The pull of greener pastures

There is big talk of India’s high-growth trajectory. The world is apparently acknowledging our continuing rise in the comity of nations, epitomised recently by the nation’s G20 presidency. So, it is with a sense of irony that I look at the full-page advertisements in newspapers showcasing services for providing a ‘one-way ticket’ to foreign shores. These advertisements show smiling young individuals looking excited about their overseas prospects.

These two narratives are in contradiction. If India is witnessing such rapid economic growth, why are our youth fleeing in droves? In my native village Bagthala (Kurukshetra), where my family has owned farmlands for generations, a trickle has turned into a torrent of youngsters headed off to Europe, Canada, Australia, etc. Over 200 youths from the village alone have emigrated, never to return, and their family bungalows here are either locked up or being used by servants-turned-caretakers.

Kurukshetra city itself — famous as the land of the Mahabharata, and now as an agrarian centre — has morphed into a leading hub of student emigration. In local parlance, the business of arranging emigration papers is called ‘kabootarbaazi’, offering an insight into the practices that are often not above board.

Paid advertisements and news articles on ‘endless’ opportunities presented by emigration abound in newspapers. Sometimes, local politicians are featured congratulating students and their parents on having secured travel visas for destinations abroad — never mind the course of study or what professional opportunities are in store. The most in-demand test for many of these students no longer pertains to engineering or medicine, as was the case in ‘old India’; it is now IELTS, the English language proficiency exam, followed by any course that can guarantee them a pathway out of the country.

It is not that the interest of students (and parents) in overseas career opportunities is a recent phenomenon. Darshan Singh of the Lubana community was the first to go to Germany from Bagthala in 1965. He was followed by so many eager youths that an entire locality in the village is now known as ‘Germany da dera’ (German camp).

However, the scale of this exodus across both rural and urban communities in the country today is unparalleled. If India is the country of growth and opportunities, why are our youth lining up to head for the low-growth and high-inflation countries? What explains this paradox — are our youth misinformed or are all these dazzling economic indicators flattering to deceive?