From brain drain to brain gain: reverse migration to Bangalore and Hyderabad, India’s globalizing high tech cities

This paper assesses the mutual impact of returning Indian-origin skilled workers on the cities of Bangalore (Bengaluru) and Hyderabad, which have emerged as India’s leading “tech cities”. During the 1970s and 1980s, there was concern that India was losing its educated workforce to the West, particularly to the United States through a phenomenon known as “brain drain”. More recently, there is evidence that reverse brain drain is occurring, as U.S.-trained Indian professionals are returning to their home country in increasing numbers to take advantage of new growth and employment opportunities. The effects of this skilled, transnationally active labor force on various sectors of the economy, on the social and physical infrastructure of Bangalore and Hyderabad and in forging and solidifying transnational linkages between India and the United States are explored in this paper. This study also investigates the reasons why successful US professionals of Asian-Indian origin are returning to their home country via a series of personal interviews. The paper offers Bangalore and Hyderabad as “worldwide leading cities” with a niche status in the global Information Technology (IT) sector.