Substack author Sam Bidwell has published a long essay warning the English-speaking world about the Indian diaspora. Noting that from 2021 to 2024, more than 1 million Indians immigrated to Britain; that Indian immigration into Canada surged 326 percent over the past decade; that in both Australia and New Zealand, Indians comprise the single largest source of migration; and that in the United States, “Indians make up the second-largest foreign-born population, behind only Mexicans.”
In addition, in both legal and illegal immigration into the US, India is near the top. In FY 2024, more than 90,000 Indians illegally arrived. In 2022, 145,000 came in legally. And Indians rank second only to Chinese among foreign students — technically “short-term” residents. One hundred forty-thousand of them were awarded student visas in 2023.
Bidwell remarks that “for many Anglophone conservatives, immigration from India is an uncomplicated good.” He sites such assumptions as the perception that Indians are “hard-working and family-oriented, that they seem amenable to successful integration, displaying high wages, high educational attainment, and that they have a “low propensity to commit violent crime.” Even some conservatives hope that “Indian immigration will provide a right-leaning electoral counterweight to immigration from other parts of the Third World.”
Bidwell contends that these stereotypes are unwarranted. He says the “economic success story” of Indian migration is overstated and that “significant negative externalities in the cultural/political sphere” are understated. In particular, he says the Indian diaspora has embedded within it “a culture of fraud and nepotism.”
Here at AIC Foundation, we have frequently noted the ongoing take-over of major American high-tech firms by Indian CEOs. (See, for example, “The Indian Takeover of High-Tech HR” and “Indian Takeover Continues.”) The concern generated by these stories is real. For more, see Sam Bidwell’s “Riding The Tiger: Why The Anglosphere Should Be Wary of India.”