Last Updated on January 12, 2022 by themigrationnews
Book Review: Passage of Fortune?: Exploring Dynamics of International Migration from Punjab by Aswini Kumar Nanda, Jacques Veron, and S. Iruadaya Rajan, Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, London and New York, 2021; pp xxi + 335.
The non-availability of timely and rigorous data sources for the analysis of dynamism of international migration and construction of an effective policy framework to facilitate fruitful migration for the area of origin and destination along with the migrants themselves (termed as the win-win-win situation in migration studies) is a global matter of concern. The case of international migration from Punjab has a similar lacuna. Globally well known for its unique identity, the Punjabi diaspora is discussed barely in migration and development studies. Due to the non-availability of data for analysis, and to form an effective policy, the migrant population remains laggard in realizing its full potential to contribute to the development process of its motherland. In this context, “Passages of Fortune?: Exploring Dynamics of International Migration from Punjab” is a first-ever detailed attempt, based on Punjab International Migration Survey 2010, which attempts to unfold multifaceted layers of international migration from Punjab.
The book follows the mixture of quantitative and qualitative approaches as migration studies require analysis of socio-economic perspectives including remittance flows and its utilization pattern, migrant philanthropy, demography of migrant household, gender perceptions, cross-border marriages, the role of migration consultancy, and the labour replacement after the migration at the household level. While discussing all these aspects to gauge the asymmetry of out-migration, authors squarely incorporate residential area, region, religion, caste, gender, land ownership, wealth index, and poverty status of migrant households in their analysis. Therefore, the given analysis focuses on all the dimensions in which the process of international migration and migrant resources utilization is embedded.
Rural Distress and International Migration from Punjab
Simon Kuznets, who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Economics, considers urbanization based on industrialization as modern economic growth (Kuznets, 1960, p. 125). The given model of modern economic growth is not felicitous for the developmental path of the Punjab economy. The state emerged as a food basket of India after the implementation of a new agricultural strategy in the mid of 1960s but missed to plug the agricultural surplus for industrialization. The backward and forward linkages of agriculture with industry have not flourished within the state. Under the post-reform period, characterized as neoliberal globalization, where markets subjugate all the spheres of life, the state-supported agricultural base of rural Punjab has eroded continuously, along with a plunge in industrial growth. Therefore, the industrial sector of the Punjab economy remains unable to employ the rural as well as the urban surplus labour force. Altogether, the population pyramid of Punjab clearly indicates that more than three-fifths of the population of the state fall under the working-age group (p. 40). The given juncture of the Punjab economy gives birth to the high incidence of international out-migration from Punjab. The historical social networks with overseas countries act as a ladder for the new waves of international migration from Punjab. With the present rural distress and non-availability of decent employment opportunities in the urban area, international migration emerges as a rural phenomenon in the state. Chapter 12 of the book describes the issue of international migration from rural Punjab and provides facts that the households in the rural areas (13 percent) were twice as likely to have an emigrant than households in the urban areas (6 percent) (p. 48). The management of money by emigrants in rural areas involves – borrowing from banks and moneylenders, mortgage and sale of productive assets by migrant households, which often put lead emigrants and their family members in distressed situations (p. 83). In addition, the cost of emigration, which has increased manifold in the last decades, also contributes to rural distress (p. 87). Similarly, the given chapter is full of facts and data analysis, but more or less fails to establish the link between the massive international migration from Punjab with its own aforementioned economic conjuncture.
Major Migration Corridors
Punjabi people have migrated to countries across many continents of this world. The authors outline the major corridors of international migration from Punjab. These corridors include Punjab-UAE, Punjab-Canada, Punjab-Italy, Punjab-USA, Punjab-Australia, Punjab-United Kingdom, and Punjab-Greece. All these destination countries accounted for slightly more than four-fifth part of all emigration from the state (p. 67). Each of those corridors has its own specific characteristics and requires specific tracer study to gauge the dynamics of international migration. The global migration system and its changes also have strong impacts on the direction of emigration flow from Punjab. Together with the liberal immigration policies, the boom in European countries creating greater opportunities for employment after the Second World War led to Punjabi migrants moving towards the European continent. Similarly, the boom in oil-producing countries in the 1970s opened up new avenues of immigration based on work permits in gulf countries. At that time, the out-migration from Punjab was initiated majorly towards UAE. Due to the lack of any policy-based corridor from India to any other nation, the given corridors are self-perpetuated according to the needs of internationally segregated labour markets. In addition, the state government has not created any effective policy framework to manage the out-migration after recognizing the differential characteristics of each of the given corridors. The policy failure of the government provides space to the market-oriented immigrant consultant industry, which charges exorbitant prices for their services, to serve the needs of emigrants.
Expansion of Migration Consultancy Service Industry in Punjab
Different theories that deal with migration are clubbed into two broader streams: The first stream deals with the initiation of migration and the second stream concentrates on the perpetuation of movements over space and time. Furthermore, perpetuation-related theories broadly discussed the role of social networks (Massey, 1990) and the role of institutions in perpetuating the process of migration (Scott, 2014). The given book explains the perpetuation process of international migration from Punjab by incorporating both the role of kinship and social transnational network and the role of migration consultancy services to derive the emigration process. As far as the role of migration consultancy is concerned, authors state, “a new generation of entrepreneurship and avenues of earning have sprung up in rural and urban Punjab in the form of non-state commercial services that profit by offering migration-related services in the name of migration facilitation” (p. 189). In addition to this statement, the book highlights the fact that 62 per cent of those households who seek any outside help for obtaining the visa to go abroad seek help from immigration consultancy firms and travel agencies. At the same time, only 29 per cent of households receive any help from transnational familial or friendly relations (p. 190). The given fact clearly indicates the penetration and use of commercial emigration services in rural and urban Punjab to a larger extent. Overcharging fees, making false promises, issuing fake documents, and grossly deficient services are the problems of migrant households with immigration or travel agencies as the results of the survey shows. Authors consider inadequate regulatory measures as one of the major causes of these problems (p. 195).
Flows and Utilisation of Migrant Resources
The migrant resources can be classified into four broader categories: household remittances, collective remittances or diasporic philanthropy, direct investments by migrants, and intangible resource flows in terms of social, political ideologies, and technological information (Rutten, 2012). The book provides detailed insight into the flows and utilization patterns of all types of migrant resources in Punjab. In the case of remittances, authors analyze the incidence of inward remittances, size of inward remittances, channels of remittance receipt, source and frequency of remittances, and the use of remittances at household levels. The remittance flows are not unidirectional in the present scenario. The financial resources also flow from the area of origin to the area of destination, which is termed reverse remittances. The book also underlines the reverse flows of remittances from Punjab. Survey result indicates that households with large landholdings and with the highest standard of living embedded with the highest rate of reverse remittances (p. 168) and the volume of reverse remittances lied between Rs. 1.5 Lakh to Rs. 5 Lakh per household from 2005 to 2010 (p. 170). As far as diasporic philanthropy is concerned, one-fifth of the migrant households in Punjab participate in philanthropic activities through their financial support (p. 177).
Direct investment and other intangible flows of resources are mainly associated with return migration. As the book points out, the returned migrants in Punjab lack any upward occupational mobility during reintegration into the labour market. Due to the lack of any policy initiative, the savings of return migrants are also not invested in productive and employment generating activities. Migrantsinvest their savings into real estate business, purchase of agricultural land, and construction activities.
In nutshell, the international migration from Punjab cannot only be explained from the point of view of wage differential or as a flow of labour from an area of surplus labour towards labour shortage economies without taking into consideration those forces which create economic asymmetries among different localities. The unequal development among different nations becomes base of international migration and unequal development is an inherent character of given politico-economic world order. Furthermore, international out-migration can also be characterized as an inherent character of structural transformation of the economy, as evident from the historical analysis of European countries are there (Kuznets, 1960, pp. 51-56).
Nowadays when globalization forces, governed by neoliberal ideology, give birth to the unprecedented international economic inequalities and the immigration policies of the global north are more or less restricted and biased towards the flows of the skilled labour force, the consequences of international migration cannot be altogether similar as Europe experienced. Therefore, the given book represents the causes and consequences of international migration for not only Punjab but also the causes and consequences that can easily generalize for the different areas of origin in the global south with some regional specificities of international migration from each locality. Nevertheless, more or less, the analytical framework of the book side-lines the issue of Punjab’s international migration from on-going global discourse and also fails to link the phenomenon with other migration origins of the global south. As far as the case of international migration from Punjab is concerned, the book provides a detailed explanation of Punjab international migration survey 2010.
Despite some aforementioned limitations and theoretical gaps, the book is equally important for academicians as well as for the policymakers of Punjab. The former group can pursue further research by understanding the magnetism of international migration among the inhabitants of Punjab and the latter group can get enlightenment to formulate an effective policy to ensure management of international mobility from its pre-departure phase to the reintegration phase after returning. In addition, the global migration system, along with other dynamic transformations, has drastically changed in the last decade. To gauge the impacts of these changes, the state requires another full-fledged survey related to international migration, in addition to the micro-level multi-disciplinary studies to frame an evidence-based policy for safe, orderly, and regular migration, besides full utilization of migrant resources for the multi-faceted development of the state.
References
Carol Upadhya, M. R. (2012, May 12). Migration, Transnational Flows,and Development in India: A Regional Prespective. EPW, pp. 54-62.
Kuznets, S. (1960). Modern Economic Growth. Oxfirord and IBH Publishing Co.
Massey, D. S. (1990). Social Structure, Household Strategies, and the Cumulative Causation of Migration. Population Index , 3-26.
Scott, W. R. (2014). Institutions and organizations: ideas, interests and identities. Sage.
Harjinder Singh has completed M.A. in Economics from the Department of Economics, Punjabi University, Patiala, Punjab. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Social Sciences, focusing on International Migration with a multidisciplinary approach. He has been awarded Junior Research Fellowship from University Grants Commission. His areas of interest include – Political Economy of Development, Migration and Development Studies, Globalization and Local Transformations, Agrarian Studies of the Third World, and Economic Theories. He is also fond of reading poetry and historical studies. Twitter: @harjinderecon