Here’s a slightly different take on hiring Indian engineers... but it could be Indians in other vocation as well. And it’s not a good story.....
I hired a graduate engineer to do some aerodynamic work for my engineering company a few years ago. He has done ok... not great work but I like him, he is honest, good natured, he tries hard and has enough positive attributes that I’ve sort of taken him under my wing as I’d like him to be successful. However, would I hire him again knowing what I know now? Probably not.... and for a reason that is absolutely flabbergasting and has zero to do with technical skills.
About 3 years ago, my Indian employee went back to Indian for a lengthy vacation and got married while he was there. When I asked him about this after he returned, he said his wife had some schooling to finish off and then she would join him here. Weeks went by, then months and at some point I casually asked him how the plan was coming along to move his wife here. Not good... she has had him charged for spousal abuse, cruelty and harassment under something called Section 498a of the Indian Penal Code... she was looking for a divorce and wanted a 6 figure settlement (this from a guy who is only out of university a few years and has all kinds of student debts).
The whole thing was a scam from the get-go and I’m not just talking about the experience of my employee... the backstory on this was that Section 498a was written back in the mid-80s as the vehicle to get rid once and for all of the practices of dowries. Instead what it did was create a monster for women to abuse and to take the unsuspecting totally to the cleaners. Like all such laws which start off with some claims that it will provide protection and improve matters (in this case for women against dowry-related cruelties), it has become nothing but an easy tool for women to misuse it by filing false cases. It is so massive in scale, it has become an industry on to itself.....
One wouldn’t want to overstate this but Section 498a is going to destroy the country by this bomb that has destroyed marriage as an institution. Don’t get some idea that the case for my employee was just some isolated incident.... the havoc that this has caused across all of India is unbelievable. In the case of my employee, it basically tied him up for nearly 2 years, endless legal hearings, lawyers bills etc. I even started getting letters from his ‘wife’s lawyers’, and Indian police and court system etc. In the end, I stuck it out with him but it was so painful that I wouldn’t do it again.... and it would give me very serious pause for thought about hiring anyone that has anything to do with India. One day I asked my employee as to whether he even got to go on a honeymoon when he was in India to get married.... Nope he says... didn’t even have sex with his ‘wife’ once.
Here are a few random articles I found that discuss the issue of Section 498a.....
[Here’s a slightly different take on hiring Indian engineers... but it could be Indians in other vocation as well. And it’s not a good story.....]