2025 job cuts, H1B crackdown: lessons

Amid turbulence and turmoil in India's IT sector, fears erupt over deleterious spillover effects on the vast middle-class, consumption and GDP growth, exacerbated by US trade tariffs and visa reforms

 

November 2025: So the harsh reality, and the underlying sad-painful truth, of jobs cuts, led by tech firings, have finally hit home. This episode has important lessons not just for India’s “techies” but the entire large middle class. Will the middle-income Indians wake up at least now, see the writing on the wall and learn those urgent lessons? (Download the PDF of this essay.) 

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Pray, what might those lessons be?​

1) Thou shall not lose Big Picture perspective, global worldview and a sense of history

Most of the Indian techies get carried away by their own pretenses and seek to coast on the ignorance of the non-IT crowd. Although all they do is back-end coding and low-end programming, Indian techies pretend as if they are some great technologists or scientists. They forget that they are a fragment of the whole, that they are a mere cog in the wheel. They have no idea of the overall place of IT in the whole economy. Nor do they have any appreciation how all the sectors and industries of the macro-economy are interconnected and interdependent, and equally important. They don’t see that IT’s recent rise is part of a global trend. They can’t appreciate what the world had to endure over several centuries to reach the current juncture. Indian techies just seek to coast on their diplomas and degrees in computer science, programming, etc, that had suddenly commanded demand in the economic marketplace of the globalized world. They made hay while the IT sun shone. But they missed the implications of the rise of AI that they helped build. Most IT/tech behemoths are guilty of unfair trade practices and unethical business traditions. Not all IT behemoths enhance the quality of societies they function in. In fact, most of them degrade society and cheat/disempower/fool their patrons (users). Have you ever heard of whistleblowers in the Indian IT sector? Indian techies have grown horns on their heads.

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2) Thou shall not squander away opportunities for self-improvement and spiritual evolution

It’s a shame Indian techies did not see it as fit or necessary that they should invest part of their fat earnings on self-improvement, personal development and spiritual evolution. Have you seen any entry- and mid-level Indian techies proactively learn to speak and write English or any other foreign language flawlessly and fluently? Have you seen techies contributing to social causes, charity and philanthropy? 

It is safe to bet that there would not have been a single IT professional/techie among the millions of followers of Anna Hazare-Kejriwal campaign who protested against corruption in India. Again, it'd be safe to bet there would not be a single IT professional/techie among the public protesting shocking gender crimes like rapes and murders, or pollution, or even neighborhood municipal administration paralysis. For, India's techies generally would be busy sharpening focus on how to game the flawed system, how to maximize incomes (through double-income families, passive incomes, investments, resale of assets acquired, tax evasion, so forth), and how to prosper personally, no matter what. For parasitic techies, the ecosystem is a means to their selfish ends, and the quality of the ecosystem is none of their business, concern or responsibility.

Indian techies just assumed that back-end coding/low-end programming is all there is to life. Fat paychecks made them complacent. Accumulated wealth made them cocky, conceited and proud. They never realized that Life has given them a wonderful opportunity to evolve to higher level, expand their overall knowledge, broaden their ken and emerge on an equal footing with, say, IT professionals of the USA, the UK, Canada, ANZ, etc. The net result of this happy-go-lucky attitude is that Indian techies have big bank balances but no intrinsic merit and personal value (because the emphasis all along has been on high financial net worth). Shame!

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3) Thou shall not take sheer luck for granted

It’s only now, after the rise of AI has started posing existential threat to techies, that IT fellows are waking up to the reality – that it was sheer luck that brought them big-income employment and sustained them for decades at a time when other professions and workers in other industries struggled to make both ends meet. Techies had imagined that IT shall remain in big demand forever, and that they too, by extension, shall enjoy the joyride on the gravy train forever. Hence, they never saw the need to upgrade and upskill themselves, and develop a better worldview so as to become responsible community members, society-enhancers and worthy citizens.

 

4) Thou shall not chase prosperity for its own sake

When the moolah from high-income IT jobs kept flowing into their coffers, techies happily grew wealthy while still young, amassing assets like high-end homes, vehicles, jewellery, etc, and enjoying expensive holidays that previous generations could never dream of. Although lacking in intrinsic merit, they acquired a lot of snob value and unreasonably high aspirations. They could afford expensive sports coaching and other extra-curricular activities for their little ones. Mind you, such indulgences were not driven by a desire to develop better future citizens but by a desire to show off and due to greed. Like, “how great it would be if my son lands an IPL contract” or “how fabulous it’d be if my daughter becomes the next Sindhu” and earn super-duper contracts, brand endorsement deals, glam event appearances, media coverage, felicitations, honors, awards, accolades, so forth. Techies forgot the cardinal dharma-artha-kama-moksha principle.

 

5) Thou shall not become enslaved by modern-day, wily, capitalist-owned, private-sector tech behemoths that are heartless and ruthless

Show us an Indian techie who is genuinely ignorant that IT-sector employers, like the tech giants, are bad business houses, sweatshops, coding factories, shameless profit-chasers. Most techies know that their employers are not world-beaters. Be it software products, social media technologies, ecommerce technologies, digital payment systems and what have you… all these modern inventions emerged from the West, mainly the US, and later perfected by China, Japan and South Korea. Is there a single world-leading killer app, or software product, or technology that Indian IT majors came up with in the last five decades (50 years)? Techies knew all along that they were trapped in doing boring, brain-breaking, stressful, back-end coding and low-end programming for their Indian employers. And they willingly became slaves of such regressive companies. While IT led to redundancies in other industries and sectors, techies happily fueled the trend as they were not affected. They knew the work they are doing for their Indian employers is wreaking havoc in society and destabilizing communities but they did not review their choices. What goes around comes around. The Indian tech crowd -- software slaves, coding coolies, terrible techies and IT idiots -- are now shamelessly pinning their hopes on a complaint (Case No. 25-cv-3675) filed by the US Chamber of Commerce on Oct. 16, 2025 against the US government seeking "declaratory and injunctive relief" from the newly imposed fee of $100,000 on H-1B visa applications.

 

6) Thou shall not be cavalier and reckless while the going is good and thou shall not ignore the wisdom in the saying ‘Save for the rainy day’

As said earlier, Indian techies lived as if there’s no tomorrow. They shut their eyes to the wider world, in terms of being responsible citizens and active community members. They lived in their own world, imagining their niche, their domain, is the universe, the entire world. They wore blinkers. Worse, they splurged on this, that and the other, without bothering to be financially prudent. They could never imagine that AI would bring about an end to their high-income jobs. They never foresaw that their cushy lifestyles would be unsustainable without their high-income jobs that they had wrongly imagined would be permanent, for their entire lifetime.

 

7) Thou shall not embrace a conservative attitude that kills entrepreneurial instincts

Lulled into complacence by their relatively high-paying, low-end-work jobs, Indian techies never evolved even professionally. For example, the old program frameworks first used in the late ’80s and early ’90s continue to be used even today in legacy clients. That’s a colossal disservice to both their clients and the end-users (like consumers of banks, transport services, public transportation networks, etc). While the rest of the world evolved new programs in the 21st century, employees of Indian tech majors remained mired in 20th-century stuff. Despite having earned huge incomes and wealth already, Indian techies did not display the gumption to startup their own ventures to be in tune with the rest of the world. They were happy being employed by Indian tech majors. Overseas stints were prized. In essence, Indian techies, especially those working for IT industry behemoths in India, were the private-sector equivalents of public sector bureaucrats, section officers, clerks and peons.

 

8) Thou shall not resist the conscience that impels one to do the right thing

Indian techies knew that technology was misused, wrongly used, abused or under-used by Indian tech majors to boost billing, perpetuate old frameworks and short-change both clients and users. Society was actually harmed. There were/are a billion alternative ways how technology could be better used to enhance society. But techies happily toiled away like enslaved labour for their paymasters. When the startup culture took off, through cooperation and collaboration with peers, techies could have launched new-age ventures that truly benefit society and enrich founders of startups (themselves). They could have easily redefined the role of technology in society. They didn’t do the right thing in spite of their conscience telling them what is the right thing to do.

 

9) Thou shall not be overcome by greed, materialism and consumerism

While professionals in other industries barely managed to survive, there was no end to the greed of Indian techies. They eyed and owned multiple properties, lands, plots, vehicles; they bought up lots of jewellery and other valuables; they indulged in pub culture and enjoyed abominations like Indian stand-up comedy shows; they did not bat an eyelid while splurging big money on tickets for Western music concerts like that of Coldplay and fake wedding parties that are the latest craze/fad among India’s young, cash-flush urbanites; they bought season tickets for IPL matches and branded accessories, footwear, and designer garments and perfumes, deos, etc; they afforded luxury cruises and customized holidays in exotic islands. Even after relocating to the US and other developed economies, Indian techies, especially Telugu techies, shamelessly organized and celebrated new film releases at local cinemas featuring their favourite ass*ole heroes. They would break 101 or more coconuts violently (by smashing the coconuts into the floor in front of the garlanded and vermilion-smeared framed photographs of their icons), stressing out local cinema workers and inviting police attention.

 

The Sept. 19, 2025 decision by US President Donald Trump to crack down on "abuse" of H1B visas, and the subsequent media coverage, amply prove that karma is fast catching up with the so-called Indian techies, which is actually a bit of a misnomer as it implies these fellows are bright, brilliant, best-of-class scientists. In reality, these fellows are glorified software coolies doing backend, low-value coding work like digital-age slaves and bonded laborers. The worst of these Indian techies hail from Telugu-speaking states of Telangana and Andhra. Most of them hail from non-Brahmin higher castes like Reddy, Kamma, Kaapu, Velama, etc. They have no intrinsic merit. Conditioned by the disgusting ecosystem in their home states since childhood, they grow up into malfunctioning, delusional adults with no class, decorum and are driven by greed, lust for power and craving for (social media) attention. They don't put a premium on self-improvement and social evolution. An IT job in the West is reduced to a means to a fast buck instead of converting it into an opportunity to outgrow their conditioning / sub-optimal upbringing and evolve to the next higher level. Hence, even while in the US and the UK (and Canada, ANZ, etc), they indulge in behavior and demeanor fit for hooligans and miscreants.

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That’s not all. They would remain addicted to cricket telecasts and in-stadium loud cheering and raucous behavior (Bharat Army, etc). In the name of culture and religion, they would indulge in materialistic extravaganzas during festivals. They would form local NRI associations, monger for power and position, and indulge in factional feuds. They would focus on cheap remittance tricks. While South Indian techies have long been rumored to be commanding astronomical dowries in the marriage market, their counterparts from North India carry the (un)enviable 'burden' of unconfirmed talk that they enjoy certain post-wedding ‘adventures’ like wife-swapping, threesomes, foursomes, orgies and what not. All this without adding value to themselves, without burnishing their intrinsic merit. And without making any effort to observe the local culture, absorb good things and learn new things. But they would pick up a bit of foreign accent, and assume they have evolved to the elite level. Shame-shame.

 

10) Thou shall not become arrogant but remain humble

Even during the immediate aftermath of Covid, when other professions, industries and sectors saw mass layoffs, Indian techies remained smug working from home. Rupees, dollars and pounds kept flowing into their bank accounts. Emboldened by immunity from vaccines and on-demand visas later on, techies thought they were, and will always be, on unshakeable ground. When others exhorted them to be more grounded, down to earth, and evolve through upgrading and upskilling, techies smugly brushed them off dismissively.

The lessons discussed above might seem applicable only to the Indian techies but that would be a folly. They are applicable to all, especially the Great Indian Middle Class.​​

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Here are some bonus insights in conclusion. Let's all be clear on two points:

1) India's H1B visa holders and even green card-holders in the US are, and have been, like software slaves or coding coolies doing low-value back-end work; but they have pulled wool over the world's eyes that they are "techies" -- such a misnomer. They are not bright, brilliant and best-in-class scientists or technologists but opportunistic educated labor who undercut homegrown or native IT professionals in the US by working for paltry salaries (by local US standards). They are not some brainy fellows who drove innovation, tech breakthroughs, etc -- that's just bunkum, BS, myth, spin, narrative … a load of bull. Let's not forget that Indian techies, who have no intrinsic merit, have failed to come up with even one world-beating app or software product so far -- such a contrast with the IT ecosystem in China. All the apps and products that arose in the US after 1985 could have as well arisen in India, but they didn't. That in itself is a telling tale and sad commentary on the prowess of India's IT industry -- which is basically a collection of profit-thirsty sweat-shops masquerading as firms specializing in top-end IT.
 

2) Indians who received taxpayer-subsidized premium or elite tech education in India and then scooted off to the West (mainly the US, the UK, Canada, Western Europe, and also ANZ) and rose to CXO positions in US Inc's corporate hierarchy are working for evil-doing anti-society tech giants, and then misusing all that ill-gotten wealth to pick up juicy stakes in cricket franchises/leagues abroad, especially the Hundred in England. This shows they are not sated with zombifying the masses with user-exploiting, user-disempowering, user-abusing and unethical technologies that they have spearheaded for US firms in exchange for fat paychecks and perks, as they chased Mammon in Faustian trade-offs. They now want to zombiefy the masses further with mind-numbing shortest-form cricket.

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If there's any iota of truth in the professed narrative that Indian software slaves and coding coolies are crucial for innovation and tech breakthroughs, then there should not be any problem in coughing up $100,000 (or a little over Rs 88 lakh) for each new H1B application, right? After all, each breakthrough could spin billions of $$$. Why is everyone in the IT sphere going hyper then over just $100,000 per brain?
 

We have heard of some Indian-origin US Nobel Prize winners in physics, chemistry, economics; we have heard of Indian-origin winners of Spelling Bee student contests and other TV talent shows; we've heard of Indian-born CXO-level execs of tech giants; we've heard of Indian-origin US politicians and political aides. But, have you ever heard of any Indian techie being celebrated for tech innovation in the US? Do you remember any instance of a US MNC or firm in the tech/IT/software industry announcing that their world-beating tech innovation or breakthrough (like, say, invention of internet, e-commerce, apps like Google, YouTube, FB, X, Insta, Reddit, WhatsApp, Photoshop, Acrobat, PPT, Word, ChatGPT, etc, what have you) was the result of Indian brain(s)?

We all know the answer, the truth and the reality, don't we? So, let's stop fooling ourselves and end our attempts to fool others as well. Trump knows what he's doing; and he knows where to hit that hurts most.

At least now, Indian netas and babus should realize where China did right while we drifted and meandered over the last five decades (1975-2025). Our domestic scene is still a mess, in terms of infrastructure, world-class development, equality of opportunity, easy access to capital for entrepreneurs, thrust on quality, a global vision, long-term strategies that are implemented, calibrated and fine-tuned on an ongoing basis, focus on strategic sectors and emerging areas, up-to-date laws and regulations, etc. China has all of them already. That's why, Xi, not Modi, can claim, "Atchay din aa gaye, mitron. (美好的日子（幸福的时光）已经到来，朋友们.)"

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