Why the Indian government has struggled to protect skilled overseas labourers in the Gulf

Most Indians migrate with dreams of a better future, wrote Irudaya Rajan, a highly regarded and longstanding researcher on labour migration. “But far too often, they are seen only in a reductive manner, as people sending remittances to the home country.” Over the past three decades, ever since the World Trade Organization came into being and India began to focus on services trade, official policy on out-migration of labour has been shaped by the desire to earn foreign exchange and to find an employment outlet that eases the burden of population at home. Based in Kerala, home to millions of labour migrants to the Gulf, Irudaya Rajan has long complained both about the inadequate database on labour migration and the absence of adequate infrastructure to support migrant workers, despite their growing importance both to the Indian economy and the economies of the Gulf.

West Asia has had an intimate economic and social link with the Indian subcontinent for centuries, especially with regions along the Indian west coast from Gujarat down to Kerala. Arab traders were regular visitors all along the western coastline and Gujarati and Malayalee merchants had extensive links into the Arab world. Following the “oil shocks” of the 1970s,...

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