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Book Talk – The Migration-Development Regime: How Class Shapes Indian Emigration by Dr.Rina Agarwala 

Registration started for the Eighth Batch of Techniques and Analysis in Migration Research which will be commensed on June 1, 2023

 

 

Kerala Migration Survey 2023 takes place through Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation under the direction of Dr. S. Irudaya Rajan, Visiting Fellow, GIFT and Chair, IIMAD which is funded by the Government of Kerala.

Our Founder President Dr. K.C. Zachariah departed us on 17th January 2023. 

Chair is part of both Jharkhand Migration Survey 2023 (10000 households) and Odisha Migration Survey 2023 (15000 households)

publications

International Migration

Asianization of Migrant Workers in the Gulf Countries

Published on April 29, 2021

Details

Asia’s historical contacts with the Gulf region date back to ancient times. Many historians have documented the existence of Indian settlements and merchant guilds in Aden and other prominent Gulf ports prior to the discovery of oil in the region (Secombe and Lawless 1986). In the beginning of the nineteenth century, the industrialization process, pearl trading, Haj and the requirement of skilled workers in the ports had prompted the flow of Indian migrants to the Persian Gulf region. These included ordinary artisans, masons, technicians, clerks and administrative personnel during the colonial times, largely to support the British colonial apparatus in the region (Kumar 2016). The colonial rulers used ‘Indian subjects’ as treasured resources to sustain and operate critical ventures like communication, education, health, bureaucracy, postal services and so on. Later, in the 1930s major Western oil companies like Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) and Aramco Gulf Operations Company Limited and Petroleum Development Qatar (PDQ) employed a substantial number of labourers from the subcontinent and a recruiting office was established in Surat (Kumar 2016). Thus, by late 1950s, Indian and Pakistani migrant workers constituted the largest workforce in many Gulf countries particularly in Kuwait and Bahrain.