is what the authors did by mentioning the various luminaries listed at the beginning of the article. Besides, it was not an auspicious start!

Not good, not good at all.

Raghuram Ekambaram