A Gendered Subclass within the CEO MDR: Indian Tech Workers on Nonimmigrant Visas in the US

In this paper, I build on Rina Agarwala’s (2022) concept of the Migration-Development Regime (MDR) to examine the relationship between the Indian state and high-skilled Indian tech workers who hold temporary visas in the US. These workers belong to the CEO MDR, and share an “elite class pact” with the sending state. This means, the sending state offers favors and incentives in exchange for the elite emigrants’ consent to liberalization. Agarwala (2022) also discusses how gender inflects the “elite class pact” with the Indian state offering more opportunities to male than female migrants.

I extend the discussion on gender—but by focusing on the emigrants’ visa or citizenship status in the host country. I draw on 30 in-depth interviews with Indian tech workers in the US who hold or have held temporary visas (H-1B, L-1, F-1 OPT). I also draw on participant observation of events hosted by three organizations of Indian tech workers in the US (Immigration Voice, Bengali Women’s Forum, and Origin Discriminated Immigrants’ Group).

I contend that in CEO MDR, elite emigrants who hold temporary or “nonimmigrant” visas, end up as a “gendered subclass.” By “gendered subclass” I mean a marginalized position within the “elite class pact” due to the emigrants’ (1) political, (2) economic, and (3) legal vulnerability (see Banerjee 2010) in the host state. I also identify three discursive approaches adopted by the “gendered subclass” in their activism and interaction with the sending state: (1) entitled dependence; (2) mutual rejection; (3) subnational alternatives.