Big Outsourcer Infosys Loses Battles, but Unfortunately in India

Infosys, the Indian outsourcing company, one of the worst exploiters in the H-1B program, has lost two big battles – but, I am sorry to say, not over immigration issues.

Two of its former leaders, including its billionaire co-founder, Nandan Nilekani, lost races for seats in the Indian parliament it was announced earlier today. They had allied themselves with the ruling Congress Party (of the Nehru/Gandhi family), which lost heavily to the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.

My Indian friends tell me that sub-continent voters were faced with a difficult choice: Congress had lost its earlier verve and was tainted with incompetence and corruption; the other party has ties to religious bigots. Think of a choice between some mobbed-up Tammany Hall leader of the mid-20th century and a younger, segregationist Strom Thurmond.

Nilekani and his former Infosys colleague, V. Balakrishnan, both had sought seats in the Bangalore area, home of many H-1B programmers. In the course of the election campaign Nilekani, to his credit, and unlike many Indian politicians, filed what appears to be a full and detailed statement of his finances, showing a total value of $1.26 billion, 80 percent of which was in Infosys stock. He and his wife own 2.75 percent of the firm, making its apparent value a thumping $40 billion.

Infosys, routinely one of the top-10 users of H-1B visas, is an outsourcing company that hires ill-paid H-1B staffers to do IT work for other companies. It has been in and out of American courts for years: for breaking the immigration law, for shouldering aside American workers, and for exploiting its own Indian staff members. See, for example, this blog by my colleague John Miano.

Infosys and the other Indian outsourcing companies (Tata, Cognizant etc.) may have more influence in the U.S. Congress than they have in New Delhi. Last year's efforts in Washington to rein in the power of these India-based corporations seem to have lost all their earlier momentum.