Migration policy in India: Reflections on one year of podcasts
India Migration Now Podcast: 1 Year Anniversary Special Podcast
In this 1-year anniversary special episode, Varun Aggarwal (IMN Founder) reflects on a year of podcasts. We feature guests from all walks of migrant lives looking at immigration, emigration and internal migration in India. We look forward to bringing you more insights and perspectives from the world of migration in the coming year. Until then please consider supporting up by making a donation here:https://bit.ly/2NM2HqZ
Produced by Nakul Aggarwal
Theme Track from Kenji Kawai’s Ghost In The Shell (Original Soundtrack)
One year ago, our first podcast was aired, and we’ve come a long way since then. We’ve tried to provide a platform to a multitude of people, including migrants and experts from various fields to voice their stories, thoughts, and opinions. In this episode, through his conversations with people, Varun tries to bring to the fore the issues at the policy level and the issues faced by migrants in India and overseas, through his conversations with individuals from different walks of life.
Busting the myth about migrants:
Dr Dilip Ratha, from the World Bank says, “Migrants may come in large numbers, but they bring with them a lot of resources. They contribute to local governance, health systems and even pay for the services they use. They are net positive contributors to society and the economy.”
This is contrary to the fairly common misconception that migrants come in large numbers and overpopulate an area, apart from also taking away job opportunities and putting pressure on education and health facilities. Dr Ratha says that all of these fears are unfounded and not based on any empirical proof.
Another common misconception is that all migrants who are abroad are doing well for themselves. Indian migrants who are overseas as well in India, in fact, face a lot of discrimination and are very vulnerable to exploitation by either intermediaries or employers or others. They have very few legal provisions to rely on in times of distress and are often left to their own devices.
The need for policy interventions:
Varun gives us the example of Salima from Uttar Pradesh, who says that she went to Saudi Arabia on being promised a tailoring job, but was instead asked to work as a domestic help instead. On refusing, she was asked to pay a sum of 1 lakh to return to India. Salima was fortunate enough to be able to get hold of the money and safely return to India, but several migrants in the Gulf countries aren’t as fortunate and don’t have any government mechanism to fall back on. Varun also talks to Rejimon Kuttapan who was working as a journalist in the Gulf and was very suddenly asked to leave and return to India for reasons that weren’t made clear.
This clearly shows that migrants don’t have it easy in foreign countries and there is a dire need for policy interventions by the Indian government to protect and safeguard the rights and welfare of Indian migrants, whether it is within the country or abroad. Immigrants who work in the informal sector in foreign countries like the Gulf where there are no concrete labour and migration policies are even more vulnerable to different kinds of exploitation and discrimination.
“We think that Indians everywhere, whether in India or abroad, should be looked after. We are responsible for our citizens irrespective of where there or their mobility status” says Dnyaneshwar Mulay, who is the Secretary of the Ministry of External Affairs and Overseas Indian affairs, thus giving us the government’s take on things. He thinks the government along with non-government bodies should work together to find out the number of Indians who are overseas.
Internal migrants in India:
Dr Ashwani Kumar, however, says that at the policy level, there is a bias against poor migrants in the informal sector, and the urban migrants and NRIs are better off. Internal migrants in India, despite being in the same county, are even worse off than external migrants in many ways. The Indian state doesn’t have a policy to protect inter-state migrants. These migrants, are often exploited and live in deplorable conditions, and also lose access to various benefits from social welfare schemes which aren’t portable. Other state domicile quotas that exist don’t work in their favour.
The case of Kerala:
Kerala is an interesting example of a state which has a severe shortage of low skilled labourers willing to do physical work, and a simultaneous unemployment crisis for the skilled and educated youth of the state. Yash Duggar, who owns a tea plantation in Kerala says “We have a shortage of migrant workers here. The migrants who come from the east and north can’t seem to adapt to the conditions here because of the culture, language and the distance from home”. This is in spite of Kerala having one of the highest wage rates in India.
Muslim migrants in India:
The show ends with a hard hitting narrative by a Rohingya Muslim refugee in India. Varun goes on to say that the Indian State doesn’t have any provisions for refugees, and especially Muslim immigrants. Some specific provisions exist for refugees from other countries in India, but the State is becoming increasingly hostile towards Muslim immigrants in India. Dr Ranjana Kumari elaborates on this by saying “Rohingya Muslims were living in the most inhuman and deplorable conditions, and even this was unacceptable to the State authorities.”
Binod Khadria says that a lot of migrants, especially from Bangladesh which was riddled with poverty and unemployment, came in several generations ago when there was a demand for external labour to come in and do menial jobs in India. He says that it is extremely impractical to ask these Bangladeshi Muslims to leave when they have lived here for several years and have even become Indianised in a lot of ways.
It is evident from all of the narratives in the podcast that there is a serious need for policy interventions for migration at various levels in India.
