ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the experiences of Indian migrant workers as they make sense of their role in an asymmetrical global information economy. Opponents of the H-1B program repeatedly argue Indian computer programmers who are on H-1B visas are "indentured servants" who are under-qualified, willing to work for lower wages and susceptible to exploitation because of their non-immigrant status. Hindu nationalist organizations, like the former ruling Hindu nationalist party the Bharatiya Janata Party, emphasized a homogenous and privileged Indian immigrant community in the US, highlighting the role of globetrotting Indian symbolic analysts as catalysts of economic expansion in both the US and India. In addition to fuelling Indian middle-class frustrations with central planning, the 1990s saw an explosion of Indian media attention to the return of successful Indian immigrants to jumpstart India's own high-tech development in information technology-friendly global cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad.
