The ‘Gulf Dream’ of Kerala is fading fast. ‘The Gulf’, a charming dream of millions of Keralites once has become a nightmare. As the hundreds of thousand people who were returned recently as the gulf boom has ended and many Gulf countries has started the nationalization process in employment sector has become the biggest issue for policymakers. A long line of return migrants, mostly from the Gulf, are making a beeline for Kerala in what could be an economic catastrophe for Kerala.
Kerala has a long history of migration. It was the migrant Malayalee that brought all prosperity to the state. Once the ‘Gulf Boom’ started and up to the recent past, the remittance from the gulf Malayalees has the biggest source of revenue for the state. Even the economists termed Kerala as a state living in ‘remittance economy’. But all this has become past. What is in our front is a painful present and uncertain future.
A report by Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Thiruvananthapuram, published in September 2018, says that migration from Kerala is falling. The number of returning migrants is increasing every year, and that the ‘long history of migration from Kerala to the Gulf is in its last phase’. As per the study, a decrease of 3 lakh migrants has been seen during 2013 and 2018 which accounts one-tenth of the total migrants in 2013.
According to the study, emigration figures showed a negative growth of 11.6% compared to 2013. On one hand, while Saudisation-like policies in the Gulf have swept migrant jobs clean, even for positions that are available, the wage levels are simply unviable for people from the state.
The study notes that 89.2% of the total migrants from Kerala are in the Middle East countries. In 2013 while there were 20.70 lakh migrants in the Middle East, the figure fell to 18.93 lakh in 2018. The remaining 10% of the migrants are concentrated in other countries like the USA, the UK, and Australia.
In 2013, there was 8.9 lakh Malayalis in the UAE, while in 2018, the number stands at 8.3 lakh. The number was 5.22 lakh in Saudi Arabia in 2013, which has now fallen to 4.87 lakh in 2018. In Qatar, there has been an increase from 1.06 lakhs in 2013 to 1.86 lakhs in 2018, but in Bahrain, there has been a fall from 1.49 lakhs in 2013 to 0.81 lakhs in 2018.
The study found that one in every fifth household in Kerala has a migrant. As estimated by KMS 2018, the number of return migrants is 1.29 million, which is about 60% of the number of migrants.
The estimated total annual remittance to Kerala from the migrants working in Gulf has been placed at Rs 85,092 crore.”Of the total remittances at the state level, Malappuram district receives 21%, followed by Kollam (15%), and Thrissur (11%),.
Arabian Gulf countries, once the paradise in the dreams of the majority of Keralites, have been losing the charm after a general slowdown in the Gulf since 2010 when the price of oil had dropped. The crisis was further exacerbated when many Arab countries turned against Qatar and because of the nationalisation policies like Nitaqat of Saudi Arabia.
Over the years, the social and economic circumstances in Kerala have changed to a great extent, and it has made an impact on Kerala’s Gulf migration. It does not mean that people have stopped migrating in search of jobs and better wages. Most of the Gulf returnees are unskilled or semi-skilled workers and traders. Highly skilled and technically qualified Malayalis have continued working in the Gulf countries.
Pratheesh Mullakkara, the secretary of the Kerala State Pravasi Welfare Development Co-operative Society Ltd in Malappuram has witnessed the harsh reality every day
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The district which has the highest number of Gulf returnees, almost all come to the society demanding loans. But their projects were not innovative. They receive 100 applications for a loan in a month. The fund allotted for them around 5 crores were exhausted even in February. Only a fraction of projects are viable, he says.
S Irudaya Rajan of CDS, who conducted the 2018 survey along with K C Zachariah, said that Kerala should make the rehabilitation of returning migrants a priority area by allocating more resources.
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