Gotta Keep on Movin':
November 2018
by Varun, Priyansha and the IMN team
- Introduction to Indian Emigration
- Breaking down the Headline Figures
- Low and High Skill Emigration from India: Emerging Patterns
- Indian Emigration Policy Framework: Analysis
- India Migration Now Podcast: Ep 3
The worlds largest international migration stock! The world's 2nd largest diaspora! The highest amount of remittances sent back!
These headlines dominate the narrative of Indian emigration.
But what else do we know?
Do we know which Indians are emigrating abroad? What drives the different forms of emigration from India? Or the regions in India where emigrants are originating from? What about the issues faced by Indian emigrants and their (transnational) households? What are the policy and institutional scenarios emigrants encounter at home and abroad? How does the Indian government and society view the Bhartiya Pravasi (Indians abroad)?
In this edition of Gotta Keep on Movin, we present some preliminary analysis from our data and policy projects to address these questions and bring some nuance to the story of emigration from India. Beyond remittances!
We also have an action-packed bumper new episode of the IMN podcast accompanying this newsletter, with a diverse crew of guests and perspectives!
Migration out of India: A (Very) Brief History
India has one of the longest and largest episodes of out-migration (emigration) in the world. As Tumbe (2018) in his history of migration in India explains, different forms of emigration from India have been persistent since the 2nd century BCE, when Alexander the Great took many Indians back to Central Asia and Europe. From slaves and mercenaries to pilgrims and artisans, throughout the ancient and medieval ages, the nature and destinations of Indian emigration kept evolving.
In the colonial era, indentured labour from India was sent to other colonies. To regulate indentured emigration and to provide a mechanism for emigration, the British India government enacted the ‘Emigration Act’ in 1922.
In 1947, two of the largest and most painful episodes of forced emigration in history occurred from India - to newly formed Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) and Pakistan.
After independence, a steadily increasing number of highly skilled Indians and their family members started moving to the west. During the bonanza “oil decade” (1973-1982) in the Gulf, an unprecedented number of unskilled and semi-skilled emigrants moved to destinations in the Gulf and South-East Asia (largely Singapore and Malaysia). It is also important to highlight the large outflow of Sikh asylum seekers due to the troubles in Punjab during the late 70's, largely to the UK and North America.
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Historical Summary of Emigration from India
Source: Rajan (2014)
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Indian Emigration Today: The story behind the headline figures
Based on our research, no single reliable or complete figures for Indian emigration abroad are available. So we have had to rely on multiple international, regional, administrative, Indian and destination sources to piece together a corroborated, consistent and detailed narrative.
According to the Indian Government, there were approximately 13 million non-resident Indians (NRIs) and 18 million Persons of Indian Origin (PIO) in 2017. NRI data by definition underestimate the total number of Indian international migrants stock and it is unclear how PIO figures are calculated.
According to the UN Population Division, the Indian international migration stock abroad in 2017 was approximately 17 million. It is important to caveat that we found several discrepancies between the UN figures for multiple corridors with India and estimates from sources in India. For instance, the 2015 UN figure for the entire Indian migration stock in Singapore was significantly less than the Tamil Nadu migration stock in Singapore in 2015 (as estimated by the Tamil Migration Survey 2015/16).
The UN data suggests that there has been a steady rise in the number of Indian migrants abroad since 1990. This rise in number has coincided with India's economic rise -- which is consistent with the observation that international emigration generally rises with economic development until countries reach upper-middle income, and only thereafter falls.
Total # of Indians Abroad (Size of Indian Diaspora) = Total # of Indian International Migrants (all categories of outflows including NRIs and refugees ) + Total # of Non-Indian Citizens of Indian ancestry ( Persons of Indian Origin)
=> Total # of Indians Abroad (Size of Indian Diaspora) = ~17 million + ~ 18 million = 35 million
Thus, the total size of the Indian diaspora is roughly 35 million (based on the best figures available). The graphs below describe some of the components of the Indian diaspora.
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Some subcomponents of the Indian Diaspora abroad.
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Low/Semi Skill Emigration from India: Emerging Patterns
Since the 1970's low/semi-skilled migration to the Gulf and SE Asia from Kerala and Tamil Nadu, and the remittances sent back has been a key feature of Indian emigration. However, in the past 10 years, low skill migration from these states has been steadily decreasing and Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar have emerged as the major origin states. However, despite the emergence of these populous states, there has been an overall decline in the scale of first time low/semi-skilled labour migration to the Gulf and SE Asia from India.
It should be mentioned that family migration to the Gulf and SE Asia is not captured by the administrative emigration data used for this analysis. This is an important data gap - analysis done using the Kerala Migration Surveys shows that many emigrants reunite with their family members already in the Gulf and then take up low/semi skill work.
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The emigration check clearance (ECR) figures released by the Indian government, gives us the scale of the annual flow of first time low/semi-skilled labour migration to the Gulf and SE Asia -- others forms of emigration are not captured by this data.
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High Skill and Family Emigration from India: Emerging Pattens
In recent years, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have been sending more high skilled emigrants to the Gulf and SE Asia. For instance, a high proportion of private sector professionals in the UAE are now from India. This in part reflects the increasing levels of education in Kerala and Tamil Nadu and also the changing immigration priorities in the Gulf countries and SE Asia.
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Data Source: Kerala Migration Survey (1998 - 2018)
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We have also seen an increase in the number of emigrants to the OECD countries in the past decade, which, given the type of legal pathways of immigration available in these countries, also points toward an increase in high skill and subsequent family migration from India.
Within the OECD, Germany and Australia are emerging as key destinations for Indian emigrants. With Canada, UK and US showing an overall decline.
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A declining share of Indians are now migrating to the US and the UK.
Source: International Migration Outlook 2018, OECD, OECD.Stat, Mint calculations
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Major traditional and emerging origin states in the past decade
Source: IMN research
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Indian Emigration Policy Framework
Indian emigrants face many risks and issues around the world. From the information and power asymmetries in the global labour markets to exploitation and human rights violations in destination states.
As explained earlier, after independence, a steadily increasing number of, largely, unskilled and semi-skilled emigrants moved to destinations in the Gulf and South-East Asia. To safeguard their rights and labour market outcomes, the Ministry of Labour enacted the Emigration Act, 1983 (‘the Act’). The Act repealed the earlier legislation of 1922 and united, revised and updated the various other emigration laws of the time.
The Act defines an emigrant as “any citizen of India who intends to emigrate, or emigrates, or has emigrated. It excludes all dependents of the emigrant — even if the dependent accompanies the emigrant or departs later to visit the emigrant. Furthermore, any person who has been residing outside India after attaining the age of 18 for at least three years is also not considered an emigrant.
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The institutional structure of the Emigration Act, 1983
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The Act implements its provisions by setting up a stringent registration procedure for all recruiting agencies and foreign employers involved in the cross-border recruitment of Indian workers. Only low skill emigrants travelling to 18 countries in the Gulf and SE Asia are required to go through emigration clearance. The government has also set up Overseas Workers Resource Centre & Migrant Resource Centres to facilitate and provide support services to workers who intend to go abroad for employment.
In addition to the central government's efforts, some state governments like Karnataka, Punjab, Kerala and Gujarat have set up initiatives to build financial, cultural and political ties with their respective diasporas abroad.
This policy framework, by definition, ignores family migration, forced migration, irregular migration, all high skill and student migration and also low/semi skill migration to destinations outside the list of 18 countries. The Act's implicit assumption that a destination country's VISA regime safeguards and ensures the rights and welfare of Indian emigrants is problematic. Given the evolving nature, range and magnitude of emigration from India, these are major oversights and gaps.
For instance, a major chunk of emigration from India is constituted by family migrants. These "dependent migrants" have increasingly little economic or political freedom in their destinations and are completely dependent on a single source of income. The number of instances when Indian spouses are lured abroad for marriages with NRIs and then stranded or exploited is immense. Between Jan 2015 and Nov 2017 the Indian Ministry of External Affairs received 3,328 such complaints.
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The number of Indian apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security in the US has been rapidly rising this decade.
Data Source: DHS (2018)
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There are also serious flaws and oversights within the purview of the Emigration Act. For instance, those who have not migrated through the official eMigrate are seen as ‘irregular’, making it difficult to help when they need assistance in a foreign land. The emigration check procedures often act as barriers for migrants and encourage riskier pathways towards foreign employment. For instance, women under the age of 30 emigrating to ECR countries are not given an emigration clearance, forcing them to look for alternative often irregular channels.
At Indian Migration Now, we are working with Indian lawmakers to change and update the Indian emigration policy framework. We are also analysing (using MIPEX, DEMIG and other policy indices) and tracking the immigration policy frameworks in the major destinations for Indian emigrants.
Eventually, we hope to use our policy and data repositories to give much more substantial and complete insights on the scale, drivers and impacts of international migration from India.
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(Click on the logo above to access the podcast)
After an extended absence, we are back with a bumper episode in which Varun (IMN Founder/Lead) is joined by IMN team researchers Nikhil Panicker and Priyansha Singh, newest IMN advisors Dr Meera Sethi and Dr Didar Singh and from Oakland, California, IMN research collaborator, Nikhil Saifullah. We profile Indian emigration and emigration policy.
Produced by Nakul Aggarwal
Theme Track: Happy Cycling by the Boards of Canada
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If you have reached this far, chances are that you think migration matters.
So write to us: hate mail, love mail, papers, research ideas, cool Twitter threads.... we're game for it all! Consider this newsletter to be your blank canvas.
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And finally, please please share this newsletter, let's get those "network effects" in action.
See you in December.
Cheers,
The IMN team
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About India Migration Now
India Migration Now was founded in February 2018. We want to change the policy perspective that sees migration as something to limit and control into something which has to be harnessed and cultivated. An effective migration policy regime can become the most effective poverty-reducing program for the Indian government.
Ours is a geographically diverse team of collaborators (from 7 countries and 5 Indian states) consisting of researchers, entrepreneurs, teachers and people who really like data and policies. But we are bounded by a passion for India's development, deep allergy to bullshit and love for collaborative endeavours.
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