Poor countries need to allow more immigration, too

A POLITICAL brain teaser: which party in which country has promised “punitive measures” against illegal immigration, has threatened to disenfranchise people who arrived half a century ago and has told migrants to “be prepared with their bags packed”?The answer is not the National Front of France, the United Kingdom Independence Party, Jobbik of Hungary or indeed any other insurgent political party in the West. It is the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party of India. The BJP and its leader, Narendra Modi, rail against immigrants from Bangladesh, of whom there might well be more in India than there are Mexicans in America (see ). This nativist ranting is evidence of a nasty strain of developing-world demagoguery.