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International Labour
Migration from Independent India
S. K.
Sasikumar
I.
INTRODUCTION
The
migration of races across countries and continents has
been a regular feature of human history. However, the
quantum of international migration has now reached an
extent where it has become a major factor in global
change. Never
before have such large numbers of people left their
country of origin, either permanently or for short
duration, as economic migrants, or as refugees and asylum
seekers. The
World Development Report 1999/2000 estimates that more
than 130 million people now live outside the countries of
their birth.
Migrant-sending
and migrant-receiving countries recognizing the importance
of such world wide migratory pressures have begun to
intensify their efforts in framing appropriate policy
responses. Such
policy responses in different countries have mainly been
the outcome of the pervasive impact which the large-scale
international labour migration has had on their economic
and social structures.
In fact, many developing countries in the world
today are relying on remittances of migrant workers to
finance development.
The annual value of remittances from overseas
workers (who number around 35 to 40 million) are currently
estimated to be nearly $66 billion – which is second in
value only to oil in world trade and more than even the
current level of international development assistance.
Increasing
internationalization of production, trade and finance,
globalization of economic networks, liberalization of the
movement of capital and technology, rapid population
growth in the South, high economic growth and low
fertility in the newly industrializing countries are all
factors that may exert additional pressure both in the
migrant-sending and migrant-receiving countries for larger
international flow of skilled and unskilled labour in the
immediate decades to follow. Apart from these factors, the
Gulf Crisis of 1990 and certain post crisis developments
in the Middle East – centre stage for contract labour
migration in the last two decades – have also wide
ranging implications for future international migration
flows, particularly for labour exporting countries of
South and South East Asia.
n
an emerging global scenario where the immediate future is
viewed as the ‘age of migration’, it is imperative
that attempts are made, especially in a leading labour
exporting country like India, to examine the implications
of the contemporary migration flows so as to evolve a more
purposeful migration policy framework aimed at the
maximization and socialization of benefits from migration
in the wider context of economic development.
This should particularly be based on the
experiences India has had with labour migration phenomenon
in the past. It
is in this context that an attempt is made in this paper
to detail out the trends, pattern composition and
characteristics of international migration flows in the
post-Independence period. It deals with migration flows to
the industrialised countries as well as to the Middle
East. The paper also examines various aspects pertaining
to the overseas labour recruitment processes in India. It
analyses the information on different categories of
recruitment agencies, their profile, modes of operation,
efficiency and performance, regulatory mechanism and their
impact and implications for migrant workers. It also
highlights certain policy considerations on migration
which India’s experience with labour export suggests.
II.
INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION FROM INDEPENDENT INDIA
In
India, the migration of its labour force within and across
its national boundaries is nothing new. India’s
geographical position has ensured contact with the Persian
Gulf region and South East Asian countries for trade in
goods and movement of people, a contact which goes back to
several centuries. The
migration of workers on a significant scale was, however,
to come much later. It began in the colonial era and
continues now to independent India.
Migratory
flow during the period of colonial domination was very
much tied to the investment interests of the colonial
rulers and took place under their aegis.
For instance a great part of the nineteenth century
and the early twentieth century witnessed a regular
migration of Indian workers as indentured labour for
plantations or mines in the British colonies; this
migration was to far away places such as Guyana, Jamaica
and Fiji, to not so-distant lands such as Malaysia and
Singapore and even to neighbouring countries such as Sri
Lanka and Burma.
Since
Independence, two distinct types of labour migration have
been taking place from India.
The first is characterized by a movement of persons
with technical skills and professional expertise to the
industrialized countries like the United States, Britain
and Canada which began to proliferate in the early 1950s.
The second type of migration pertains to the flow of
labour to the oil exporting countries of the Middle East
which acquired substantial dimensions after the dramatic
oil price increases of 1973-74 and 1979. The nature of
this recent wave of migration is strikingly different, as
an overwhelming proportion of these migrants are in the
category of unskilled workers and semi-skilled workers
skilled in manual or clerical occupations.
2.1
MIGRATION TO THE INDUSTRIALISED COUNTRIES
At
the outset, it is important to highlight the basic
characteristics of the labour flows from India to the
industrialised countries in the period since Independence:
·
-
Such
outflows are made up almost entirely of permanent
migration in so far as the proportion of emigrants who
return to India, after a finite period, is almost
negligible.
-
A large
proportion of these migrants are persons with professional
expertise, technical qualifications or other skills.
-
For
a overwhelming proportion of these migrants, the
destinations are United States, Canada, and the United
Kingdom.
Although
these labour flows have continued unabated for long, it is
surprising that there is no information, let alone a
primary source of data, on these migration flows from
India. Whatever
analysis have been carried out till date on the
composition of these flows is thus based upon immigration
statistics of the countries of destination (Khadria, 1999;
Nayyar, 1994).
The
available evidence on trends in migration from India to
the selected industrialised countries - the United States,
Canada and the United Kingdom - during the period 1951 -
1990 is presented in Table 1. Emigration to the North
America began in the early 1950s but the numbers remained
modest until the middle of 1960s. This emigration gathered
momentum thereafter.
The number of emigrants from India to both the
United States and Canada has steadily increased over the
1970s and the 1980s. In contrast, emigration to the United
Kingdom was at its peak during the 1960s; its slowed down
thereafter in the 1970s and stabilised at significantly
lower level in the 1980s.
However, it is important to recognise some
limitations of the database. First, the figures do not
quite reflect actual emigration flows in each year, at
least in the United States and United Kingdom, because the
data includes not only immigrants expected on arrival in
that year but also those granted immigrant status during
that year after their statutory period of residence.
Second, the evidence of migration from India to the United
Kingdom is incomplete.
Third, there is no information for immigration to
other parts of industrialised world such as Western Europe
or Australia.
Table
1
Trends
in Immigration from India to Selected Industrialized
Countries: 1951 – 1990
|
|
|
|
|
|
(Number
of Persons)
|
|
Year
|
United
|
Canada
|
United
|
Year
|
United
|
Canada
|
United
|
|
|
States
|
|
Kingdom
|
|
States
|
|
Kingdom
|
|
1951
|
109
|
120
|
n.a
|
1971
|
14,310
|
5,313
|
6,900
|
|
1952
|
123
|
226
|
n.a
|
1972
|
16,926
|
5,049
|
7,600
|
|
1953
|
104
|
169
|
n.a
|
1973
|
13,124
|
9,433
|
6,240
|
|
1954
|
144
|
208
|
n.a
|
1974
|
12,779
|
12,731
|
6,650
|
|
1955
|
194
|
224
|
n.a
|
1975
|
15,773
|
10,106
|
10,200
|
|
1956
|
185
|
254
|
n.a
|
1976
|
17,487
|
6,637
|
11,020
|
|
1957
|
196
|
186
|
n.a
|
1977
|
18,613
|
5,514
|
7,340
|
|
1958
|
323
|
325
|
n.a
|
1978
|
20,753
|
5,112
|
9,890
|
|
1959
|
351
|
585
|
n.a
|
1979
|
19,708
|
4,517
|
9,270
|
|
1960
|
391
|
505
|
n.a
|
1980
|
22,607
|
8,491
|
7,930
|
|
1961
|
421
|
568
|
n.a
|
1981
|
21,522
|
8,263
|
6,590
|
|
1962
|
545
|
529
|
2,900
|
1982
|
21,738
|
7,792
|
5,410
|
|
1963
|
1,173
|
737
|
15,500
|
1983
|
25,451
|
7,051
|
5,380
|
|
1964
|
634
|
1,154
|
13,000
|
1984
|
24,964
|
5,513
|
5,140
|
|
1965
|
582
|
2,241
|
17,100
|
1985
|
26,026
|
4,038
|
5,500
|
|
1966
|
2,458
|
2,233
|
16,700
|
1986
|
26,227
|
6,970
|
4,210
|
|
1967
|
4,642
|
3,966
|
19,100
|
1987
|
27,803
|
9,747
|
4,610
|
|
1968
|
4,682
|
3,229
|
23,100
|
1988
|
26,268
|
10,432
|
5,020
|
|
1969
|
5,963
|
5,395
|
11,000
|
1989
|
31,175
|
8,836
|
4,580
|
|
1970
|
10,114
|
5,670
|
7,200
|
1990
|
30,667
|
10,662
|
5,040
|
Source:
Nayyar, 1994
Notes:
(a) The above data on immigration are reported by country
of birth for the
United States, by Country of last permanent
residence for Canada, and by country of nationality for
the United Kingdom (b) Information on immigration from
India to the United Kingdom is not available for the
period before 1 July 1962 because, until then,
Commonwealth citizens were not subject to immigration
control.
It
is very clear that the United States accounts for the
largest number of Indian emigrants.
The significance of these flows become more
illustrative when we examine India’s share in total
immigration to the United States during 1951-1996 (Table
2). It shows that Indian immigration in the United States
which constituted less than 1 per cent of total
immigration from all countries during 1950s and 1960s,
registered a rapid increase during the 1970s, reaching a
peak of 3.8 per cent that tapered off in the 1980s till
1991 but went on the upswing in 1992 at 3.8 per cent again
and further touching almost 5 per cent in 1996.
Table
2
India's
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