After the pandemic ebbs, return wave of diaspora awaits Kerala

Thiruvananthapuram:  Hundreds sat glued to TV sets at homes across Kerala as the special flight from Abu Dhabi carrying 177 adults and four children touched Cochin International Airport at 10.30 in the night on May 7. Many of them heaved a sigh of relief seeing their kin finally making it home under Government of India’s Vande Bharat mission, after being stranded in the Gulf state following the outbreak of COVID-19. Thousands more flew from other Gulf states in the days followed. 

After the initial relief, the question looming large over the state is loud and clear:  “Is the Gulf dream finally over for Malayalis?”

The LDF Government in the state has persistently pressured the Centre to facilitate the return of the stranded Non-resident Keralites, known locally as NRKs.  Cutting across political divides, all parties had lent support to the demand. In the evacuation mission, the state wanted priority to be given to women, expecting mothers, elderly persons and children.  A detailed protocol was drafted and elaborate arrangements were made for putting the returnees on quarantine and medical check-up.   

The COVID-19 triggered return migration is just a trickle. With the pandemic driving the Gulf states to the worst ever economic downturn with the oil price tanking, millions of migrant workers face the prospect of losing jobs, and being forced to fly home in dire circumstances in the coming months.

What is unsurprising about the unfolding situation is that this is not something that burst upon the state all of a sudden.  For quite long, Kerala has been expecting this to happen any time. Whenever the Gulf sneezed Kerala caught cold. The state had premonitions of this during the Gulf war, and during the global recession in the turn of the century. The recovery that followed each crisis in the past had opened the doors of the Arabian Gulf to the job seekers. The situation this time could be different as there is no clue as yet how the world will emerge out of COVID-19 pandemic.

The coalitions led by the CPI-M and the Congress that ruled the state alternately for over four decades have tended to remain glib over the reality. All political parties in Kerala have enjoyed the generous patronage of the NRKs, especially of those in the Gulf. However, their reciprocation has confined to lip service.  All that the state had done for them was to create a Non-Resident Keralites Affairs Department (NRKAD), which had remained a self-indulgent white elephant, doing precious little for the rehabilitation of the Malayali diaspora. 

According to a government-sponsored migration survey conducted in 2018, the number of Keralites working abroad stood around 3.4 million, with the Gulf countries hosting nearly 89 per cent of them. Thousands families live entirely on the remittances from the Gulf. Unlike those employed or settled in Europe and the United States, vast majority of Keralites in the Gulf are skilled or semi-skilled workers. Over 90 per cent them are male, whose wives, parents and children live home on the cash flow from the Gulf.   

On a macro level, Kerala’s economy has been largely sustained by the Gulf money, since 1970s. Barring the service industry, including tourism and IT, Kerala is completely devoid of labour-intensive manufacturing units or a viable farm sector. The Government continues to be the biggest job-provider at home. But only a fraction of the educated and skilled youth stands prospect of a getting a government job. Nevertheless, the state has maintained a puffed-up profile on account of its globally-acclaimed social development model, which can get deflected by a pinprick any moment.

Large scale return migration is certain to push the state into a multidimensional crisis. Apart from the crippling economic impact, the social unrest it could create will be severe.  Simply imagine a situation in which thousands in people who in the prime of their working age are back home starring at unemployment and bleak future. Once they run out of the cash in hand and whatever little deposits in bank, where will they turn to support their families? The state is no position to engage them in gainful jobs or business, having depleted its coffers by spending its limited resources to tackle the pandemic crisis. 

As expected, the LDF Government has demanded that the Centre roll out a package for the rehabilitation of NRKs, considering their significant contributions in better times. It, however, is unlikely to happen, considering the economic and political priorities of the Centre in the post-COVID-19 days.