The loss of the best and brightest may have diminished the growth prospects of what was then a very poor postcolonial country. But in the 1990s, as news spread of a fresh economic bonanza in India, some of these long-departed brothers, sisters, cousins, nephews and nieces began to return. In many ways, the achievements as well as the illusions of “rising” India in the last two decades are largely due to this repatriating Indian diaspora, which brought fresh energy, capital, information, networks and ideas to the motherland.
Disillusionment with India’s political dysfunction and seemingly ineradicable corruption and inefficiency has made many of them -- such as the former chief executive at a major software company I met recently in Singapore -- want to go back to relatively low-growth but less challenging and more secure economic environments.
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