https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TOIGO%2F2018%2F12%2F11&entity=Ar00801&sk=04937F95&mode=text
The numbers keep rocketing upwards every year. For well over a decade, it has been apparent there are more Indians scattered around the world than any other country’s migrant count in the history of the world. As of 2017, reports the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (Population Division), there were an astounding 17 million India-born men, women and children living abroad. No other country is particularly close: Mexico tallies 13 million, but that’s a special case because 95% are just across the USA border. Lagging way behind around 10 million each are Russia and China, but again their outflow concentrates in just a few places. Indians go everywhere, now pouring out of the country faster than ever before. To some extent, India’s migrant wave reflects entrenched global patterns. The UN’s International Migration Report 2017 says, “the number of international migrants worldwide has continued to grow rapidly in recent years, reaching 258 million in 2017, up from 220 million in 2010 and 173 million in 2000.” It also points out, “of the 258 million international migrants worldwide, 106 million were born in Asia,” and “Between 2000 and 2017, the number of international migrants originating in Asia recorded the largest increase (40.7 million).” But there’s an interesting twist. Most Asian migrants move nearby home, “Between 2000 and 2017, Asia added more international migrants than any other region. Asia gained some 30 million international migrants during this period.” That’s not the case with Indians, who pipeline in huge numbers directly to wealthy developed countries in the west, as well as the oil-rich Middle East. Some of the numbers are eye-popping: Indians in Italy went up by over 4000% in just the past decade. In Qatar, over the same time period, the total of Indian workers went from a few thousand to nearly 700,000 (part of the reason is the build-up to the next FIFA World Cup). In the United States of America, the number of Indians doubled from roughly one million in 1990 to over two million at the turn of the twenty-first century, and has promptly more than doubled again in the succeeding years. Today, in addition to all of those Indian-Americans, there are at least 500,000 additional undocument Indians in the USA, none of whom are registered in the UN report. As with all large-scale migrations, whether in the past or here and now, complex push and pull factors are at play. Many western countries are experiencing catastrophic demographic decline, and need younger workers to keep their economies afloat. Italy, for example, has the lowest birth rate in Europe. Last year, it registered only 464,000 new-borns, the fewest ever since records have been maintained. The median age of its citizens is roughly 46 (by contrast, in India it is around 29), and rising fast. Just twelve years from now, the country’s Ministry of Economy and Finance calculates that 27% of Italians will be over 65. Who will work and support these huge numbers of old people? Obviously, migrants, including increasing numbers of Indians. Unfortunately, other prevailing conditions that compel large numbers of people to leave India are less benign. These include the widespread collapse of law and order, comprehensive failure of governance across huge swathes of the country, rising intolerance against minorities, and caste and gender discrimination. Here, the experience of Goans over the past two decades is highly relevant, as streams of citizens opted to exercise their birthright to Portuguese citizenship, in order to head to the west (overwhelmingly to the UK). This newest wave of migrants from India’s smallest state leaves reluctantly, collectively broken-hearted to be pushed out from their homeland. Of course, the history of centuries of diasporic criss-crossing teaches us Goans abroad assimilate and succeed, always and everywhere. But the cruelty of involuntary exile underlines the biggest engine of Indian emigration –rampant capital flight. The richest Indians have rigged the economy to capture most of the gains, and sequestered much of it abroad. These are unimaginable sums, though prime minister Narendra Modi clearly had specifics in mind when he promised to bring back enough to deposit 15 lakhs in every citizen’s bank account. In their paper on the subject, IIT economists Pradhan and Hiremath wrote, “capital flight diverts domestic savings from investment, reduces the net capital stock for work, impedes growth, and constrains fiscal expenditure which in turn leads to adverse distributional consequences.” They could easily have added migration to that list.