Migrant Workers: A Passage from India to the Middle East
| Author | S. K. KUTHIALA |
| Date | 01 June 1986 |
| Published date | 01 June 1986 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2435.1986.tb00795.x |
Migrant Workers
:
A
Passagefrom India
to
the Middle East
DEMOGRAPHIC AND SOCIAL-PSYCHOLOGICAL
IMPLICATIONS AND POLICY CONSIDERATION
S.
K. KUTHIALA, Ph.D.*
INTRODUCTION
India for centuries, with its high fertility, as well as growth rate, and its inability to absorb
its surplus labour force in the domestic market, has contributed significantly to migration
overseas. Emigration from India during British Raj was fairly significant, but after
independence, it has increased substantially to the countries in the Commonwealth, North
America, Europe and, fairly recently, to West Asia. Emigration not only provides an outlet
to
the vast reservoir of unemployed manpower in the country, but it also promotes the
socio-economic development of the country, sometimes far in excess of anticipated
consequences. For example, at the moment, a vast foreign exchange reserve
of
over
6
billion dollars,') for a country like India where imports exceed exports, is primarily the
result of a large foreign exchange remittance from abroad by the migrant workers. In
addition, the continuous flow of remittance has become an additional resource for
investment in a country generating very badly needed employment opportunities to the
growing manpower. The labour pool in India has been growing at an annual rate of
3-5
per
cent with sustained and high population growth occurring for the past forty years.
Emigration of labour from India dates back to the 19th century when Indian labour was
employed in plantation industries in several countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Sri
Lanka and the Fijian islands. Further, additional labour force went to some parts ofAfrica.
These migrant workers secured employment abroad mainly for the development of
rubber, sugar and tea plantations. In due course, many of these migrants chose to
permanently settle down in countries to which they had migrated.
At the beginning of this century, a substantial migration
of
unskilled labour force took
place from India to build railroads and other labour intensive projects in the former
British Colonies such as Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and Mauritius. Most migrants in this
wave were from the southern parts of India. Table 1 (on page
455)
represents the best
*
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Public Administration, University of North
Florida, Jacksonville, Florida
322
16.
44
1
estimates available of population of Indian origin in overseas countries. In Fiji a majority
(68 per cent) are reported to have Indian origin, whereas in the United States ofAmerica it
is a fraction of one per cent
-
a low percentage.
While the outflow of Indians going abroad for jobs declined perceptibly in the fifties and
sixties, emigration of a different nature assumed importance in the seventies. The
escalation of oil prices in 1973-74 by the oil-rich West Asian countries created an
enormous increase in wealth and revenue in the countries normally identified as the
Middle East. This sudden wealth enabled these underdeveloped countries to launch
ambitious industrial projects, to bring about modernization and to build up social
infrastructure. In these labour scarce countries the economic boom provided a number of
employment opportunities for Indian workers, artisans, and technical manpower. Even
though these opportunities were
of
short duration (1-3 years), at the end of 1980
4.17
million workers of Indian origin were employed in the Middle East.2)
Table 2 (on page 456) represents the labour force share of Indian workers to that of the
total labour force in various countries. In Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, Indian
workers constitute more than
50
per cent of the labour force, whereas in Libya they
constitute only
1.2
per cent of the labour force. However, in sheer numbers, Saudi Arabia
(with 120,000 workers) and the United Arab Emirates (with 152,000 workers) are the
major markets
for
the Indian labour force. Collectively, Indian workers constituted
almost
15
per cent of the total labour force in listed countries.
No
data is available on the
size ofthe labour force in Iran, Iraq, and the Sultanate of Oman. However, there are 20,800
Indians in Iran, 20,250 in Iraq, and 60,000 in Oman. Taking the entire Gulf region of the
Middle East, as much as 20 per cent of the labour force was estimated in 1984 to be of
Indian origin and listed at just over four million people.3)
Apart from the Middle East, West Asia and the North African countries, many other
countries have a significant number of persons of Indian origin. Large numbers of Indian
professionals are found in Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Hong Kong, Singapore, the United
Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, the United States, Canada, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago,
and Grenada.
Forecasting the future demands of Indians in other countries, the prospects
for
migration to the European and North American countries are not very promising. Severe
restrictions on the entry of foreigners into these countries and the racial prejudice which
has been increasing, come in the way of migration of Indians to the West. Even Africa has
begun to tighten the rules for immigration to Africanize their labour force as well as to
offer employment opportunities to their own citizens. African countries have not had any
serious labour shortages, but their modernization ofthe past 25 years, along with growing
education, has increased the number of nationals available to enter the labour force.
In this decade, further immigration of the Indian labour force is possible only to the
recently rich West Asian and North African countries. In countries such as Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates, the population is sparse
and the desert and vast terrain plentiful. For their developmental plans through the
twenty-first century, they will have to depend upon foreign workers to meet their demand
for labour and technical manpower. The pace ofdevelopment and the
oil
prices will be the
initial variables in determining the outflow of Indian labour to these countries, and the
level of development in the host countries.
During the early 1970's when many of the West Asian countries went for massive
investment in social infrastructure such as schools, hospitals, roads, highways, airports,
sanitation systems, and other civil construction, a large number
of
construction workers
found easy employment opportunities. With continuously escalating oil prices,
established by the Oil Cartel, the wealth and revenues of these countries increased very
rapidly in the second half of the 1970's. The economic development plans were geared
442
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