Techie snaps at American critic
By Bala Shah

US-based Indian origin Technology firm Apex Technology Group had initiated legal action in December, 2009 against American blogs EndH1B, Itgrunt and Guestworkerfraud. Apex, which counts IBM, Microsoft, UBS and other blue chip companies as clients, wanted to protect its reputation after EndH1B published a post accusing it allegedly of mistreating Indians on H1B Visas.

Among all these anti H1B sites, ITGrunt’s Tunnel Rat is the most vociferous.  His anonymity and clever turn of phrase ensured he was even interviewed by international magazine BusinessWeek. Till today, no one is sure who Tunnel Rat is. 

Apex Technology Group has flatly denied all allegations made against it. At this point in time none of the allegations have been proved in court.

The clash between Apex and Tunnel Rat resulted in his websites being banned by an American Court and soon after international media like New York Times, Slashdot, Computerworld and Conde Nast reported the story.  Most American media, while disagreeing with Tunnel Rat’s anti Indian views, felt that banning his websites was not the answer and may even have been illegal under the US constitution.

Apex was hoping to use legal action to quickly silence Tunnel Rat but they walked into a public relations nightmare.  Tunnel Rat has publicly taunted Apex that they dare not sue him because that judicial process would give his legal team permission to go through Apex emails.  Tunnel Rat has started a new blog and continues his anti H1B and anti Indian tirade.

Quite separately to the Tunnel Rat Versus Apex case, another Indian techie in USA finds himself under the spotlight for clashing with another American over heated mails on the same topic.

Tech firm Collabera describes itself as having revenues exceeding $300 Million and employing 4000 professionals across 19 offices in US, Europe and India. Senior Lead at Collabera, Rajesh Kumar Ramachandran, has in the past been a Technology Lead at Infosys. Rajesh may be very good at his job but he has also walked into a public relations nightmare.

For reasons best known to Rajesh Ramachandran, he sent the following LinkedIn message to an American who was probably criticizing Indians and the H1B Visa. 

“
From: "Rajesh Kumar Ramachandran (LinkedIn Messages)

Subject: Listen to me Asshole!!
Date: Wed, 19 May 2010 20:49:20 -0700 (PDT)

Now listen carefully to me asshole. Don’t just bark around in the corner like a rabies stricken stray dog about your pathetic views about politics and jobs. If you are insecure about your skills and abilities that’s your f****** problem and  not because of Indians or any other politicians.. Well you want me to provoke you well then hear this: we are going to take all your jobs away. We are going to make sure that you don’t even have money to buy shit and eat. We are going to take everything that was yours. We are going to  drape the Statue of Liberty with a saree (you dont know what a saree is, well its a dress which Indian women wear). Now get your f****** stinking face out of here ASSHOLE!!!!!
“

Rajesh may not really believe in what he wrote. He may have even felt better when he sent the above mail to what he perceived as a racist American.  He probably though it was just a private exchange between two people quarrelling over the internet.  Now that it has been put on the net by ITGrunt,  his company Collabera will probably ensure that he has minimum contact with American clients till the matter dies down.

(Techgoss had published the following on May 6, 2010)

Anti Indian anti H1B movie script
By Bala Shah

US-based Indian origin Tech firm Apex Technology Group had initiated legal action against American blogs EndH1B, Itgrunt and Guestworkerfraud. Apex, which counts IBM, Microsoft, UBS and other blue chip companies as clients, wanted to protect its reputation after EndH1B published a post accusing it allegedly of mistreating Indians on H1B Visas.

Among all these anti H1B sites, ITGrunt’s Tunnel Rat is the most vociferous.  His anonymity and clever turn of phrase ensured he was even interviewed by international magazine BusinessWeek. Till today, no one is sure who Tunnel Rat is. 

Apex Technology Group has flatly denied all allegations made against it. At this point in time none of the allegations have been proved in court.

What Apex wanted was to use its lawyers to get all articles criticizing it removed from EndH1B, Itgrunt and Guestworkerfraud. But they landed up requesting the New Jersey based American Court to remove the 3 websites from the internet.  On Dec 23, 2009 the Judge, instead of asking for only anti Apex articles to be removed, banned the 3 websites. Banned as in ejected from the internet.

While Techgoss was the first Indian site to report this news, soon American national media picked up the story.  International sites like New York Times, Slashdot, Computerworld, Techdirt, Arstechnica and others picked up the story.  While many journalists and Americans did not agree with some of the anti Indian views expressed by EndH1B and ITGrunt, most felt that banning them was not only unjustified but it may have even been illegal under the American constitution.  America's most powerful and respected digital rights organizations EFF made a public statement that it was illegal to ban Tunnel Rat's websites. With such international media coverage, Tunnel Rat developed a national profile.

Now Tunnel Rat is publishing a movie script in his blog which seems to be partly autobiographical. But like many Hollywood and Bollywood films, the movie script uses its artistic license to present Tunnel Rat as the war veteran and all American hero fighting the Indian H1B mafia in USA. Tunnel Rat’s script describes how a handful of evil Indian techies messed up his credit card, threatened him on the phone and even turned up menacingly outside his house.  Tunnel Rat was even forced to buy a guy to protect himself from thuggish Indians. 

In at least two places, Tunnel Rat’s movie script fulfils every techie’s fantasy when his new girl friend ‘kisses him all over’ and more.

In this movie script, the US-based Indians on H1B Visas are working on a financial system which would eventually bring down the US sub prime market and consequentially the American economy.

Like most Indians, I feel that Tunnel Rat’s anti Indian views sometimes border on the ridiculous. And his anti desi venom has lost him many American supporters.  But to his credit, Tunnel Rat has single handedly managed to highlight a lot of the H1B abuse by a few desi body shops.  And he does write well.

Will Tunnel Rat expose and destroy his enemies?  Will the Indian mafia subdue Tunnel Rat?  Will India’s Bollywood pirate Tunnel Rat’s script and write him out and replace him with an Indian hero fighting Pakistani techies on H1B Visas?  Check out the already published and forthcoming installments of the movie script on his blog.