The Mass Exodus of Indian Students from Ukraine: Incidental Victims of a Slavic Conflict

On 1 March 2022, Naveen Shekharappa Gyanagoudar, a 21-year-old fourth-year medical student at Kharkiv National Medical University in north-eastern Ukraine, left a bunker, where he had spent much of the preceding six days, to purchase groceries, only to be killed by a stray shell during an air strike. He was just one of almost 20,000 Indian students enrolled at more than thirty state-run universities in Ukraine- the largest single national group among a total of around 76,000 international students, mostly hailing from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

Earlier, in response to Russia’s “Special Military Operation”, Ukraine halted all civilian flights, from 24 February 2022 onwards. The Indian government then launched Operation Ganga on 26 February, to provide humanitarian assistance to, and help evacuate, Indian citizens who had managed to leave Ukraine and reach its neighbours. This operation was coordinated by India’s Ministry of External Affairs and the Armed Forces of India, with help from the Ministry of Civil Aviation, and employed civilian aircraft and Indian Air Force planes to bring back Indians from four countries bordering western Ukraine: Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Hungary. Union ministers travelled to Eastern Europe, one to each of these four nations, to supervise the evacuation operations. More recently, Indians are moving to Moldova as an alternative route back to India.

Ukraine has attracted students from India, especially those intending to study medicine and engineering, for several decades, dating back to the Soviet era. The wider international student community has indeed contributed significantly to Ukraine’s economy. Admission tests are not required for most medical universities, student visas are easy to obtain, tuition fees and living costs are affordable, and instruction in English is available. Once qualified in Ukraine, newly-qualified Indian doctors can either return to India and pass the Foreign Medical Graduate Exam (FMGE) before being allowed to practice by the National Medical Commission, or alternatively choose to seek their luck elsewhere in the world.  

The Ukrainian migration of Indian medical students can be attributed to problems with the equity of access to undergraduate medical education, coupled with the unrelenting desires of many to become a doctor, a highly desirable occupation in India. But India has a total of 542 recognised medical colleges and there seems to be no shortage of doctors, even though there may be a problem of maldistribution, with an oversupply in towns and cities and an under-provision in the villages. According to Dr Bharati Pawar, Minister of Health, the doctor-to-patient ratio in India as of November 2021, was 1: 834, even better than the WHO recommendation of 1: 1,000. There is, however, a lack of standardisation of medical training in India, meaning that this population of doctors includes people of varying capabilities. Medical colleges also vary widely in their educational infrastructure, quality of teaching, and provision of hands-on experience.

Admission to both oversubscribed public medical colleges and elitist private medical institutions in India is decided by performance in the demanding NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test), conducted by the NTA (National Testing Agency), which selects all entrants for undergraduate medical education. Then there is affirmative action to contend with, with 27 per cent of seats reserved for “Other Backward Classes” (OBC) and 10 per cent for “Economically Weaker Sections” (EWS). The default pathway of private medical education is far-too-expensive, only open to applicants with parents with considerable financial means. This leaves out a group of well-motivated young people, with aspirational parents, but of modest income and wealth, who find themselves excluded from both public and private medical education in India.

Medical education in Ukraine may not equally benefit all Indian students, especially those who lack the aptitude for a medical career but have managed to bypass the usual entry requirements. Furthermore, training in Ukrainian medical schools may not adequately equip Indian medical students with the experience and skills required to deal with the various diseases of poverty, nutritional deficiencies, tropical illnesses, and the problems of providing healthcare in resource-poor settings.

Ukraine, in common with other East European nations, was never a colonial power. A consequent lack of colonial immigration, and ethnic homogeneity, mean that many Ukrainians have had little exposure to people of colour. They may thus appear suspicious of, and appear unwelcoming to, people visibly different from themselves, although this may reflect ignorance rather than ultra-nationalism. Students from Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and the Middle East often claim to feel isolated, forced to stay confined to their own narrow circles. Most recently, some Indian and African students have testified to mistreatment by unsympathetic Ukrainian Border Guard Service officials, including verbal abuse, forcible removal from buses and train, deliberate exposure to freezing conditions, and detainment at gunpoint, although the official version is that these officials were stressed and merely struggling to cope with a massively increased workload. On 3 March, Tendayi Achiume, UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance even issued a statement criticising the discriminatory treatment of certain groups of international students.

The tragedy of the developing Ukrainian conflict has laid bare another already well-established tragedy, whereby many Indians travel overseas to train as doctors . Large numbers of Indian students have suffered financially, deprived of any identifiable means of completing their education. The plight of these dispossessed students has also provided India with a wake-up call. Indian medical education demands fairness of access, and those with limited economic means, and not of the right background, should not be priced out or otherwise excluded from the system. It is not right that large numbers of young people, many with relatively modest means, have to move thousands of miles from home to fulfil their dreams, only to obtain qualifications with limited relevance for addressing India’s healthcare needs. The whole business of travelling to Ukraine and other East European nations for a higher education warrants a rethink.

Ashis Banerjee