I want the best person to fly my aircraft regardless of color, nationality or religion. If there is a price to pay so be it, lets not try and put a price to human life.
I cannot disagree with you here. But more pertinent question is, does the current system end up paying high price, and at the same time keeping quiet incompetent air crew in flying job? The sad answer to above question is a yes.
Can it be changed? Yes, but not through expats. Expats are not a solution to systemic problem, they are a solution to running the airline for short term. The kind of change we are looking for has to be brought in by a strong and honest leadership, may it be the CEO, Chairman, Fleet Commander, DGCA or Minister.
Flying is an easy skill, its not like we are trying to develop skills for thermonuclear fusion and we will need experts in the field. Fortunately a lot of literature is available in public domain. Expats are not 'experts', they are pilots with more hours... which we need for a time being.. safety culture, SOP, promotions policy, are something which can be handled without expat pilots or management. Expats or others who think expats are crucial in getting a good safety culture are akin to the belief "the sun rises because mankind has to wake up and go to work". Misplaced causality.
It is a challenging thing to work in cross cultural environments. I am sure there are expats who have taken up the challenge and quietly performing and improving things.
There are millions of student going abroad to study and it must be for a reason. Therefore foreigners working in India should be taken as a learning experience. Fight against the corruption that allows less skilled ones to come in by all means, but don't brand all as expats as bad and in the same time expats don't brand all Indian pilots as spoilt bratty or incompetent.
True and completely agreeable.