Indians consider other countries as anti-migrant sentiment rises

Germany is at the cross-roads of a “migration ambivalence”. To address its labour shortage and demographic deficits, Germany is increasingly positioning itself as a hub for global talent for highly skilled migrants. This puts Indians from STEM fields, research, academia and healthcare at the top of the chart.

However, growing anti-migrant sentiment fuelled by the rising popularity of the far right party, Alternative für Deutschland or AfD, does little to help Germany project a pro-migrant image for Germany.

While much of the focus of the country’s migrant policy has been on attracting talent and settling it in, more attention must be paid to retaining it.

Through my ethnographic research with Indian migrants that culminated in a monograph Stories of the Indian Immigrant Communities in Germany: Why Move?, I have focussed extensively on why Indian migrants are increasingly choosing Germany as an immigration destination.

Indians are currently the seventh-largest migrant group in Germany and the only immigrant community from outside Europe dominated by highly skilled, highly qualified migrants. Between 2010 and 2020, the total number of Indians in Germany (57.6% are white-collar immigrants) has increased from 42,000 to 1,59,000. In addition, the number of Indian students joining German universities has gone up approximately from 25,149 in 2022 to 33,753 in 2024.

Since then, I have followed the trajectories and movements of these migrants. I have found that many are uncertain about choosing Germany as a long-term home. Given the growing anti-migrant political situation in Germany, many Indian migrants who arrived with strong credentials, secure jobs and aspirations for a better life are now strongly considering onward migration.

“My husband and I are confused at the moment,” one woman said. “We both have good jobs, but our daughter already feels out of place. Her classmates tease her about her dark hair and skin. None of her classmates look like her, and it makes her feel ugly. Is this really the place where we want her to grow up?”

This is not an isolated experience. The rise of the growing popularity of the AfD has cast a shadow over a pro-migrant image that Germany has tried cultivating in the last few years, specifically anchored on the European Union’s Blue Card Scheme that offers work and residence permits, Skilled Migration Act 2020 to make immigration easier for highly trained workers and and MoU with India in 2022 to facilitate mobility for students and professionals.

Structural and everyday racism and a systematic denial of the existence of racism in mainstream German society impact how migrants perceive their long-term futures.

One of my key participants summarised this for me. “Despite my highly paid job, I face racism in the metro, on the streets,” this person said. “Germany is not the only Western country where racism exists, but here, if you speak about it, you’re told off and called over-sensitive. My white colleagues simply don’t believe me.”

The lack of occupational upward mobility is part of the spectrum of discrimination. As my book observed, Germany offers a strong entry-point for early career professionals. But Indian global talent as people of colour still find it hard to be hired to positions of authority, decision making and those that require access to and management of finances within organisations.

While the rise of the AfD has increased discrimination that Indian migrants experience, the arrival of the far-right in the mainstream political system in Germany has also opened a conversation on racism that otherwise remains shoved under the carpet.

Will Germany continue to remain a corridor to global migration for these highly qualified Indians or will these Indians choose Germany as their home? As Germany is dealing with a long-term demographic challenge (an aging population and declining birth rates), it must treat existing migrants as future citizens, not just temporary labour solutions.

Such an attitudinal shift is required not only towards skilled migrants but to the subject of migration at large because Indians as skilled migrants cannot live in silos while migration as a subject continues to be perceived as a crisis.

However, not all Indian migrants – especially not Hindus – feel equally targeted by the growing anti-migrant temperaments. Some view themselves as “model migrants”, distanced from the perceived troublesome “others”.

“Indians are good migrants,” said one participant in my research. “We work hard, we don’t rely on unemployment benefits, our children are well educated. I don’t think the AfD wants us out. They want to deport the trouble-making Arab migrants. We are responsible citizens.”

The political common sense is that the AfD is only against the Muslim refugees while most Indian skilled migrants in Germany are Hindu and often upper-caste migrants (having access to monetary and other resources through social privilege across generations).

Self-identification as model migrants also exposes the intrinsic communal and casteist perceptions and othering that Indians carry outside their home country and implant into race and colour frameworks in the diaspora. Such framings ignore the broader dynamics of racism, which predominantly operates on presumptions and perceptions, based on appearance and skin colour.

Contrary to what a few Indians choose to believe, the AfD has been fairly clear in its political positions that it intends to deport all people of what is popularly termed as “migration background” – and this includes the Indians, including those identifying as model migrants.

In light of this, Germany must have a long-term plan to create micro-level awareness against anti-migrant sentiments. If it intends to continue competing for global talent, a skilled labour migration pathway that majority of the industrially developed countries are increasingly exploring, it should shift its focus from attracting immigrants to retaining them.

Without such shifts in migration policy, migration ambivalence will continue to dampen Germany’s skilled migration pathways.

Amrita Datta is a lecturer at the Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology, Bielefeld University.

Also read: As the ideal German immigrant, I saw how the supremacist integration system enables the far right

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