Thiruvananthapuram: Now that the United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union, Mahesh Raman has been pushed into a life of perpetual uncertainty. Raman, 31, who hails from Varkala, is an IT professional working in a German company. He has been in the country for the last two years.
“For the last many months, there have been talks that our company might shift base from England if voters say Brexit. Once Britain is out, it does not make financial sense for our company to operate from here because with new protective barriers erected, the logistics will turn costly and cumbersome,” Raman said.
But the bigger fear crops up from the realization that Brexit will make it costly for his company to keep him in Britain. “Either I will be pushed out of my job or will be redeployed to our offices in other parts of Europe,” Raman said. Large-scale redistribution of the workforce is perhaps the biggest threat for Indians as they will be the first ones to be told to move out.
Sreedhar, an academic with Bournemouth University in England, said Brexit would have no direct bearing on Indians, in the sense that things are already difficult. “Long before the Brexit debate had flared up, our entry into the country was strictly regulated through a point system,” he said. UK’s points-based five-tier visa system is the main immigration route for migrants from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) to enter the country. “You must accrue points above a minimum threshold, a Herculean task, if your application is to be successful,” said Sreedhar who belongs to Kottayam.
Here is how he describes Brexit. “What the English have been doing to Indians all this while, they are now planning to do to Europeans, but in a less ruthless manner.” He, however, said that it was too early to panic. “I am told the exit negotiations will take at least two years,” Sreedhar added.
More than 90 percent of expatriates from the state reside in the Gulf. “Though we don’t have the numbers, Malayalis in England are very few. They are mostly skilled professionals like doctors, nurses and IT professionals,” Dr Rajan said. Nonetheless, he views the ‘leave’ vote as an anti-immigrant one. “This is a fight against migration, the result of the fear that English jobs are grabbed by other Europeans,” Dr Rajan said.
“So the future is not looking bright for Indians in England and also for those aspiring to work there,” he added. Sreedhar knows the threat looms large. “With the hands of nationalists strengthened, the future will be more parochial,” he said.
