How Indian IT Workers Discriminate Against Non-Indian Workers
January 31, 2019 by Shaun Snapp
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Executive Summary
Introduction
The following are quotations from Quora. Before we get into our own analysis, we wanted to provide quotations on the topic that we had nothing to do with creating. These quotations are consistent with our experiences working in IT. And this will illustrate a convergence of observation on this point.
Indians as Discriminating Against Other Indians
The following is a description of how they normally see the discrimination begin. This observation was written by an Indian.
Typically the US anti-discrimination laws are centered on race. However, Indian discrimination is more complicated than that. Indians have a complicated discrimination modality that is actually sub-race and is a combination of Indians from specific areas and beyond that caste. Indians prefer a type of scenario which they had back in India. So the preference is from Brahmans to be at the top of the organizations. For most outsiders there divisions are invisible, as each of the groups are seen as “Indian” by Western eyes (or at least all by the most trained). But for Indians, these divisions are highly important. They determine who can be hired into what role, how they relate to others, who have status over others, and so on.
Dealing with Abusive Indian Management Approaches
None of the Indian firms in IT have employee compositions that look anything like the typical demographics in the countries they operate outside of India. However, each of these firms could argue that because they are terrible companies to work for that only nearly no Americans would want to work there.
When Infosys, WiPro or TATA sell a project in the US or Europe it means that the team will be primarily Indian. Domestic workers lose jobs when this happens. There are many companies like Cisco, IBM, Oracle, and HPE that are founded in the US and in their heritage and in their perception but are highly Indian. And domestic firms that become Indian seem to go in one direction. That is they become progressively more Indian. IBM stopped reporting employment by country because IBM has been laying off domestic workers in primary markets for IT services (US, Europe, Australia, Canada) and replacing them with Indian workers. Intel has been classifying Indian workers as domestic to also, hide the fact that Intel is becoming increasingly Indian. Companies that become strongly Indian hide that fact from both customers and from the general public and this leads to a great underestimation of the degree to which domestic companies are becoming strongly Indian. Indians see this as a very positive development and as a success. However, every job consumed by an Indian worker is taken from a domestic worker. The reason being that India primarily offers workers. Companies like Accenture or Deloitte do not sell consulting projects in India, they use Indian workers to displace domestic workers in the primary IT markets. This is the same modality of commerce as is found in the Middle East in construction projects. Indian (and Pakistan) construction workers come over to various Middle East countries and displace workers in those countries. However, in those cases, the workers do not become Saudi or Dubai citizens. They eventually go back to India.
There is little “trade” between the primary IT markets, the primary IT markets are either importing Indian workers, who eventually become citizens or outsourcing work to Indian firms in India. There is simply no getting around these are jobs that would ordinarily be performed by domestic workers. Indian workers in the primary IT markets do not “make the pie bigger” for non-Indian workers. They take a slice out of the pie, and an increasingly large slice. And once that slice is taken, it grows to a larger and large slice.
Indian Workers and Income Inequality
Furthermore, the jobs taken from the domestic worker not only transfer wealth from the domestic worker to the Indian worker, and make the work environment hostile for the other domestic workers,they also increase income inequality in the domestic location. Through the H1-B program US companies have booked far more profits than they would have if they had not had the H1-B program, and that is what is undiscussed in the Indian media. That this leads to higher income inequality in the US and in the other primary IT markets.
How The Indian Bias Against Non-Indians Extends to Indians in a Tribal Manner
Where Are Indians in the US Primarily From?
Most Americans have no idea where different Indians are from, are unaware of the regional or other differences in India. To most Americans any Indian is simply “from India” and that is the end of it. However, the Indians that come to the US for IT work are from one specific area according to not only this commenter but others we have interviewed.
How to Domestic Firms With Previously Domestic Labor Become Indian so Quickly?
Indians like to propose that they are so skilled that companies become Indian after the first small number of Indians are hired because of the demand for skills. This is a rather curious position that Indians are not only more skilled than any one group but than all other groups. And that further Indians from one part of India are also more skilled than all of the other Indians from other parts of India.
However, this following quotation brings up a different reason.
In the Indian media, they routinely use the term “highly skilled.” However, while that is the description of an H1-B Visa, and the original logic of the program, only a small fraction of the H1-B Visa holders fall into this category. At Brightwork we have received repeated requests from people in India who are recent college graduates with no special skills to sponsor them for an H1-B Visa. However, the H1-B program was never passed into law under the concept that just about any Indian who has an education would be able to qualify for one. At several SAP consulting companies we found large scale resume falsification on the part of H1-B Visa holders. At one consulting firm the H1-B Visa holders have a particular incentive to falsify their resume as if they did not get staffed, they would have a high likelihood of being let go, which could very likely mean having to move back to India. The H1-B Visa is viewed in India as the best opportunity to improve one’s condition in life. Therefore, the incentives to do what is necessary to stay are extremely high. This is not to say that domestic resources do not also have an incentive to be successful, but with a domestic resource, their jobs are not tied to their citizenship or their rights to stay in the country. To a worker from Denmark or Italy, it does not improve their condition all that much if they stay in the US or go back home. But to Indians, it is a major upgrade in their lives and in the lives of their families. Nearly every H1-B Visa holder’s goal is to move to become a citizen. As one moves through the various stages to citizenship, the ability of the employer to control them decreases. And their pay and other freedom increase.
Experiences from Singapore
Indian behavior of immigrants is similar the world over. This following quotation is from a commenter from Singapore.
Setting Up a Indian Caste System Within Non Indian Companies
High Percentages of Indians
Can a Domestic Worker be Successful in a Predominantly Indian Company?
This following quote from a different commenter describes the exact same thing.
Indian Dominance in IT Recruiting
Indians have not only taken over IT jobs, but they have also taken over IT recruiting and forced out domestic IT recruiters. Our email inboxes oftentimes the recipients of IT recruiters that are primarily Indian. This takeover of IT recruiting has occurred over even a shorter period of time than the takeover of IT employment. It is now uncommon to find domestic IT recruiters. The only conclusion is that the domestic IT recruiters have been forced from the market.
Secondly, when we compare the rates offered by Indians recruiters, the rates are always lower than for domestic recruiters.
This is a shocking and unanticipated outcome of the H1-B Visa program. Originally intended for highly skilled candidates, now nearly anyone qualifies. And Indian immigration and workplace discrimination has not only reduced the domestic employment in IT, but domestic employees must now mostly go through Indian recruiters, many of whom are calling from India. It would be unsurprising if Indian recruiters prefer to place Indian candidates.
Rigging Job Descriptions for H1-B Entry
It is difficult to not notice how specific many IT job descriptions have become. Many job descriptions essentially describe a candidate that does not exist. There is a rule about H1-B Visas that the job description must be published for a certain amount of time, and then evidence shown to immigration that no individuals could be found that would fit the job description. This is very easily managed by creating such a ridiculous job description that no domestic candidates qualify. Now, the job can be opened to a candidate from India who will add those qualifications to their resume. There is no validation of the skills listed on the resume, they are essentially self-reported.
This is the problem with the continual comments by Indian resources that the entirety of Indian immigration to the US under H1-B is based on skills. Skills can be added to resumes if the people filling out H1-B Visa applications simply declare that the individual from India has those skills. This is explained in the following quotation.
India has historically never had any freedom of speech or of the press. This is how India has remained as the twelfth most income unequal country in the world. This inequality is why India is such a hotbed for bonded labor. To maintain this level of income inequality, suppression of freedom of speech is necessary. And most Indians will oppose this article. Opposing even the right for it to be written. Again freedom of speech is part of US law, not Indian law, and the established preference is for Indian law…..but not in India, in the US. India cannot change internally because India has very low freedom of the press. According to Reporters without Borders, India ranks 138 out of 180 countries in press freedom. Articles written in the Indian press have a distinct stamp of being censored or self-censored, and there is no India media outlet that is prominent or read outside of Indian readers.
Indian Immigration Beneficial for India?
Given the enormous transfer of wealth to people from India to the US, many of whom falsely qualified for H1-B status, one might think that India has greatly benefited. Well first, India’s population is around 1.34 billion, so as even though IT in the US and in the other primary IT markets have become swamped with Indian labor, it is still a tiny fraction of the population in India. But one must also include all of the outsourced IT work in India and the jobs that only exist because of the IT connection to the primary IT markets.
However, India’s income inequality is getting starkly worse as the following quotation attests.
Finding Other Groups As Frequently Accused of Discrimination as Indians
Brightwork Research & Analysis is a research entity. We are known for tackling issues that almost no one else will. We approached this topic as a research question, and we found damning evidence against Indian employment or workplace discrimination that is only reinforced by what we have seen on many projects. This Indian employment discrimination is not merely limited to the US but is found in Asia and in Australia, in Europe and in Africa. The standard defense by Indians will naturally be that this is all a racist illusion by a white author. However, Indians are being accused of discrimination worldwide. And they are being accused of discrimination by non-whites. If this is all a giant racist conspiracy, it is not only extremely widely reported, but the same reports are coming in from many different areas. All of the quotations in this article were obviously not written by the author.
This hostility of work environment against domestic workers in areas ranging from Singapore to Australia to the US to Europe and elsewhere is part of how Indian workers are continually pushing domestic workers out of IT employment. There are two sources that dispute the demonstrated discrimination against non-Indian workers. And that is Indians, who will often say that all of these independent observations are incorrect. The strategy only works if it is not declared. If Indians were to say that they intend to bring practices of nepotism and discrimination over to the countries they immigrate to then the game would be up. The second source is employing companies. Most of their statements revolve around disputing that they violated the employment laws or visa laws in the countries of the primary IT markets, or hiding the massive rise in Indian employment.
Indian workers and employing companies use terms like skills when describing H1-B quotas and hiring, but this is an oversimplification of the actual factors that are driving H1-B and the highly disproportionate hiring of Indian workers. It is clear that other terms like income inequality, lower pay, job loss for domestic workers, the creation of hostile work environments for domestic workers and workplace discrimination by Indians against non-Indians needs to become more publicly associated with importing Indian workers.
The evidence is piling up that this is a pattern that is applied by Indians globally. From this, it is not difficult to predict that it will be very difficult for domestic workers to become employed in IT. This is because these jobs are increasingly going to be reserved for not only Indians already in developed countries but for future Indian immigrants and for Indians children of current Indian immigrants. If the pattern holds then the children of Indian immigrants will also be highly prevalent in IT. Once most of the jobs are held by Indians, it will become very difficult to break into the field due to Indian workplace discrimination.
What this comes down to is cheating. And unless domestic workers begin to call out this cheating, the cheating will continue. Naturally, the entities performing the cheating do not want to admit to the cheating and want to continue as business as usual. Therefore they will adhere to the “skills” argument and most likely throw ad hominem or personal attacks at those that point out the cheating. Literally, the entirety of the Indian takeover of IT jobs in the major IT markets is based upon one central hypothesis….that Indians have superior IT skills to all other workers — (not only the domestic workers but workers in the Andhra Pradesh region of India). On the basis of this argument, these workers essentially are demanding that most of the IT jobs in the major IT markets be handed over to these workers and that they are granted citizenship rights in the major IT market countries. However, once the topic is investigated, it becomes increasingly difficult to accept the premise of these arguments.
January 31, 2019 by Shaun Snapp
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Executive Summary
- Internationally, Indians have demonstrated a pattern of discriminating against non-Indian workers.
- With the growing concentration of Indians in IT this is a problem for domestic workers worldwide.
Introduction
The following are quotations from Quora. Before we get into our own analysis, we wanted to provide quotations on the topic that we had nothing to do with creating. These quotations are consistent with our experiences working in IT. And this will illustrate a convergence of observation on this point.
Indians as Discriminating Against Other Indians
The following is a description of how they normally see the discrimination begin. This observation was written by an Indian.
“Many Indians in IT firms don’t just discriminate at the national level, many of them discriminate on a religion, race or caste-level. It usually starts like this.
They first look at your name in the resume. Is it a “cool” sounding Brahmin name? (like Anand Gopalakrishnan). Or is it a Punjabi name? (Parminder Singh). Or perhaps, it’s a Telugu name (Sudheer Reddy). Or does your name sound totally unheard of, hard to pronounce and possibly from a lower caste? (Pazhanimuththu Kanakadas). Godforbid, hopefully it isn’t a Muslim name (Imtiaz Khan), an Indian Christian name (David Kamaraj) or a Chinese name (Pang Pang).”
This illustrates that even Indians that are not in the right caste or have the right religion from the dominant group receive discrimination. The employment in the US for instance of Indians is not from all parts of India. It is very concentrated in specific areas of India and from specific castes, with Bhraman being the dominant caste.They first look at your name in the resume. Is it a “cool” sounding Brahmin name? (like Anand Gopalakrishnan). Or is it a Punjabi name? (Parminder Singh). Or perhaps, it’s a Telugu name (Sudheer Reddy). Or does your name sound totally unheard of, hard to pronounce and possibly from a lower caste? (Pazhanimuththu Kanakadas). Godforbid, hopefully it isn’t a Muslim name (Imtiaz Khan), an Indian Christian name (David Kamaraj) or a Chinese name (Pang Pang).”
Typically the US anti-discrimination laws are centered on race. However, Indian discrimination is more complicated than that. Indians have a complicated discrimination modality that is actually sub-race and is a combination of Indians from specific areas and beyond that caste. Indians prefer a type of scenario which they had back in India. So the preference is from Brahmans to be at the top of the organizations. For most outsiders there divisions are invisible, as each of the groups are seen as “Indian” by Western eyes (or at least all by the most trained). But for Indians, these divisions are highly important. They determine who can be hired into what role, how they relate to others, who have status over others, and so on.
Dealing with Abusive Indian Management Approaches
“If you are Black, Asian or from the middle-east, the answer is obvious. Racism.
If you are white, it’s not so much the case that hiring you is expensive, as it is that you are a flight risk. American locals wouldn’t take kindly to the authoritarian and abusive management style of Indian managers and Indian managers are aware of it.”
Indians do not create environments that non-Indians want to work in. They are hostile environments. The major Indian consulting companies, for instance, Infosys, WiPro, HCL, Cognizant, and TATA or TCS employ mostly Indians in the US, but are only occasionally subject to well-known discrimination lawsuits. Various Indian firms play settlements to the US Department of Justice, as covered in the following quotation.If you are white, it’s not so much the case that hiring you is expensive, as it is that you are a flight risk. American locals wouldn’t take kindly to the authoritarian and abusive management style of Indian managers and Indian managers are aware of it.”
“The settlement, which the U.S. Justice Department said was the largest in a case of alleged civil fraud over visas, was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
Infosys, India’s second-largest IT services exporter, agreed in the settlement that it committed civil violations of U.S. employment law, but it was not required to admit and did not admit widespread further wrongdoing.”
However, at the fines imposed of 1 million dollars or 34 million dollars paid out occasionally, Indian firms can afford to pay out fines indefinitely. That is they can see it as a cost of doing business.Infosys, India’s second-largest IT services exporter, agreed in the settlement that it committed civil violations of U.S. employment law, but it was not required to admit and did not admit widespread further wrongdoing.”
None of the Indian firms in IT have employee compositions that look anything like the typical demographics in the countries they operate outside of India. However, each of these firms could argue that because they are terrible companies to work for that only nearly no Americans would want to work there.
When Infosys, WiPro or TATA sell a project in the US or Europe it means that the team will be primarily Indian. Domestic workers lose jobs when this happens. There are many companies like Cisco, IBM, Oracle, and HPE that are founded in the US and in their heritage and in their perception but are highly Indian. And domestic firms that become Indian seem to go in one direction. That is they become progressively more Indian. IBM stopped reporting employment by country because IBM has been laying off domestic workers in primary markets for IT services (US, Europe, Australia, Canada) and replacing them with Indian workers. Intel has been classifying Indian workers as domestic to also, hide the fact that Intel is becoming increasingly Indian. Companies that become strongly Indian hide that fact from both customers and from the general public and this leads to a great underestimation of the degree to which domestic companies are becoming strongly Indian. Indians see this as a very positive development and as a success. However, every job consumed by an Indian worker is taken from a domestic worker. The reason being that India primarily offers workers. Companies like Accenture or Deloitte do not sell consulting projects in India, they use Indian workers to displace domestic workers in the primary IT markets. This is the same modality of commerce as is found in the Middle East in construction projects. Indian (and Pakistan) construction workers come over to various Middle East countries and displace workers in those countries. However, in those cases, the workers do not become Saudi or Dubai citizens. They eventually go back to India.
There is little “trade” between the primary IT markets, the primary IT markets are either importing Indian workers, who eventually become citizens or outsourcing work to Indian firms in India. There is simply no getting around these are jobs that would ordinarily be performed by domestic workers. Indian workers in the primary IT markets do not “make the pie bigger” for non-Indian workers. They take a slice out of the pie, and an increasingly large slice. And once that slice is taken, it grows to a larger and large slice.
Indian Workers and Income Inequality
Furthermore, the jobs taken from the domestic worker not only transfer wealth from the domestic worker to the Indian worker, and make the work environment hostile for the other domestic workers,they also increase income inequality in the domestic location. Through the H1-B program US companies have booked far more profits than they would have if they had not had the H1-B program, and that is what is undiscussed in the Indian media. That this leads to higher income inequality in the US and in the other primary IT markets.
How The Indian Bias Against Non-Indians Extends to Indians in a Tribal Manner
“So is there a bias towards Indians while hiring for IT positions in Indian-run companies? Definitely. And that too, it’s a bias only towards a small sub-section of Indians.”
For the domestic workers, it is not particularly material if Indians discriminate against Indians that are not part of whatever the in group appears to be. This is because the majority of Indians that immigrate to developed countries discriminate against the domestic population within that country. It cannot be said that because Indians discriminate against other Indians as well, that discrimination is not an issue. When Indians discriminate against the domestic population they are in violation of US anti-discrimination laws. The problem is one of perception and unequal treatment of who can claim discrimination. That is discrimination is only discrimination if the discrimination is undertaken by some groups. Other groups demonstrate high levels of discrimination can’t be charged with doing so. At least that appears to be the logic.Where Are Indians in the US Primarily From?
Most Americans have no idea where different Indians are from, are unaware of the regional or other differences in India. To most Americans any Indian is simply “from India” and that is the end of it. However, the Indians that come to the US for IT work are from one specific area according to not only this commenter but others we have interviewed.
“If you take a count of the total people hired in US in IT, you will find that 90 to 95% of them are from Andhra Pradesh in India. I have worked for several companies in the bay area and other states and in spite of my experience and skills was always threatened by an incapable Telugu manager, Lead or candidate who only wanted to hire people of his caste. As if this was not enough, most of the Indian recruiting companies in the Bay Area are run by Telugu people who prefer to hire people from their region/caste and also work hand in hand with hiring managers to give a commission off the rates they make. This is very well known and widely practiced in companies such as CISCO and many others in the bay area. There are instances when my recruiting company told me that my resume didn’t stand a chance because the other recruiting company that was working with this client was bribing managers to get their folks in. The result you see is incompetent inexperienced people who get hired for low rates, the cuts off salary goes to the recruiting company and hiring manager. No guessing how this has affected the IT job market. Really surprised this crap has been going on for the last 10 years or so and nothing has been done about it.”
No doubt this article will be unpopular, but this is extremely specific information. What is the motivation to make this type of information up? It seems there is very little incentive. It is literally unheard of for people to bribe people to get people into a company, but the topic of bribery repeatedly comes up when describing Indian hiring. And this apparently is a point of contention for other Indians.“Absolutely, sometimes you can even find Indians who got frustrated by this because they are born in the wrong part of India.”
And this gets to not only the discrimination against Indians but the fact that there are enormous numbers of Indians who want to come to the US (or Europe, or Australia), but can’t because they are not in the right group. There are roughly 146 million jobs in the US, and if Indians could have their preference, all of those jobs would be filled by Indians, and given the situation in India, the only limitation is the inability of Indians to take those jobs. The number of US jobs (or Europe or Australia, etc..) that are made available to Indians is the number that will be taken. But no matter how many jobs are consumed by Indians, even if all of the employees in all of the developed countries were consumed, it would still not satisfy the demand for jobs in India. India has a larger population than the US, Western Europe, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, that is all the places that Indians would like to work, by a very large margin.How to Domestic Firms With Previously Domestic Labor Become Indian so Quickly?
Indians like to propose that they are so skilled that companies become Indian after the first small number of Indians are hired because of the demand for skills. This is a rather curious position that Indians are not only more skilled than any one group but than all other groups. And that further Indians from one part of India are also more skilled than all of the other Indians from other parts of India.
However, this following quotation brings up a different reason.
“I have worked in Silicon Valley in both startups and big companies and my experience is the same as what the question says: Indians will ONLY hire other Indians and, like other people mentioned, they will only hire Indians like them. This is true most of the time with Indians who arrived in Silicon Valley to work or to go to University to study. The next generation, the Indians who were born here, is more Americanized and therefore more attuned to the principles of fairness and judging somebody on their merits, not on who they are related to or who are their friends with.”
This is an entirely different commenter than the commenter from the previous quotations. This commenter goes on to describe a pattern of infiltration that occurs after the first Indians begin to work at a firm.“I can tell you it is something that is recognized and spoken by everyone here. I have friends from all ethnic groups (Latino, Chinese, Japanese, White) and they all say the same thing: once an Indian is hired in a position of relative power (say middle management) a constant stream of resumes from his family or friends will come and, after that, most of the group will be Indian. I, like other people who answered, also have very good Indian friends and they themselves say the same thing: Indians have a long-running tradition of nepotism and cronyism and they do the same here in Silicon Valley. It is not uncommon to go to a startup run by Indian management or a big company with Indian managers and see their relatives working there (the second cousin, the brother-in-law, the wife, the son and so on). This, of course, is not a problem, if people were qualified for the job they do. Sadly, in a lot of cases that is not the case, they get the job because a relative got it for them.”
Why would nepotism and cronyism be so consistently attributable to Indians who immigrate to other countries?In the Indian media, they routinely use the term “highly skilled.” However, while that is the description of an H1-B Visa, and the original logic of the program, only a small fraction of the H1-B Visa holders fall into this category. At Brightwork we have received repeated requests from people in India who are recent college graduates with no special skills to sponsor them for an H1-B Visa. However, the H1-B program was never passed into law under the concept that just about any Indian who has an education would be able to qualify for one. At several SAP consulting companies we found large scale resume falsification on the part of H1-B Visa holders. At one consulting firm the H1-B Visa holders have a particular incentive to falsify their resume as if they did not get staffed, they would have a high likelihood of being let go, which could very likely mean having to move back to India. The H1-B Visa is viewed in India as the best opportunity to improve one’s condition in life. Therefore, the incentives to do what is necessary to stay are extremely high. This is not to say that domestic resources do not also have an incentive to be successful, but with a domestic resource, their jobs are not tied to their citizenship or their rights to stay in the country. To a worker from Denmark or Italy, it does not improve their condition all that much if they stay in the US or go back home. But to Indians, it is a major upgrade in their lives and in the lives of their families. Nearly every H1-B Visa holder’s goal is to move to become a citizen. As one moves through the various stages to citizenship, the ability of the employer to control them decreases. And their pay and other freedom increase.
Experiences from Singapore
Indian behavior of immigrants is similar the world over. This following quotation is from a commenter from Singapore.
“They created a lot of new manager roles so that they can send their friends in. 5 years ago, we had 1 manager and 15 guys. Now, 7 guys with 3 managers! (The rest left of moved). They force people out by abusing their power. Every year, they have to publish a organization chart. When they realized that all the managers are Indians,(In Singapore, they are not the absolute minority, but definitely low in numbers.) they gave an organization chart without picture! No one will notice that right? Except we are the only region in the world that does not have a picture on the organization chart! So in the end, Indian managers are definitely having some big problems. But due to the political correctly, they can do it. But we can’t point it out. “Racialism “ I guess.”
It is not possible to know the race of this commenter, but most of Singapore’s population is ethnic Chinese. Therefore, it is curious that it may also not be possible for an ethnic Chinese Singaporean to call out this behavior for fear of being called racist.Setting Up a Indian Caste System Within Non Indian Companies
“Once Indians have taken over an organization, they would establish a caste system of Brahmin priest caste as senior managers. The Brahmin would act all civilize as vegetarians non-meat eaters while appointing lower caste Indians as middle management along with the Sikhs. The middle management Indians would be the ones who brutalize workers and do the bullying while the Brahmins just smiles and silently approve their discriminatory behavior. The organisation will turn into a caste system as follows:
Brahmin Indians
Middle caste Indians + Sikh Indians
Older whites
Young whites
Non-Indian minorities.
Harassment of non-Indians staff, in particular, sexual harassment, is not uncommon. Non Indians are deprived of career opportunities while bully to quit just so the Indians can import more Indians into the workplace using immigration loophole.”
The description above sounds horrible. It is the exact opposite of meritocracy and is essentially reinforced through Indians stacking the deck with as many possible Indians as possible. This reinforces a strategy used by Indians where they use their numbers to act as a “block.” In the US the domestic population tends to act as individuals. Certainly, there are various cliques and “networks.” For example, it is well known that when executives from Oracle begin working at a software vendor, that company can have a number of Oracle resources come over that form an Oracle clique at the new vendor. However, the descriptions of Indian behavior in their new adopted homes indicate that they form a semi-cohesive unit that discriminates in favor of more Indians at the expense of the domestic population. This is without considering how Indians generally make the companies they work for hostile to non-Indian workers in more subtle ways. This commenter brings up this point.Brahmin Indians
Middle caste Indians + Sikh Indians
Older whites
Young whites
Non-Indian minorities.
Harassment of non-Indians staff, in particular, sexual harassment, is not uncommon. Non Indians are deprived of career opportunities while bully to quit just so the Indians can import more Indians into the workplace using immigration loophole.”
“In the end they aim to take over our IT industry and replace all workers with Indians.”
Yes, and what is stopping this? If Indians act as a block and there are what amounts to an unlimited number of Indians who seek to leave India as they cannot make a comparable living in India when does this stop? Currently, Indian companies like Wipro and TATA are known to be hostile to non-Indian workers, but companies like IBM and Oracle are so high in Indian concentration that they are considered less appealing to domestic workers. There is not a single domestic US company that increases its percentage of Indian workers in a significant way, that stays equally appealing as a work environment for domestic workers. And let us review, the domestic workers in any country are supposed to be the first labor poor to pull on for workers. But Indian employment is changing that. Indians in India claim superior job rights over US citizens. And apparently, a very high percentage of the Indian workers in the US agree with this sentiment as it helps them increase their concentration in the companies they currently work.High Percentages of Indians
“I started noticing that 99% of the interviewing managers at a particular client, a large corporation, were Indian. I also started noticing that 99% of all my fellow vendors were Indian as well. I thought it was strange but I was new to servicing a client in the Bay Area. After ages of watching top-notch candidates get rejected with no reason or false reaons, especially my white and asian candidates, I knew something was up. The candidates all said the feedback (when we got it) made no sense, that the interviewer was rude to them, that the interview was impossibly short, heavy accent was challenging, questions were surface level etc. They were just staging these “interviews” to try and cover their rears, so they could hire their fellow Indians.”
Again, this is another very specific charge. Any interview can be rigged simply by the questions asked to one candidate versus another if the intent is to only hire the Indian candidate.Can a Domestic Worker be Successful in a Predominantly Indian Company?
“So, because of this, Indian based consulting companies like TCS, HCL, Tech Mahindra, Wipro have taken over major corporations and just ignore (or just pay off) any discrimination lawsuits thrown at them in the USA and Canada but, continue to discriminate.
Unless you’re Indian, don’t even think about applying to Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Adobe, many federal and state gov’ts, Google, Apple, T-Mobile, Dell, etc.
If you happen to land a job with a predominantly Indian company, they will sabotage you out of the picture.”
And then this comment, which seems to be nearly the same comment, but is from a different commenter.Unless you’re Indian, don’t even think about applying to Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Adobe, many federal and state gov’ts, Google, Apple, T-Mobile, Dell, etc.
If you happen to land a job with a predominantly Indian company, they will sabotage you out of the picture.”
“Check out Cisco, it’s no longer American company, but an Indian company. After years of quiet layoffs of American workers and replacing them with Indian workers. The CTO of Cisco, possibly a successor to John Chambers, is from India, has no computer science degree, and got famous for bungling a high flying project on bad data and poopooing iPhone while at Motorola.
Same thing with Qualcomm, Microsoft, Motorola, VMWare and many smaller IT department around the country, including Target and Ebay. The latter was recently hacked while their Indian IT workers slept on their jobs.”
This is another common comment, that Indians seek to undermine non-Indian workers already in companies. This is a very serious claim, but our experience on projects backs up this claim. We have observed the following phenomena working with many Indians.Same thing with Qualcomm, Microsoft, Motorola, VMWare and many smaller IT department around the country, including Target and Ebay. The latter was recently hacked while their Indian IT workers slept on their jobs.”
- If the Indian is your boss: He makes life very difficult for you.
- If the Indian reports to you: He undermines you.
- If the Indian is lower in the hierarchy, but not a direct report: He begins pleasantly but looks for some way to undermine you.
This following quote from a different commenter describes the exact same thing.
“I can personally vouch that your average Indian IT engineer is very ethnocentric, clannish and completely un-american in every sense of the word.
They do whatever they can to make sure that life for you (as a non-Indian) in their team becomes so hellish that you leave on your “own accord”. I’ve seen many of my friends just move on to other companies confronted by similar minded Indians. Some of them entirely left IT altogether.
I think they have completely decimated non-Indian diversity at the workplace and they want every company to resemble Oracle and Cisco, both of them are almost 100% Indian now with a few token whites and other folks (nevermind that they are fighting lawsuits by well-meaning professionals regarding their hiring practices).”
This includes yet another statement that Indians make a concerted effort to force out non-Indians.They do whatever they can to make sure that life for you (as a non-Indian) in their team becomes so hellish that you leave on your “own accord”. I’ve seen many of my friends just move on to other companies confronted by similar minded Indians. Some of them entirely left IT altogether.
I think they have completely decimated non-Indian diversity at the workplace and they want every company to resemble Oracle and Cisco, both of them are almost 100% Indian now with a few token whites and other folks (nevermind that they are fighting lawsuits by well-meaning professionals regarding their hiring practices).”
Indian Dominance in IT Recruiting
Indians have not only taken over IT jobs, but they have also taken over IT recruiting and forced out domestic IT recruiters. Our email inboxes oftentimes the recipients of IT recruiters that are primarily Indian. This takeover of IT recruiting has occurred over even a shorter period of time than the takeover of IT employment. It is now uncommon to find domestic IT recruiters. The only conclusion is that the domestic IT recruiters have been forced from the market.
Secondly, when we compare the rates offered by Indians recruiters, the rates are always lower than for domestic recruiters.
This is a shocking and unanticipated outcome of the H1-B Visa program. Originally intended for highly skilled candidates, now nearly anyone qualifies. And Indian immigration and workplace discrimination has not only reduced the domestic employment in IT, but domestic employees must now mostly go through Indian recruiters, many of whom are calling from India. It would be unsurprising if Indian recruiters prefer to place Indian candidates.
Rigging Job Descriptions for H1-B Entry
It is difficult to not notice how specific many IT job descriptions have become. Many job descriptions essentially describe a candidate that does not exist. There is a rule about H1-B Visas that the job description must be published for a certain amount of time, and then evidence shown to immigration that no individuals could be found that would fit the job description. This is very easily managed by creating such a ridiculous job description that no domestic candidates qualify. Now, the job can be opened to a candidate from India who will add those qualifications to their resume. There is no validation of the skills listed on the resume, they are essentially self-reported.
This is the problem with the continual comments by Indian resources that the entirety of Indian immigration to the US under H1-B is based on skills. Skills can be added to resumes if the people filling out H1-B Visa applications simply declare that the individual from India has those skills. This is explained in the following quotation.
“Most people who apply for H1B have a Indian 3 year degree education which I strongly believe is no better than a High School Degree in United States.
These 3 year degree holders take a 2 or 3 month computer training and land in United States stating fake experience.
There are thousands of companies in India which aid these people file a H1B petition and secure visa. These IT companies where potential H1B aspirant claims to have worked for, exists only on paper. They answer verification phone calls from USCIS or US embassy, have a web site and a physical address but there is NO actual Programming or Development done by this companies.
After landing in the United States, the same people, put 7 or more years of experience in the United States to get job.” – Petition2Congress
Which led a commenter to state.These 3 year degree holders take a 2 or 3 month computer training and land in United States stating fake experience.
There are thousands of companies in India which aid these people file a H1B petition and secure visa. These IT companies where potential H1B aspirant claims to have worked for, exists only on paper. They answer verification phone calls from USCIS or US embassy, have a web site and a physical address but there is NO actual Programming or Development done by this companies.
After landing in the United States, the same people, put 7 or more years of experience in the United States to get job.” – Petition2Congress
“Therefore, the bottom line is that we don’t need Fake IT Professionals who make up their fake degrees and fake resumes and take away our real jobs which is not acceptable at all. And I request the US Senate, The US Congress, The Homeland Security, and the USCIS and Labor Law departments to take the needed steps and right measurements to stop all these fraudulent workers, “
This quotation on a similar matter was from The Guardian from back in 2014.“Labor brokers providing Indian high-tech workers to American companies have hijacked a professional visa program, creating an underground system of financial bondage by stealing wages and benefits, even suing workers who quit.
About 840,000 people from around the world work in the United States on temporary visas, intended to help companies seek uniquely talented employees for specific jobs. In the tech realm, labor brokers often sponsor the visas, then contract out the workers to technology companies or government agencies to build databases, test software and complete other technical projects.”
Once one investigates it turns out H1-B Visa fraud is incredibly common. Again from The Guardian.About 840,000 people from around the world work in the United States on temporary visas, intended to help companies seek uniquely talented employees for specific jobs. In the tech realm, labor brokers often sponsor the visas, then contract out the workers to technology companies or government agencies to build databases, test software and complete other technical projects.”
“It has been the source of the vast majority of India’s fraudulent documents tied to H-1B visa applications, according to a June 2009 cable from the US State Department unearthed by WikiLeaks. Inflated work experience was a typical problem, the cable said, adding that of 150 companies in Hyderabad investigated by the US Consulate, 77% were “fraudulent or highly suspect.””
Wikileaks released a document that was internally sent out from the consulate in Chennai on this topic with the following quotation on this topic.“India wide consular operations are among the busiest in the world. Some states such as Gujarat and Punjab are traditional sources of migration out of India and faudulent applications from these areas are more common than from other regions of India. The state of Andhra Pradesh, in particular, its capital of Hyderabad, has been identified as a large center of documentary fraud which affects all Indian posts. An opinion poll published in the popular Times of India in January 2007 noted that 37% of the 1.1 billion Indians would emigrate if they had the chance.
Most of India’s fraudulent applicants come from specific and easily defined regional areas within each consular district. These states have some of the most mobile populations in India and the largest concentrations of expatriate communities overseas, including in the United States. In New Delhi, cases originating from the Punjab comprise the majority of its IV and fraud caseloads, while the same can be said in Mumbai with Gujarat. Chennai and Hyderabad’s fraud workload comes principally from Andhra Pradesh.
B1/B2 visa fraud is the most commonplace. Regionally-based fraud rings throughout the country, but especially in Hyderabad, continue to produce fraudulent documents for visa application and travel purposes. Some visa “consultants” and travel agents specialize in fraudulent experience letters and fake document packages, which include passport copies of false relatives, bogus financial documents, and affidavits of support.”
Indian Respect for Freedom of Speech and of the PressMost of India’s fraudulent applicants come from specific and easily defined regional areas within each consular district. These states have some of the most mobile populations in India and the largest concentrations of expatriate communities overseas, including in the United States. In New Delhi, cases originating from the Punjab comprise the majority of its IV and fraud caseloads, while the same can be said in Mumbai with Gujarat. Chennai and Hyderabad’s fraud workload comes principally from Andhra Pradesh.
B1/B2 visa fraud is the most commonplace. Regionally-based fraud rings throughout the country, but especially in Hyderabad, continue to produce fraudulent documents for visa application and travel purposes. Some visa “consultants” and travel agents specialize in fraudulent experience letters and fake document packages, which include passport copies of false relatives, bogus financial documents, and affidavits of support.”
India has historically never had any freedom of speech or of the press. This is how India has remained as the twelfth most income unequal country in the world. This inequality is why India is such a hotbed for bonded labor. To maintain this level of income inequality, suppression of freedom of speech is necessary. And most Indians will oppose this article. Opposing even the right for it to be written. Again freedom of speech is part of US law, not Indian law, and the established preference is for Indian law…..but not in India, in the US. India cannot change internally because India has very low freedom of the press. According to Reporters without Borders, India ranks 138 out of 180 countries in press freedom. Articles written in the Indian press have a distinct stamp of being censored or self-censored, and there is no India media outlet that is prominent or read outside of Indian readers.
Indian Immigration Beneficial for India?
Given the enormous transfer of wealth to people from India to the US, many of whom falsely qualified for H1-B status, one might think that India has greatly benefited. Well first, India’s population is around 1.34 billion, so as even though IT in the US and in the other primary IT markets have become swamped with Indian labor, it is still a tiny fraction of the population in India. But one must also include all of the outsourced IT work in India and the jobs that only exist because of the IT connection to the primary IT markets.
However, India’s income inequality is getting starkly worse as the following quotation attests.
“As of Nov 2016, India is the 12th most unequal country in the world. [1] The richest 1% of Indians own 58.4% of wealth. The richest 10 % of the Indians own 80.7 % of the wealth. This trend is going in the upward direction every year, which means the rich are getting richer at a much faster rate than the poor.” – Wikipedia
India a vast country either tied with or greater than China depending upon the statistics used, those with access to the international IT market is still a small percentage of India. IT in India is similarly concentrated in just a few cites like Hydrabad. India already had debilitating income inequality before the rise of Indian IT workers. And India’s income inequality is growing rapidly. Could it be that the income flowing into a small percentage of Indians some of who work overseas and some of who work in India is actually hurting India’s political stability? That is the IT industry creates a class of IT-based wealth that is distinct from the rest of India? When one looks at India, there is no way that the impulse to leave India will be moderated by Indians. The flow has to be restricted within the primary IT markets. In this way, the combination of overseas Indian IT workers and Indian based IT workers is increasing the income inequality in both India and the primary IT markets of the US, Western Europe, Australia, and Canada.Finding Other Groups As Frequently Accused of Discrimination as Indians
Brightwork Research & Analysis is a research entity. We are known for tackling issues that almost no one else will. We approached this topic as a research question, and we found damning evidence against Indian employment or workplace discrimination that is only reinforced by what we have seen on many projects. This Indian employment discrimination is not merely limited to the US but is found in Asia and in Australia, in Europe and in Africa. The standard defense by Indians will naturally be that this is all a racist illusion by a white author. However, Indians are being accused of discrimination worldwide. And they are being accused of discrimination by non-whites. If this is all a giant racist conspiracy, it is not only extremely widely reported, but the same reports are coming in from many different areas. All of the quotations in this article were obviously not written by the author.
- Companies globally are becoming Indian at astonishing rates. It seems impossible for this to happen without something shady occurring. It is very difficult to find a field that has in the space of a few decades switched to dramatically over to a new group of immigrants. And not only a group of immigrants (which has never happened in US history) but a group of immigrants primarily from one part of India.
- We could find no other race or group that was as frequently accused of employment or workplace discrimination as Indians. For these observations to be false, there would have to be a vast conspiracy to promote the reporting of accusations against Indians and no other group.
This hostility of work environment against domestic workers in areas ranging from Singapore to Australia to the US to Europe and elsewhere is part of how Indian workers are continually pushing domestic workers out of IT employment. There are two sources that dispute the demonstrated discrimination against non-Indian workers. And that is Indians, who will often say that all of these independent observations are incorrect. The strategy only works if it is not declared. If Indians were to say that they intend to bring practices of nepotism and discrimination over to the countries they immigrate to then the game would be up. The second source is employing companies. Most of their statements revolve around disputing that they violated the employment laws or visa laws in the countries of the primary IT markets, or hiding the massive rise in Indian employment.
Indian workers and employing companies use terms like skills when describing H1-B quotas and hiring, but this is an oversimplification of the actual factors that are driving H1-B and the highly disproportionate hiring of Indian workers. It is clear that other terms like income inequality, lower pay, job loss for domestic workers, the creation of hostile work environments for domestic workers and workplace discrimination by Indians against non-Indians needs to become more publicly associated with importing Indian workers.
The evidence is piling up that this is a pattern that is applied by Indians globally. From this, it is not difficult to predict that it will be very difficult for domestic workers to become employed in IT. This is because these jobs are increasingly going to be reserved for not only Indians already in developed countries but for future Indian immigrants and for Indians children of current Indian immigrants. If the pattern holds then the children of Indian immigrants will also be highly prevalent in IT. Once most of the jobs are held by Indians, it will become very difficult to break into the field due to Indian workplace discrimination.
What this comes down to is cheating. And unless domestic workers begin to call out this cheating, the cheating will continue. Naturally, the entities performing the cheating do not want to admit to the cheating and want to continue as business as usual. Therefore they will adhere to the “skills” argument and most likely throw ad hominem or personal attacks at those that point out the cheating. Literally, the entirety of the Indian takeover of IT jobs in the major IT markets is based upon one central hypothesis….that Indians have superior IT skills to all other workers — (not only the domestic workers but workers in the Andhra Pradesh region of India). On the basis of this argument, these workers essentially are demanding that most of the IT jobs in the major IT markets be handed over to these workers and that they are granted citizenship rights in the major IT market countries. However, once the topic is investigated, it becomes increasingly difficult to accept the premise of these arguments.
