Servitors of Empire: Studies in the Dark Side of Asian America

Editor's note: India was conquered and ultimately controlled by the British up until 1947. Britain exercised near-total political, economic, administrative, and significant cultural control over India for roughly two centuries, peaking under the British Raj (1858–1947). Today, formal political control is zero, but institutional, linguistic, legal, cultural, and economic legacies remain substantial, alongside a strong modern bilateral partnership. In Servitors of Empire, the post-1965 influx of highly skilled Indians (and Chinese) into America, especially scientists, engineers, and IT specialists, outlines a deliberate "tactical immigration" of intellectual labor from a U.S. (and UK up until 1947) client state, recruited to staff the technetronic infrastructure of empire (British), undercut American wages in tech and services, and help entrench a centralized global control system rather than simply pursue individual opportunity. Over the past ten years alone, over 8.7 million H-1B visas have been given to Indian nationals. Roughly 70% of all H-1B approvals every year go to Indians:

8.7 million non-immigrant visas were issued to Indian nationals from March 2017 to Feb 2026. A non-immigrant visa is temporary permission to come to America for a limited time- to work, study, or visit - and then return home. 8,704,481 of those visas were issued, according to the State Department. How many do you think actually returned home?

— The Visa Files (@visafile) October 7, 2026