Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella broke his silence on India's controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), while speaking at a tech conference in the US.
He expressed his sadness over what's happening in India right now with respect to CAA, while maintaining that India had a right to protect its borders and define its immigration policy, just like any other country.
Satya Nadella also hopes that an immigrant to become CEO of a big Indian company, juxtaposing it against his own journey to the helm of Microsoft.
The Microsoft CEO was quoted as feeling 'sad' and 'bad' for what's happening in India currently by editor of BuzzFeed Ben Smith on his Twitter feed. He later posted a verbatim response detailing Satya Nadella's views on India's citizenship act.
In the tweeted response, Satya Nadella is quoted as saying, "I would love to see a Bangladeshi immigrant who comes to India and creates the next unicorn in India, or becomes the CEO of Infosys, that should be the aspiration," mirroring his own experience as an Indian who immigrated to the US, hoping that that's what ends up happening in India in the future with respect to immigrants.
However, it's unclear to make out exactly what's making Satya Nadella feel bad or sad -- is it the CAA law itself and its treatment of minorities or the Indian citizens' divided response towards it. The Microsoft CEO did make it clear in no uncertain terms that every country has a right to protect its borders.
He acknowledged that immigration continues to be an issue in the US, Europe and now in India, and that he hopes that "India figures it out" as to what is immigration, who are immigrants, and define it from a local context.
Immediately after the BuzzFeed editor broke Satya Nadella's views on India's CAA on Twitter, Microsoft India followed suit with an official corporate statement on behalf of Satya Nadella.
Satya Nadella has become the first high profile, big tech corporation CEO to speak on India's citizenship law, and we must say the Microsoft CEO did raise some interesting points -- especially about immigrants getting opportunities to shine and excel.
We hope this will get other Indian immigrant tech CEOs like Alphabet's Sundar Pichai and others to express their views on the matter like Satya Nadella did.