Gagan Sachdeva
- D.Zhu
- Jun 13, 2022
- 6 min read
Updated: May 2, 2023
Having immigrated to New Zealand over 16 years ago, Gagan Sachdeva is an Indian man who grew up in Delhi.
Throughout his experience of life in India, the difficult immigration process to New Zealand, and his current life in New Zealand, Gagan has experienced a multitude of challenges which he has learned from and reflected on. Coming from a middle-class family, he was surrounded by friends and family in his childhood however he soon encountered struggles with the Indian education system. “I think the education system focuses a lot on excelling in the competition. So there’s a lot of competitive learning environment that gets created, so you have to kind of beat others to go on top so that I think was something that doesn’t make learning very enjoyable” A competitive society imparted high levels of stress on not only Gagan but everybody within that society. This stress unfortunately translates to India’s abnormally high suicide rate, with suicide being the most common cause of death for the 15-29 age group. India’s 2019 suicide rate was 12.9 per 100,000.
Competition pressure was present from high school all the way to making a career, however, despite these external pressures, Gagan still enjoyed his time in India. “I think the pressure I could feel the pressure. The pressure of doing well in your studies and making a career and going out and getting a job. All of those pressures were there for sure. But overall, I think it was overall a positive experience and it wasn’t like, very negative.”
After meeting his future wife, Tamanna, the possibility of moving to New Zealand became very realistic. Tamanna already had family living in New Zealand and wished to reunite with them. “When we were dating each other, we used to discuss if at all we got married, then what would life be and what do we expect from life. So, that became a big part of our conversations. I think one of her key aspects was that “would my partner be open to moving to New Zealand?” So, I think I was certainly open to it”. Another factor for moving to New Zealand was having a better lifestyle for themselves and their kids, as they had their first daughter in India.
Gagan believed that the aspects of life which would be improved upon in New Zealand would be reduced pressure and a better balance of work and life. He states that sitting in traffic for extensive amounts of time made Delhi unappealing. , just to go to my work every day, I would be on the road for about four hours. “Also pollution and driving for long hours and long days in office. That was a huge amount of pressure on life, and then that cuts down your time with your family because sometimes you’re working on Saturdays and you're working on weekends.” Traffic and work culture in India reduced quality of life, thus making life in New Zealand more appealing.
The process of moving to New Zealand was not an easy one for Gagan and his family, as they had struggles with immigration while trying to enter as a skilled migrant. Gagan and Tamanna faced difficulty primarily due to their immigration from India to New Zealand. Despite both being high-quality jobs, they could not get a skilled worker permit. “I was working with a multinational company and Tamanna was also working with one of the Big Six consulting companies Accenture. I was working with Aviva which is a UK-based insurance company, the sixth largest in the world. Now because I was working in India, my employment was not considered skilled employment because it is not a comparable labour market with comparison to western countries. They said that if you're working with the same company, but let's say in the UK, we would give you points for your employment but not when you're working in India.” These archaic policies presented a barrier of entry for Indians who are working the same jobs as people in different labour markets, a system that was borderline racist. Upon being rejected initially, Gagan chose to fight for his case, in a back and forth which lasted over 2 years just for his voice to be heard. This placed a great deal of stress on Gagan’s family, due to a great deal of uncertainty in the process. “: It was a very stressful time. I think having to fight your case for all of the things that they were looking for and you know putting up that case against why you are eligible under a particular category.”
The most difficult aspect of the process for Gagan and his family were that after the entire 2 years, they were only able to receive a 6-month visa and not residence. “They wanted to give us only six months visa and not a residence which was a big risk for us because we had all our life, my job, Tamanna’s job and also our house. Everything was there now, and they expected us to take the risk to pack up everything and just come here on a six-month work Visa.” Having no safety net to fall back on, they were under extreme pressure to find a job and begin to work to earn a residence. Despite these struggles, Gagan was able to find a job in New Zealand and remains with the same company after 16 years.
Having made it past immigration, assimilating to New Zealand life became a new challenge for him. Growing up in Delhi, Gagan was used to being surrounded by family and childhood friends who were very supportive and important to him. Losing that social support upon moving to New Zealand presented an initial challenge as it was something which he missed. “The key challenge was not having enough social support. A little bit of uncertainty and also trying to understand and get to know the culture of the place puts a lot of pressure on you.” Besides the uncertainty and lack of social support, the assimilating process was fairly smooth, as language was not a problem due to the medium of instruction in India being English. Gagan says open-mindedness made adapting to New Zealand easier. “I think open-mindedness. I think being open to whatever came our way helped us a lot. Also, we found that there was a lot of similarity in the values of the society here and what we had as values, so that also really helped.” An already large Indian population in NZ also was a positive factor in their adaptation to life here.
Upon being asked what he believes the government should understand in immigration, Gagan answered: “I think the government really needs to understand, from my perspective as to what are the levers at play. What really are they looking for in immigrants? Because, you know, studies after studies have done productivity commissions, the Commission does lots of studies on these matters because they advise the government on policymaking and the policy frameworks. I find that the government should make the process more transparent. And should actually do something to really attract good, talented people into the country. I think the current processes and the policy frameworks are very biased and they come with a lot of predispositions, and I think if that is removed from it then I think there is a lot of potential of attracting good talented migrants to this country who really contribute a lot.”
Reflecting back on the entire process, Gagan wishes that he would have been kinder to himself, as he took on a large amount of pressure upon moving to New Zealand, thus causing him to lose the fun of being in a new country. When being under great pressure to settle, he struggled with being able to relax and take it easy. What he has learned is to not be afraid of challenging the authorities and has learned to not take everything as gospel. “If the policies are not supporting you, you can always put your point across and fight for your case, and I think in our case we were lucky that our voice was heard and that we were given all that we wanted.”
Now having lived in New Zealand comfortably for over 16 years, Gagan and his family have met wonderful communities and have been able to settle in completely. He used to miss the food, but now he has learned to cook his own favourite dishes. Despite the pros, there are still a few cons, namely in the political frameworks of New Zealand. “The political framework around how people are viewed, or predispositions about certain groups of people. I think that is something that I think needs to go away. I'm being very politically correct here, so there is a little bit of racism that we could do without.”
Overall, Gagan is happy with his quality of life here, as in Delhi he would most like “be on the road, spending 1/4th of my life on the road” and working long 55-hour weeks. He would most likely have a lack of balance in his life, in contrast to the laid-back lifestyle he has here.
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