Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu has once again urged Indians in the US to return home, this time in the wake of the US suspending Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Cognizant and other IT companies from the Permanent Labor Certification Program, the first step in sponsoring foreign workers for green cards. Microsoft, Adobe, HCL and Capgemini were also suspended.
“Indians have made a major contribution to America’s technological prowess. Yet, a big part of America no longer wants us,” Vembu wrote on X. He said Indians on a visa in the US face the painful prospect of uprooting a life built with hard work, and called the moment the “birth pains of a bold new future”. His message to them was short: “Come back, let’s build India.”
“Development Accompanies Out-Migration”
In a follow-up post, Vembu argued that migration of talent is a normal part of a country’s rise rather than a sign of failure. The Chinese migrated in large numbers even as China developed, he pointed out, as did Taiwanese as Taiwan developed, and South Koreans, and Japanese before that. His point was that national development tends to go hand in hand with talented people leaving to seek better opportunities faster. The implication is that India’s large outflow of engineers is part of a cycle, and that the cycle can turn.
Not The First Time
This is a theme Vembu has returned to repeatedly. When the US announced a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas in September 2025, he told H-1B holders not to live in fear and to make the bold move of coming home, comparing their situation to families who rebuilt their lives in India after Partition. In April this year he published an open letter to Indians in America, saying respect for Indians globally would ultimately depend on India’s technological prowess, and asking them to come back with missionary zeal.
Vembu has practised what he preaches. A Princeton PhD who worked in the US, he went on to build Zoho from India, and has been based in rural Tamil Nadu. Zoho is among India’s most profitable internet companies, and had reported a profit of Rs. 2,836 crore in FY23. The company has also found a high-profile champion in the government: IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw publicly switched to Zoho and urged others to adopt Indian products, and later showed off a cabinet presentation made with Zoho Show, which includes Zoho’s Zia AI for generating slides.
Is India Ready?
There are signs that global tech’s interest in India is growing even as the US tightens up. Amazon unveiled its second-largest office in Asia in Bengaluru, OpenAI said it would open an office in New Delhi and has partnered with Sachin Tendulkar to build on its Indian market, and other countries have been openly courting skilled Indians as the US toughens its stance. Whether that translates into a meaningful flow of talent back to India, rather than onward to Europe or elsewhere, is the question Vembu’s posts are really asking.