Why do Indian citizens need many visas?

It’s a combination of a lot of things, but the 2 most important are:

1: Lack of reciprocal agreements

India has had visa barriers against foriegn visitors for a long time, stemming from a time when it didn’t particularly want tourists. The national government was highly ioslationist/protectionist and only started taking down trade barriers in the 1990s for the most part.

If India makes overtures to other countries this will change but India has to make the first step.

2: Visa abuse/illegal migration by citizens.

Countries whose nationals have a history of illegal(undocumented) migration, or where access has been abused (Working illegally whilst on a tourist visa (or whilst visa free), overstaying, disappearing off the radar and never returning home, etc) are unlikely to be offered visa-free access until they have shown a committment to policing the problem, contributing to repatriation costs and start reducing the offending rates.

As an example of the reasons behind such things: New Zealand removed visa-free access to Thai nationals around 2003 because about 5% of “tourists” turned out to be sex workers – and being illegal, they were susceptable to manipulation by criminal gangs (Prostitution is legal in NZ, but illegal workers can trivially be ripped off on pay or held in disgusting conditions, etc, etc.) – after a substantial number of cases where Thai women were repatriated at NZ taxpayer expense or offered refugee status because they were unable to return home, visa barriers were erected to try and detect sex workers before they arrived and got pulled into criminal enterprises.

I’ve lived a number of countries where there are significant visa barriers to living/working elsewhere and the depressing thing is that the general attitude to compatriots working illegally in other countries is “good on them!” when the real attitude should be the opposite – it’s those illegal people who are the cause of visa barriers – and if they keep doing it, the reason for various countries to enact further barriers for entry.

One might argue that making it harder to get a visa makes it more likely that people will enter any given country illegally, but that’s not the way bureaucratic mindsets work. This is definitely one area where attempting to go around the rules has consequences for every member of the group.

As one simple but quantifiable example, two of the conditions for a country to qualify for the US’s Visa Waiver Program are:

1. Their Adjusted Visa Refusal Rate must be below 3%, and
2. The country must provide visa-free access to US citizens.

India fails on both counts:

1. The AVRR for Indian citizens in 2013 was 18.7%, 6x higher than required. This is worse than eg. Botswana (17.3%), although nowhere near the bottom of the pack (Somalia at over 75%!).
2. US citizens require a visa for India.

I believe the answer is immigration, immigration and immigration (real or perceived). In Europe at least, visa requirements and enforcement measures are motivated mostly by the risk that the people in question would try to enter the country and stay there illegally (and of course all the political posturing around that risk).

It could be argued that immigration is generally a net gain for a country (cf. your point about talented people) or that the risk of illegal immigration is overblown or entirely the result of an overly restrictive policy regarding legal immigration but none of this changes the politics.

Just to provide some direct evidence of all this, the following is from the preamble of the Schengen visa code:

In accordance with Article 61 of the Treaty, the creation of an area in which persons may move freely should be accompanied by measures with respect to external border controls, asylum and immigration.

[…]

As regards visa policy, the establishment of a ‘common corpus’ of legislation, particularly via the consolidation and development of the acquis (the relevant provisions of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement of 14 June 1985 and the Common Consular Instructions, is one of the fundamental components of ‘further development of the common visa policy as part of a multi-layer system aimed at facilitating legitimate travel and tackling illegal immigration through further harmonisation of national legislation and handling practices at local consular missions’, as defined in the Hague Programme: strengthening freedom, security and justice in the European Union.

[…]

It is necessary to set out rules on the transit through international areas of airports in order to combat illegal immigration. Thus nationals from a common list of third countries should be required to hold airport transit visas. Nevertheless, in urgent cases of mass influx of illegal immigrants, Member States should be allowed to impose such a requirement on nationals of third countries other than those listed in the common list. Member States’ individual decisions should be reviewed on an annual basis.

This is only one example but it’s explicitly all about immigration. I think the other considerations (reciprocity, passports) only factor in tangentially.

Note that until now the EU has not really been insisting so strongly on reciprocity, so that US citizens still enjoy visa-free visits to the whole Schengen area despite the fact that after years of discussion there are still several EU countries whose citizens are not eligible for the Visa Waiver Program. Similarly, some or all EU citizens enjoy visa-free (or visa-on-arrival) access to countries such as Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia and most of South America so reciprocity is clearly overemphasized as an explanation.

Being an Indian myself I can understand the frustration of having to apply for a visa for almost every country that you travel to. This Wikipedia article gives a fairly up-to-date information about the visa requirements for Indian citizens. As you can see, most countries that do not require an Indian passport holder to get a visa are in Asia and Africa. I think there are three reasons for your question

1. As @pnuts pointed out in his comment, all Indian national identity documents (PAN card, driving license, and even passport) are unreliable and do not meet the security requirements for identity documents imposed in developed countries like in EU and USA. You may be aware of how easily passports were being faked in India few years back. That is changing however.

2. India’s own border control is not strictly enforced, which makes it easy for an illegal immigrant from neighboring countries to come to India, obtain a fake identity and then travel to some other country on a faked document. If caught, where would that person be deported to and who will take the responsibility? Definitely not the country the person traveled to.

3. Reciprocity. Internal politics are preventing India from reaching out. Countries that want to provide visa free travel to Indian nationals expect the same from the Indian government and opposition politics prevents it from taking the first step. I am hopeful that this may change in the current term.