[Reader-list] Heather Timmons: A reverse culture shock in India

[yasir ~يا سر]

this article talks about government and business culture,
but for people who have lived abroad, i estimate it takes at least several
years to get functioning normally after returning. and i am talking about
everyday affairs.

best






On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 1:59 PM, Amit Basole <abasole at gmail.com> wrote:

> Disclaimer: My remarks are not addressed to Patrice, but to the content of
> the article.
>
> The writer of the article, Heather Timmons, probably did not intend this
> but
> the piece comes across as a report of spoilt NRIs whining about India as
> they always do. If "helping your country" can only happen when everything
> works here just the way it does in America, then there would be no need to
> "help the country" in the first place!
>
> Even if the 100,000 repats expected to arrive in the next 5 years were all
> to get frustrated and leave India in the next 15 years I doubt the country
> would be much the worse for it. Ultimately it is the 900 millions Indians
> who have never been abroad nor are likely to go and who constitute an
> immense pool of talent and labor which sustains livelihoods despite massive
> exploitation by the State and by Capital, who hold the key to India's
> future
> well-being. Not a handful of repats. The later are of course welcome if
> they
> wish to contribute in due humility, but not if they expect special
> treatment.
>
> This is not to imply that corruption, bureaucracy et al are not real
> problems, of course they are and for the working poor they can mean the
> difference between life and death, not just a difference between living
> comfortably in India or living comfortably in America. So by all means lets
> fight these problems as best as we can. If we can't and if returning to
> more
> "civilized lands" becomes necessary, we have only ourselves to blame.
>
> Looking Indian means discrimination and second-class treatment in America,
> thinking American means being a misfit in India. Tough luck.
>
> For full disclosure, I have been in the US for the past ten years and
> though
> I am living in India this year for research purposes.
>
> Amit
>
> On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 12:06 PM, Patrice Riemens <patrice at xs4all.nl>
> wrote:
>
> > Original to the NYT/IHT, Nov 27, 2009.
> > Original at: http://bit.ly/6YIqFG
> >
> >
> >
> > Some Indians Find It Tough to Go Home Again
> > By HEATHER TIMMONS
> >
> > NEW DELHI — When 7-year-old Shiva Ayyadurai left Mumbai with his family
> > nearly 40 years ago, he promised himself he would return to India someday
> > to help his country.
> >
> > In June, Mr. Ayyadurai, now 45, moved from Boston to New Delhi hoping to
> > make good on that promise. An entrepreneur and lecturer at the
> > Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a fistful of American
> degrees,
> > he was the first recruit of an ambitious government program to lure
> > talented scientists of the so-called desi diaspora back to their
> homeland.
> >
> > “It seemed perfect,” he said recently of the job opportunity.
> >
> > It wasn’t.
> >
> > As Mr. Ayyadurai sees it now, his Western business education met India’s
> > notoriously inefficient, opaque government, and things went downhill from
> > there. Within weeks, he and his boss were at loggerheads. Last month, his
> > job offer was withdrawn. Mr. Ayyadurai has moved back to Boston.
> >
> > In recent years, Mother India has welcomed back tens of thousands of
> > former emigrants and their offspring. When he visited the United States
> > this week, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh personally extended an
> invitation
> > “to all Indian-Americans and nonresident Indians who wish to return
> home.”
> > But, like Mr. Ayyadurai, many Indians who spent most of their lives in
> > North America and Europe are finding they can’t go home again.
> >
> > About 100,000 “returnees” will move from the United States to India in
> the
> > next five years, estimates Vivek Wadhwa, a research associate at Harvard
> > University who has studied the topic. These repats, as they are known,
> are
> > drawn by India’s booming economic growth, the chance to wrestle with
> > complex problems and the opportunity to learn more about their heritage.
> > They are joining multinational companies, starting new businesses and
> even
> > becoming part of India’s sleepy government bureaucracy.
> >
> > But a study by Mr. Wadhwa and other academics found that 34 percent of
> > repats found it difficult to return to India — compared to just 13
> percent
> > of Indian immigrants who found it difficult to settle in the United
> > States. The repats complained about traffic, lack of infrastructure,
> > bureaucracy and pollution.
> >
> > For many returnees the cultural ties and chance to do good that drew them
> > back are overshadowed by workplace cultures that feel unexpectedly
> > foreign, and can be frustrating. Sometimes returnees discover that they
> > share more in their attitudes and perspectives with other Americans or
> > with the British than with other Indians. Some stay just a few months,
> > some return to the West after a few years.
> >
> > Returnees run into trouble when they “look Indian but think American,”
> > said Anjali Bansal, managing partner in India for Spencer Stuart, the
> > global executive search firm. People expect them to know the country
> > because of how they look, but they may not be familiar with the way
> things
> > run, she said. Similarly, when things don’t operate the way they do in
> the
> > United States or Britain, the repats sometimes complain.
> >
> > “India can seem to have a fairly ambiguous and chaotic way of working,
> but
> > it works,” Ms. Bansal said. “I’ve heard people say things like ‘It is so
> > inefficient or it is so unprofessional.’ ” She said it was more
> > constructive to just accept customs as being different.
> >
> > Sometimes, the better fit for a job in India is an expatriate who has
> > experience working in emerging markets, rather than someone born in India
> > who has only worked in the United States, she said.
> >
> > While several Indian-origin authors have penned soul-searching tomes
> about
> > their return to India, and dozens of business books exist for Western
> > expatriates trying to do business here, the guidelines for the returning
> > Indian manager or entrepreneur are still being drawn.
> >
> > “Some very simple practices that you often take for granted, such as
> being
> > ethical in day to day situations, or believing in the rule of law in
> > everyday behavior, are surprisingly absent in many situations,” said Raju
> > Narisetti, who was born in Hyderabad and returned to India in 2006 to
> > found a business newspaper called Mint, which is now the country’s
> > second-biggest business paper by readership.
> >
> > He said he left earlier than he expected because of a “troubling nexus”
> of
> > business, politics and publishing that he called “draining on body and
> > soul.” He returned to the United States this year to join The Washington
> > Post.
> >
> > There are no shortcuts to spending lots of time working in the country,
> > returnees say. “There are so many things that are tricky about doing
> > business in India that it takes years to figure it out,” said Sanjay
> > Kamlani, the co-chief executive of Pangea3, a legal outsourcing firm with
> > offices in New York and Mumbai. Mr. Kamlani was born in Miami, where his
> > parents emigrated from Mumbai, but he has started two businesses with
> > Indian operations.
> >
> > When Mr. Kamlani started hiring in India, he met with a completely
> > unexpected phenomena: some new recruits would not show up for work on
> > their first day. Then, their mothers would call and say they were sick
> for
> > days in a row. They never intended to come at all, he realized, but
> > “there’s a cultural desire to avoid confrontation,” he said.
> >
> > The case of Mr. Ayyadurai, the M.I.T. lecturer, illustrates just how
> > frustrating the experience can be for someone schooled in more direct,
> > American-style management. After a long meeting with a top bureaucrat,
> who
> > gave him a handwritten job offer, Mr. Ayyadurai signed on to the Council
> > of Scientific and Industrial Research, or C.S.I.R., a government-financed
> > agency that reports to the ministry of science.
> >
> > The agency is responsible for creating a new company, called
> > C.S.I.R.-Tech, to spin off profitable businesses from India’s dozens of
> > public laboratories. Currently, the agency, which oversees 4,500
> > scientists, generates just $80 million in cash flow a year, even though
> > its annual budget is the equivalent of half a billion dollars.
> >
> > Mr. Ayyadurai said he spent weeks trying to get answers and responses to
> > e-mail messages, particularly from the person who hired him, the C.S.I.R.
> > director general, Samir K. Brahmachari. After several months of trying to
> > set up a business plan for the new company with no input from his boss,
> he
> > said, he distributed a draft plan to C.S.I.R.’s scientists asking for
> > feedback, and criticizing the agency’s management.
> >
> > Four days later, Mr. Ayyadurai was forbidden from communicating with
> other
> > scientists. Later, he received an official letter saying his job offer
> was
> > withdrawn.
> >
> > The complaints in Mr. Ayyadurai’s paper could be an outline for what many
> > inside and outside India say could be improved in some workplaces here:
> > disorganization, intimidation, a culture where top directors’ decisions
> > are rarely challenged and a lack of respect for promptness that means
> > meetings start hours late and sometimes go on for hours with no clear
> > agenda.
> >
> > But going public with such accusations is highly unusual. Mr. Ayyadurai
> > circulated his paper not just to the agency’s scientists but to
> > journalists, and wrote about his situation to Prime Minister Manmohan
> > Singh. India is “sitting on a huge opportunity” to create new businesses
> > and tap into thousands of science and technology experts, Mr. Ayyadurai
> > said, but a “feudal culture” is holding the country back.
> >
> > Mr. Brahmachari said in an interview that Mr. Ayyadurai had misunderstood
> > nearly everything — from his handwritten job offer, which he said was
> only
> > meant to suggest what Mr. Ayyadurai could receive were he to be hired, to
> > the way Mr. Ayyadurai asked scientists for their feedback on what the
> > C.S.I.R. spinoff should look like.
> >
> > To prove his point, Mr. Brahmachari, who was two hours late for an
> > interview scheduled by his office, read from a government guide about
> > decision-making in the organization. Mr. Ayyadurai didn’t follow
> protocol,
> > he said. “As long as your language is positive for the organization I
> have
> > no problem,” he added.
> >
> > As the interview was closing, Mr. Brahmachari questioned why anyone would
> > be interested in the situation, and then said he would complain to a
> > reporter’s bosses in New York if she continued to pursue the story.
> >
> >
> > _________________________________________
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>
>
>
> --
> Amit Basole
> Department of Economics
> Thompson Hall
> University of Massachusetts
> Amherst, MA 01003
> Phone: 413-665-2463
> http://www.people.umass.edu/abasole/
> blog: http://thenoondaysun.blogspot.com/
> _________________________________________
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