Sara Stearns
Migration and Art 309
Greene
Outsourcing in India
After watching Sonali Gulati’s film in class, “Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night”, it lead me to very interested in the topic of outsourcing. I started to think that maybe my understanding of the concept of outsourcing was somewhat distorted, and I desired to research this specific topic further. What I was used to was seeing these articles about companies sending jobs overseas from the United States, especially to India. Typically these articles or news programs would very negative, and are almost using scare tactics to lead people to believe that all of America’s jobs were going to disappear because of outsourcing. How many times have you seen a politician campaign on American jobs, and how outsourcing is an evil? While this may be of concern to some Americans, at the same time this creates optimism for the country of India. While there are still some issues to address in this somewhat new evolving trend of outsourcing, I believe that this trend is something to really take a look at, and to see the positive things that it can bring for India. I don’t think that this trend will slow down anytime in the future, and instead of resisting it, the country of the United States will have to come to a decision to embrace it instead, and perhaps instead of this concept being an entirely negative thing perhaps India and the United States can possibly work together to become economic partners instead of enemies that some see them as. In my paper I would like to discuss my perspective of outsourcing as well as using the film “Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night”, the Alladeen website, as well as other articles on this specific topic.
The first person and film I would like to look at it is Sonali Gulati. Her film “Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night” is one of the most pivotal films about outsourcing in India. Gulati is originally from New Delhi, India. She received her B.A. degree in Critical Social Thought from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. She went on to get a M.F.A. in Film and Media Arts from Temple University in 2004. She has made many short films that have been represented in over 200 film festivals worldwide including the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, and include countries such as Canada, Europe, Australia, and Asia. Her areas of specialization are film production and experimental filmmaking. She has won numerous awards such as her recent Theresa Pllak Award for Excellence in the Arts in Film. She currently teaches film production and experimental filmmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts.
In looking at her artist statement, Gulati is very interested in the politics of “representation” in mass media. She asks questions such as who has the power to represent whom? She wants to create films for those she feels are under represented or are too often silenced. She is passionate about social change, particularly on issues of identity issues such as race, class, gender, and sexuality. She is focused on how these different categories interact with one another or how there maybe spaces between them. She is not afraid to experiment with the media, often mixing traditional documentary methods and combining them with a fictional aspect. Sometimes this includes creating and making the fictional more transparent in her films. She isn’t afraid to find innovative ways to tell her story. This can include having multiple points-of views such as in “Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night”. Her ultimate goal is to share narratives that are both transformative and compelling. Her goal is to not only find innovative ways of storytelling, but to also create films as organizing tool, in hopes of affecting those who view the films. In turn she her ultimate goal is to make these films in hopes of making the world a more safe, sustainable, and just world.
In seeing Gulati’s film, she did a brilliant job of conveying her message about outsourcing, while keeping a relatively neutral stance on the subject. (while still asking pertinent questions) In the beginning of her film she addresses how she first viewed and thought about Indian call centers in her hometown of New Delhi. She often thought of them as a “legal sweatshops”. In order to really see how they were in reality she takes a flight out to New Delhi, and visits one of the largest call centers in New Delhi that houses Fortune 500 companies such as Dell, Compuserve, and Capital One. Her restrictions when doing this documentary? No footage of any computer monitor, and no additional microphones. She goes onto interview one of the call center managers, Mandawi Sharma. Sharma says that “outsourcing has been around for ages. The difference now is the emergence of the concept of telecommunication. The fact that a new tech can perform from a remote location anywhere in the world is a very beneficial thing. For America it is beneficial in the fact that there is almost an exact 12 hour difference between America and India. When they finish, we start.” She is right in the fact that outsourcing is nothing new. Companies like British Airways and American express started putting its back office operations in India as early as the 1980’s. It only has continued to grow from there.
In these call centers Gulati finds out that many of these workers have to use an alias or an Americanized name to, according to the managers of the call center, to “make things easier as it is hard enough to work on the problems themselves that customers are calling about”. While this seems a bit extreme for some hearing about it, I can see the logical reasoning behind it. As she goes onto explore the environment of the call center, she find that “Globalization and capitalism are taking away from some and giving to other. These call centers are not the legalized sweatshops” she thought they would be. The workers are provided with full meals, they have nice a break room equipped things such as table tennis. These call center workers are making $210/month, equivalent to what a fresh MBA would make. Nearly 3 million people are competing to get a job at a call center. She looks a one specific man, a structural engineer, who is desparately trying to get a job at a call center, but his thick northern accent is preventing him from doing so. Besides the actual call center jobs, these also provide other job to Indian people from security to cooks. And while Gulati does bring up the question, is it logical for a doctor to make the same wage as a call center worker, one cannot deny the fact that these are good paying jobs that are benefiting the country of India.
According to The Economist, it is estimated that outsourcing by U.S. companies is likely to increase by 30 to 40 percent over the next five years, and this will result in the loss of about 200,000 jobs a year in services over the next decade. It’s no secret that many U.S. businesses are flocking to India to save on cost of rent and salary. While this may be seen as a concern for American jobs, this is at the same time creating a high sense of optimism for India. “There is a huge amount of nationalistic pride. We want to show that as a work force, as a labor pool, we are equivalent to if not better than anybody else anywhere in the world.” (“Out of India, Leung) There is a definite sense of optimism about the future of India. While previously we saw many statistics such as the fact that over 300 million of India’s residents were living off of less than $1/day. Over one third of its billion citizens are illiterate. There are many problems with crumbling roads and slums. Only 60% of India’s population has electricity. (“The Rise of India”) I.T. is now driving India’s boom and sense of optimism. Since 2001 Delhi is building a network of highways, and modern airports. Gautam Sidharth Singh is a 19 year old first year student majoring in electronic engineering explains what a lot of the younger population are focused on, “Nobody wants arts or history anymore, all my friends want is I.T.”
There seems to even be an evolution of how these call centers are being run as well. In the Indian city of Pune, several northern Virginia tech firms show how previously the standard was for the United States companies to give orders to the workers in India. Now however, young Indian developers are helping India gain footing instead. As we see in Gualti’s film, many of the Indian workers work over night, but there are changes that we are starting to see. More often than not now, United States executives often make sure to reach their offices by 7am to catch Indian employees at the end of their work day. (“India’s New Faces of Outsourcing”)
On the Alladeen webite, a 3 part project on the concept of outsourcing, it emphasizes the goal of outsourcing is higher profits for these companies. “Nearly one-third of its billion citizens speak English, making it the largest English-speaking population outside the United States. There are fifty times more college graduates than in the United Kingdom. Better yet, India made an early and intense investment in its IT industry, producing world-class programmers as well as computer-savvy young people in search of employment with genuine prospects.”(Alladeen, “The Economics of Outsourcing”) What overseas business wouldn’t look at these facts, and not want to take advantage of this? At the same time the young poplulation of India are seeking the income and freedom they can enjoy with these jobs. In fact since most call centers operate overnight, it is one of the only legal ways that an Indian woman can outside the home after dark.
The concept of outsourcing is not something to be feared, but something to be looked at and understood for its benefits. It is something that is not going to slow down, nor cease to exist. It is only going to become something that continues to grow into the future. “Adapting to the India effect will be traumatic, but there's no sign Corporate America is turning back. Yet the India challenge also presents an enormous opportunity for the U.S. If America can handle the transition right, the end result could be a brain gain that accelerates productivity and innovation. India and the U.S., nations that barely interacted 15 years ago, could turn out to be the ideal economic partners for the new century.” (“The Rise of India”)
Works Cited
1. "America's Pain, India's Gain". The Economist January 2003: 57-57.
2. Gulati , Sonali. "Sonali Gulati". VCU School of the Arts. 03/10/2010
3. Ezra & Rowden, Elizabeth & Terry. Transnational Cinema, The Film Reader. New York: Routledge, 2006.
4. Engardio, Pete. ""The Rise of India"". Business Week 12/3/2003
5. Kalita, S. Mitra. ""India's New Faces of Outsourcing"". Business Week 1/11/2006
6. "Alladeen". The Builders Association/motiroti's. 05/03/2010
