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Diasporas and Divergent Development in Kerala and Punjab

Querying the Migration-Development Discourse

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Global Diasporas and Development

Abstract

Understanding the economic development of many nations in the Global South can no longer be comprehensively charted without a focus on international labour migration and its associated socio-economic and spatial transformations. Interest in this issue has emerged in the range of work exploring transnational migration, yet the spatiality of transnational practices has tended to be overlooked in much of this literature, which has tended to focus more intently on social practices to the neglect of related spatial transformations. In this paper, I explore and contrast outmigration from two Indian states in order to identify the differences and similarities that emerge. In particular, I emphasise the way in which migration and the role of non-resident Indians (NRIs) articulates with pre-existing local socio-spatial distinctions and networks of social closure. The migrant figure embodies a powerful influence that introduces new expectations and consumption patterns into the sending region, and this process occurs both in Kerala and Punjab, two Indian states with long and active histories of outmigration. Changes wrought by the migrant need to be understood as the outcome of specific sets of locally grounded relations, but also as the product of the pressures of global, regional and national discourses of modernity, development and neo-liberal consumerism.

An earlier version of this chapter was presented at the “International Conference on Diaspora and Development: Prospects and Implications for Nation States” 7–8 September 2011, IGNOU, Delhi. Financial support for this research was received from the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute, and Md Moniruzzaman provided research assistance in the compilation of data for this chapter.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    An example of interagency cooperation between the UNHCR, UNFPA, IOM and ILO http://www.migration4development.org/content/about-jmdi. Accessed August 10th 2011.

  2. 2.

    This paper was presented at the “International Conference on Diaspora and Development: Prospects and Implications for Nation States” 7–8 September 2011, IGNOU Delhi.

  3. 3.

    Certain cases, such as the exodus of Sikhs from Punjab during the 1980s and 1990s, do bear some resemblance to the classic idea of a Diaspora. Even in this regard though, there has been a rapprochement between those who supported Khalistan and the Government of India (GOI), with current visa blacklists being reduced to a few hundred, and the governments who host those individuals often in debate with the GOI to gain permission for them to visit India (Bolan 2001).

  4. 4.

    Also see http://www.migration4development.org/content/putting-migrants-and-refugees-development-agenda (Accessed August 15th 2011).

  5. 5.

    My thanks to participants at the Centre for Rural and Regional Industrial Development (CCRID) in Chandigarh, for raising this concern during a presentation on September 15, 2011.

  6. 6.

    Most are well aware of the problems of determining actual figures when it comes to migrant worker remittances. See Reinke 2007.

  7. 7.

    Few countries have managed to attain the 0.7 % of GNP for ODA as promised in the 2002 Monterrey consensus (Naudé 2009), but this assessment is complicated by the rise of India and China as donor nations (McCormick 2008).

  8. 8.

    In terms of FDI NRIs contributed 1.3 % of inflows in 2009, and NRI accounts in the Indian Mutual Fund Industry account for 4.4 % of the total net assets (MOIA 2011:31).

  9. 9.

    World Bank GDP pc. Accessed at http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD/countries

  10. 10.

    World Bank GDP by value added. Accessed at http://search.worldbank.org/data?qterm=GDP%20by%20value%20added&language=EN . Accessed May 2013.

  11. 11.

    The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) provides data regarding migrants living overseas as a ratio per 1,000 migrants, including all migrants that year. Of the union territories, Daman and Diu, Chandigarh and Puducherry have the highest numbers at 350, 325 and 291 per 1,000 migrants respectively.

  12. 12.

    Malappuram also represents the highest amount of total remittances, equivalent to 15 % of Kerala’s total, according to Zachariah and Rajan (2011, p. 307).

  13. 13.

    Goa has 1.7 rural and 5.2 % urban households who receive 2,96, 506 and 2,01,454 rupees, Punjab 4.99 and 1.5 receiving 1,08,498 and 97,547, while Kerala has 14.21 and 11.99 % households receiving 65,255 and 71,640 rupees. At the state level, however, Kerala has more households receiving a smaller share of remittances than in Punjab or Goa (Tumbe 2011).

  14. 14.

    While Punjab had 17,459 tractors per hundred thousand holdings, the all India figure was only 714 (Jodhka 2005; Confederation of Indian Industry 2009).

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  1. Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario, Canada

    Margaret Walton-Roberts

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  1. Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, India

    Sadananda Sahoo

  2. Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, India

    B.K. Pattanaik

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Walton-Roberts, M. (2014). Diasporas and Divergent Development in Kerala and Punjab. In: Sahoo, S., Pattanaik, B. (eds) Global Diasporas and Development. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-1047-4_4

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