Britons rush to India for the boom
More than 60 years after the Raj ended, a fresh wave of bold British settlers are heading east to booming, thriving India to make their fortunes and forge new lives there. We report on the great rupee rush
William Dalrymple and his family in their Delhi home
Ashling OConnor
The Times, UK
February 9, 2008
For centuries, Britons have been knocking on Indias door. The would-be nabobs of the East India Company, the ambitious younger sons seeking to make their own way in the Indian Army, Latin tutors for Rajput princes, not to mention the unmarried girls of the fishing fleet setting sail in search of husbands... The colonial relationship ended with independence in 1947, but then later generations of Brits headed out and maybe dropped out in search of spiritual enlightenment (or to party in Goa). These days, however, as the heart of the global economy travels ever East, Britons are much more likely to be pitching up for a job once again.
India is fast becoming a magnet for Western professionals seeking a unique opportunity in an economy growing at more than 9 per cent a year or three times the rate of the UKs. Forget about the outsourcing of British jobs to India. This is a wholesale migration of intellectual capital, with Indian companies recruiting Britons at undergraduate level and hiring managerial talent from around the world. There are thousands of Britons living and working full-time in India, and there are few crystal-gazing pilgrims to be found among them. The new generation of British immigrants is made up of investment bankers, venture capitalists, retailers, engineers, executives, pharmacists, actors and academics.
Solid numbers are hard to come by, but one study estimates that the British population in India is more than 32,000. The British High Commission in Delhi confirms that, anecdotally at least, the facts on the ground back up the idea of a growing number of migrants, from the trebling of flights from Britain to India, to the growing waiting lists at international schools. Bangalore is a case in point: more and more schools are opening to cater for the growing number of British and American families based in the IT hub, which, even as far back as 2004, was characterised by the local press as being full of foreigners.
Among those foreigners are the children of the Indian diaspora who have quit the lives their parents forged in Silicon Valley or Solihull to return to Mother India. Reverse migration aside, India is considered a good career move for many Brits with no family link to the sub-continent. As one Delhi-based specialist in relocation puts it: Expats find the country exciting and want to have a two to three-year India stint on their CV.
For an ambitious young banker, the posting would be a plum one compared to dull old Singapore. For a private equity player, India is an invitation to get rich, with the Bombay Stock Exchange (Asias oldest) offering huge returns. The reason why foreigners come here now is either they have a skill that is not available in India, for example managing certain types of technology, or they are coming to put their own money in, says Roddy Sale, a former investment banker who has lived in Bombay for 15 years.
India is also a nation of new and voracious consumers. Its middle class will balloon to 580 million by 2025, according to a recent study by management consultancy McKinsey. They will want shopping centres, gyms, doctors surgeries, cars, mobile phones and all the material trappings of affluence they know to exist in the West. Foreign suppliers are sending people over by the planeload to find out how they can satisfy this new demand.
For the expatriate executive, who can get by perfectly well just speaking English, life in India is good, with most of the luxuries of the West available, and a few besides. I can afford to have people working for me, which I could not have in England, says Clemy Sheffield, an art consultant from Reading who lives in Delhi. It helps that I dont have to waste time ironing my clothes. Edward Oakley, 66, a carpet exporter who has lived in the eastern city of Mirzapur, near Varanasi, for 40 years, says: When my father came to India [during the Raj], he would tell me it was a playground for the European middle classes. I think it is very similar now.
Roddy Sale, 48, financier, Bombay
Sale, a former Welsh Guardsman who served in the Falkands, arrived in India as an investment banker in the early Nineties, when the Indian market first opened up. He was involved in the first big flotation of an Indian company a debut that was so successful he was instructed to stay to win more mandates. After raising more than $3 billion for Indian companies through foreign listings, he is now adviser to a number of investment projects, including a proposed ski resort in the Himalayas.
I discovered it was possible to create a business model here. As the appetite for India has grown, the need for advice on the ground has only been increasing. There are many entrepreneurs in India with tremendous opportunities but they do not necessarily have the creativity or the access to capital. Thats what keeps me interested, he says.
An Old Etonian with passions for art, antiquities and horse racing, India offers Sale a chance for an eclectic life in interesting company. He also has a personal connection with Bombay, where his grandfather was an official in the colonial administration. His fathers cousin, Sir George Able, was private secretary to Lord Wavell and Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy. I had an awareness of India, brought up with piles of black and white photos of hunting parties, but I had only been for a week. One reason I have stayed is the people, who are exceedingly welcoming. Englishmen have a huge amount in common with a great many Indians. When I first came here there were elements of life that were closer to the description of a hardship posting the quality of hotels, restaurants but over the past ten years that has changed remarkably.
Caroline Young, 45, fashion consultant, Delhi
Youngs India experience started with the 1996 Cricket World Cup, for which she produced the opening ceremony. Having lived in Italy and France, she was used to being out of the UK and found India impossible to resist as a hotbed of creative energy. She gradually spent more time there, whether sourcing design talent for European clients, arranging a Bollywood-themed window for Selfridges or setting up fashion shoots on location in India. Whenever people wanted a creative Indian consultant, I would step in, she says. People heard I was doing projects in India, so it made more sense to stay here than go back and forth. I feel that from a creative standpoint its a lot more inspirational living here, nurturing new talent, than in the West.
The demand for her services is growing, particularly since Vogue launched an Indian edition in September and Indian designers are beginning to attract international recognition. So Young, who attended school in Oxfordshire, does not see herself moving back to Europe any time soon.
Since the moment I moved here, I have laughed and smiled every day.
Losing ones temper doesnt work, because there is no logic to the way things are done. I read a lot more because I always bring a book to fill in time no one is ever on time. You have to be like a piece of elastic. She says that she has learnt humility because the lot of a Westerner in India is one of automatic privilege. I was reluctant when people said you need a cook, but its a lovely privilege, so you can achieve a lot more. I have an amazing maid called Manisha who now makes a mean espresso, she says.
Most of her friends are Indian because she has made a concerted effort to integrate into local life working with Indian crews has helped. Paris is very beautiful, but I do not miss the Parisian attitude. I miss the chocolate, elderflower juice and certain beauty products, but I have so many friends coming who stop off at duty free.
William Dalrymple, 42, writer and historian, Delhi
Dalrymple first visited India in 1984 on a year off and admits he had no interest in the country before arriving. I actually wanted to go on a dig in Iraq but Saddam Hussein closed the country, he says. India was like a lightning bolt. After a five-year stint between 1989 and 1994, he returned in 2004 and now he and his wife, Olivia, a painter, and their three young children divide their time between Delhi and London, spending about eight months in India and four in the UK, during the school holidays. He has written several books on India, most recently The Last Mughal: the Eclipse of a Dynasty, Delhi 1857, which is about the Indian rebellion.
I have no plans to move back at all. My material is here, he says. It got more and more absurd writing about India from the Chiswick roundabout.
We miss family and friends, but they visit. It used to be that you also missed treats such as chocolate, decent wine and salami. Now you can get chocolate and decent wine and friends bring salami. There are very few things in terms of desire that you cannot satisfy here. Compared to the Nineties, not only are the pleasures available, but the phones work and the roads are OK. There are still power cuts, but we have a generator.
Being an expatriate allows for a standard of living that Dalrymple, who was raised on the shores of the Firth of Forth, would struggle to achieve in the UK. The style in which we live is like being in an Edwardian country house. We have six gardeners, he says. Its not the cheaper living that were here for, though, but the fact that on a weekend you can find yourself in a gorgeous palace in Rajasthan when you could be in a cold cottage in Wiltshire. I love England and going back for a few months and indulging in culture like the theatre and exhibitions, but it is a more exciting life here. Although his children are happy in their schools, he says, the only reason to come back would be, If we decided the education here wasnt good enough and we ended up missing our kids if we sent them to boarding school. But we would still keep a place here.
Ben Merton, 28, turnaround specialist, Bangalore
After working as a venture capitalist in San Francisco, Merton found his way to India nearly five years ago via South Korea, where he was helping to float a company that sold DVD players. He opened an Indian subsidiary in 2003 and has never looked back. I was originally going to come for two weeks, he says. Now I am here probably for the rest of my life. I cannot imagine myself living anywhere else, although eventually I would like to spend half the time here and the balance in the US. A physics graduate from Imperial College, London, where he grew up, Merton is putting roots down by buying a flat in Bangalore, Indias IT hub, where he rescues distressed companies in the high-tech and engineering sectors. In the next three to four years, he hopes to have raised a $100 million fund from channelling foreign capital into Indias nascent but booming manufacturing industry.
For a 28-year-old to do what Im doing in England would be difficult, but India is teeming with young industrial entrepreneurs, he says. The main reason not to go back is economic. But I have also got a great group of friends here and a good life. Bangalore is home now. There are things he says he misses about Blighty, though. The outdoors to be able to walk outside and not feel like youre going to get lung cancer, he said. And there are things about India, the worlds largest democracy, that are frustrating. For every positive like being able to have a cook, there is a negative such as the pollution or the bureaucracy and inefficiency.
Clemy Sheffield, 31, art consultant, Delhi
Sheffield first came to Bombay ten years ago to accompany a boyfriend on a business trip. I woke up to the Gateway of India and the sea and simply could not get over the noise and the smell which sounds clichéd.
Id had the impression of India being a harsh, difficult, faraway country, where everything was about disease and famine. I could not believe the beautiful buildings and the lushness. I just loved it, she says. After missing a flight home from Delhi on one trip, she stayed with friends for a further week, during which she acquired a taste for life in India. I thought, I could do this, she says. I gave myself two months and just moved. That was September 2005. I told my parents that I would give it a go for three months, but that was just to placate them.
Having worked for a private dealer in London, she originally had the idea to launch an art database, but the project proved too monumental to do properly, so she began doing printing jobs and taking people on tours to earn cash. Last year, she started an art consultancy business, sourcing for Western clients and developing relationships with emerging artists in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Her clients spend anywhere from £500 to £50,000 on a single piece, with international interest in Indian art growing fast. I have a business that is working and
I could do well here. Im really enjoying it, she says. Never being in India would be like taking half my heart. I would hate to be in England all the time. I would miss the noise. When I went back recently, I found Hyde Park Corner totally silent. The only thing is family. They look after their parents here and that is to be learnt from. If anything, I am starting to feel I am a long way away from my parents. My mother has been here, but the thought of India would send my dad straight to the loo.
BRITS IN INDIA: The facts
Indian companies are keen to grab the talent first. The interest in India is being generated at the undergrad level, one analyst told the Indian Express. IT companies like Infosys operate a global intern programme and are actively recruiting at British and American universities.
Expats find the country exciting and want to have a three-year stint there on their CV, says an industry commentator, while the International Herald Tribune reports that Indian companies are scouting internationally for senior executives at internationally competitive rates.
The IT hub of Bangalore has more than 12,000 registered expats, and a rapid growth in international schools.
The expat phenomenon is now expected to move beyond the Delhi-Bombay-Bangalore-Hyderabad axis to Calcutta.
HOW TO MOVE TO INDIA
According to India relocation/immigration specialist Ikan, Britons moving to work in India need an employment visa (E-type) from the Indian High Commission here. Tourist visas cant be converted into employment visas in India; applicants must have a copy of their work contract with an Indian employer.
Foreigners must register with local authorities within 14 days of arrival and obtain a residence permit (for which employers must commit to repatriating you and your family, should your conduct make you no longer welcome in India).
Visas are at the discretion of the Indian government and generally take about two weeks to get. Indian nationality can be applied for after 12 years in India. A different, easier set of rules apply to PIOs (Persons of Indian Origin).
