biting the US hand that feeds them

Date: Monday, March 31, 2003 12:18 PM

H-1B and JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

Aspiring programmers in India that hope to come to the U.S. as H-1Bs
are happy that they can take advantage of "reverse discrimination" in
the United States. They are very encouraged when they heard of Guy
Santiglia's complaints against Sun Microsystems because the US
Department of Labor didn't penalize Sun for discriminating against
Americans in favor of H-1Bs. That send a signal to Indian programmers
that they can still come to the U.S. to take jobs from American
citizens, and that companies can discriminate in favor of them.

This article also contains some interesting views about the war in
Iraq.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/EC28Df02.html

South Asia

Indians wary of biting the US hand that feeds them

By Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI - "Given a chance, most Indians would emigrate to the United
States tomorrow," is how Christopher Raj, professor of American studies
at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in the capital city, explains the
muted, if not indifferent, public attitude in the country to the war on
Iraq.

India's emergence as a supplier of software services and manpower to
the US roughly coincides with the demise of its former ally, the Soviet
Union, and the utter defeat of another close friend, Iraq, in the
high-technology, first Gulf War of 1991.

Software exports, now worth US$8.3 billion annually, led India's
emergence from a socialist past into an era of rapid globalization, and
is the pride of the ruling right-wing coalition which has, since coming
to power in 1998, sought a close strategic alliance with Washington.

According to Raj, these days, neither the government nor ordinary
Indians see an advantage in criticizing the policies of a country they
look up to or are dependent on. "We are not alone in such attitudes -
people in many Arab countries, for instance, feel the same way," Raj
said.

Indeed, the ruling, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) refused to allow a
resolution in parliament against the war in Iraq. Likewise, Foreign
Minister Yashwant Sinha has said that, if asked, India would allow US
military aircraft access to refueling facilities. Public pressure
forced India to withdraw refueling facilities for US aircraft during
the previous Gulf War.

Said Rakesh Gulati, a fresh graduate who is proud of being a "Microsoft
certified" software professional: "I am waiting for my H1B visa [to
work in the US] - you won't catch me going anywhere near those commie
rallies in front of the US embassy."

Gulati's immediate concern is increased scrutiny at the US embassy
since September 11, 2001, of H1B visas, which allow qualified
professionals like him to work temporarily in the US and earn salaries
unheard of in mostly impoverished India.

"I just hate Islamic jihadists and what they did to the World Trade
Center," said Gulati with a vehemence that brooked no discussion on the
finer points of what produces religious fundamentalism and how it may
best be tackled. That is a clear departure from typical attitudes a
decade ago, when young people in many of India's best universities were
inspired by Marxist ideals and a healthy disdain for things American.

Gulati's heroes are Indians who have made it big in Silicon Valley,
like Sameer Bhatia, who created Hotmail and then sold it to Microsoft
for hundreds of millions of dollars, and Vinod Khosla, best known for
conceptualizing Sun Microsystems.

Asked about issues like racial discrimination in the US or the human
rights issue in Iraq, Gulati says that he is sure that these have been
exaggerated and are anyway no concern of his. "Are you saying there is
no discrimination in India or that the human rights situation is
perfect in this country - especially after last year's violent events
in Gujarat?" he demanded, referring to the anti-Muslim riots in that
state.

In fact, India's software hopefuls are encouraged by stories of
"reverse discrimination". In February, for instance, a former systems
administrator at Sun Microsystems, Guy Santiglia, complained to the US
Department of Labor that he and hundreds of other employees were laid
off by the company while retaining their H1B workers and seeking to
hire more.

Professor Sabysachi Mitra, who teaches management, said at a strategy
summit last month organized by the powerful National Association of
Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), "There is a lot of
resistance in the United States to people who don't walk, talk and look
like them - but the business [software] has a lot of lobbying power."

On the other hand, many of the people who attended the summit said
privately that India would be shooting itself in the foot by opposing
the US-led war effort which they thought could actually create demand
for software.

For those who cannot make it to the land of their dreams, there is
still the prospect of a high-paying situation in the booming market for
outsourced software and information technology-enabled, back office and
call-center industries right at home.

To the rare visitor to Expressway Calls, a call center on the outskirts
of Delhi which services a bank halfway around the world in the US, the
sight of young Indian boys and girls wearing baseball caps and
conversing in perfect mid-Western accents through gum-clenching teeth
may sound bizarre. But even more bizarre than the accents are attitudes
that fit better in Dallas than in Delhi. "Like the prez [George W Bush]
says, Saddam is pure evil," declared Monty, the nickname for Mandeep
Singh.

Many believe that the Indian government's abandonment of its leadership
position in the Non-Aligned Movement and muted criticism of the war in
Iraq may have been prompted, at least partly, by its interests in the
global software industry and the growing influence of NASSCOM on
policy.

Earlier this month, the Malaysian government was surprised by what some
of its officials thought was the "overreaction" of New Delhi to the
detention 270 Indian software professionals on suspicion that they were
illegal immigrants, and their alleged roughing up by police in Kuala
Lumpur.

India's External Affairs Ministry, which is often accused of being
unsympathetic to the plight of Indian workers abroad, suddenly turned
uncharacteristically pro-active and demanded that Kuala Lumpur take
action against the policemen involved in the incident.

There were moves suggesting that India's High Commissioner to Malaysia
would be recalled, landing rights for Malaysian Airlines at Kolkata
airport curtailed and concessions for the import of Malaysian palm oil
cancelled.

Formal apologies from Malaysia did not prevent India from announcing
that it would, as a mark of protest, bar its national hockey team from
participating in the prestigious Sultan Azlan Shah hockey tournament
being played out this week.

(Inter Press Service)

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