The Great Indian Exodus: Understanding Why The Wealthy Are Seeking New Horizons

The globe appears to be welcoming Indians with open arms. Wealthy Indians, who have emotionally separated from their country for some time now, are relocating their belongings and businesses out of India, joining an exclusive worldwide group. For wealthy Indians, home is no longer where their hearts are. For them, India is now no better than real estate, subject to high amounts of taxes and with no comparable public services to provide. India is morphing into an urban volcano poised to erupt for these rapidly ascending individuals. Whether it’s celebrities or athletes, these New Wealthy Indians with no fixed residence have picked the West and Middle East as their ultimate destination.

In a disturbing trend that parallel with wider worldwide mobility trends, wealthy Indians are increasingly choosing to relocate abroad, marking what could be described as an emotional and physical secession from their homeland. This phenomenon deserves careful analysis, as it reflects deeper issues within India’s development story and raises important questions about the nation’s future as an emerging economic powerhouse.

Why Such A Huge Scale of Departure Of Wealthy Indians From Indian Soil?

The numbers tell a compelling story. As per Henley Private Wealth Migration Report 2024, approximately 4,300 millionaires were projected to leave India by the end of 2024, following the exodus of 5,100 wealthy Indians in 2023. Even more telling is the broader pattern of citizenship renunciation, over 1.6 million Indians have surrendered their citizenship since 2011, with a dramatic spike from 85,256 to 225,620 in 2023 alone.

Let’s Start With The Celebrity Exodus As A Bellwether

The departure of high-profile personalities like cricketer Virat Kohli and actor Anushka Sharma represents just the tip of this migratory iceberg. Many top Bollywood actors have acquired properties in England, Singapore, and Dubai, treating India increasingly as a workplace rather than a home. This trend extends to corporate leaders, with many maintaining residences abroad while managing their Indian operations remotely.

What’s So Alluring About The Global Network?

What’s emerging is a fascinating new power corridor spanning Delhi-Mumbai-Singapore-Dubai-London-New York. Thanks to technological advances, wealthy Indians are running their empires from Trump Tower in New York or Singapore’s Technology and Financial Park with remarkable ease. Some even use their international properties as venues for business meetings, flying executives from India in chartered aircraft – environmental concerns notwithstanding. Wealthy Indians are increasingly attracted to investment-based citizenship programs offered by Caribbean nations like Antigua and Barbuda, European countries such as Spain and Greece, UAE’s “golden visa” program, etc.

A growing industry of advisory firms has emerged to facilitate these transitions, helping wealthy Indians navigate foreign investment opportunities within the annual remittance limit of $250,000 per person.

What’s Acting As Push Factors For Wealthy Indians For Leaving India?

The competitive craze to flee stems from various economic, social, governance and cultural issues. Despite growing at 6.5 percent annually, India hasn’t been able to provide a good quality of life. 

India has added over one lakh kilometres of national highways during the past decade, but the situation in some cases is critically apathetic. We all are bombarded with news of focus on infrastructure and highway expansion in India. The Ministry of Roadways is supposedly one of the best-performing ministries in India. But when you travel on highways are you seeing a different picture?

Consider the words from a regular user on NH44 from Bangalore to Thrissur. The person pays around INR 900 toll around 2Rs per Km. But what a mess this road has turned into. Sound proof highway, built for INR 960 crore, now there are so many potholes that it is difficult to find out where the sound is coming from in the car, a news article from September 2024 reads!

We has constructed over 100 new airports. But, the airports will not give a good experience if the airplanes are not upto the mark. The AirHelp Score Report 2024, which evaluates airlines globally, ranked IndiGo 103rd out of 109 carriers analysed. Though Indigo dismissed the report ranking it, there have been enough incidents to show how people in India are not happy with Indigo’s approach.

There is a stupendous increase in the number of universities, medical colleges, research institutions, but the quality of education, is in itself a debatable topic in India. From lower percentage of GDP towards research and development to outdated syllabus in school, we have a long way to go. Oh, let’s not forget the NTA scam.

Once, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak’s remarked that ‘Indian education system lacks creativity.’ A majority of India is stuck in an archaic education system that rewards getting good marks by knowing concepts & not by fostering creativity and talent. Do we have any column to judge our creativity in marks cards? It’s bothering to millionnaires today that even they are getting good pay cheques, still will they be able to provide quality education to their kids?

The primary reasons for many Indians leaving the country appear to be pathetic civic infrastructure, breakdown of law and order in many cities, suffocating pollution and a complex tax structure. For many professionals, working from office has become a nightmare. With a liberal auto policy meant to enhance supply, roads in 200 Indian cities are choked. India has perhaps the largest variety of vehicles dotting the roads—from cycles, e-rickshaws and three-wheelers to tractors, two wheelers and four wheelers. 

According to official estimates, India has 21 crore two-wheelers and 7 crore four-wheelers that clutter the roads, averaging one car per 10 adults. The average speed of a car in any big metropolis is just 5 km an hour. Overcrowding of Indian roads leads to major social and health related consequences. These vehicles spend more time on road emitting carbon fumes and also lead to many cases of road rage. Oh, okay, even if the roads are good, you have a great vehicle, still you will be irritatingly astonished to see the unrecognised speed breakers on Indian roads, giving shocks to both the luxurious car and the millionnaire.

Many office-goers miss flights and meetings because of unpredictable traffic hazards. India has the largest number of the world’s most polluted cities. 

If gridlocking of roads wasn’t enough, total collapse of civic infrastructure, excessive and tormenting bureaucracy and administration has led to the flight of both human intellect and capital. In almost all the cities, unauthorised construction as well as encroachment of public spaces like parks, playfields and even footpaths have made lives unbearable for health- and safety-conscious citizens.

Footpaths have been turned into food marts. Yet, never has any senior civil servant or police official been taken to task for the breakdown of the system. And if one day, somehow this is rectified, roads are good, civil servants are the really acting as ‘steel frames of society’, then you will be haunted by the noise pollution created by Indian drives, showing a dearth of civic sense.

Citizens have to suffer even noisy sermons and prayers from mosques and temples without any decibel limits and the police fail to implement even the directions of the courts. Dare to speak about this in public and you will be tagged as ‘anti-nationalist’.

Moreover, with rulers indulging in competitive cacophony to protect their vote banks, it is the ordinary, law-abiding resident who is bearing the brunt, the common Indian man, who failed to become the vote bank of the nation! As the fight for identity and entitlement dictates the contours of national politics, good governance has become collateral casualty. Coupled with a tardy legal system and multiple tax authorities, for these aspirational Indians, India is becoming an unlivable habitat. For the Indian establishment, it’s a big challenge to retain both the talent and the wealth for a viksit, surakshit, and pratishthit vishwa guru, Bharat. 

The Irony of Growth

Perhaps the most striking aspect of this exodus is its timing. As India races its goal of becoming the world’s third-largest economy with a $5 trillion GDP, the very wealthy fellas who have benefited most from this growth are choosing to relocate. This creates a peculiar situation where India’s success stories are increasingly being written from foreign shores.

Conclusion

The exodus of wealthy Indians, aka the HNIs and UHNIs, represents more than just a migration trend, rather it’s a alerting wake-up call for India’s development paradigm. While many of our corporate leaders are chasing quantity of work over quality of life under the pretext of nationalist propaganda, the challenge lies in translating this growth into tangible quality-of-life improvements. The future of India’s position as a global power may well depend on its ability to retain its most successful citizens by creating an environment that matches their aspirations for both prosperity and quality of life.

As India continues its ‘Pragati’ toward becoming a ‘Vishwa Guru’, addressing these fundamental issues becomes crucial not just for retaining wealth and talent, but for ensuring that the benefits of growth are translated into improved living conditions for all its citizens. The challenge is not insurmountable, but it requires concerted effort, political will, and a reimagining of what development truly means in the Indian context.