The Gurudwara in this nondescript village in Jalandhar district in Punjab’s Doab region has earned a reputation for fulfilling the prayers of those seeking work visas abroad. 

Some 2,000 km away, at Hyderabad’s Chilkur Balaji temple, on the banks of the Osman Sagar Lake, students and IT professionals headed for destinations abroad similarly come to pray, albeit sans toy airplanes. The ‘Visa Balaji’ temple gained fame after a group of IT engineers claimed they successfully wrangled their US visas after praying at the shrine in the 1980s. 

According to Ministry of Tourism statistics, some 27.27 million Indians went abroad in calendar year 2023, a 26.25 per cent increase over the number of people who went abroad in the year before. Some 15.64 per cent of them went for business or professional reasons, according to the Government data, though the actual numbers may have been far higher as many who go abroad on 'student visa' or to ‘visit friends and relatives’ or for ‘leisure’, in truth go in search for work abroad.   

Rush To Go Abroad

Analysts said 2023 was the second full year after the Covid pandemic ended when travellers - both holidaymakers and workers - could go abroad without too many restrictions.  The year 2022 saw a 152 per cent jump in outward departures from India, but this was seen as an aberration because of the fall in travel numbers in 2020 and 2021.

“India is undergoing a huge demographic dividend. Giving jobs to all of the young people who are coming into the labour market is a near-impossible task. So some of them will naturally migrate in search of a living,” said S. Irudaya Rajan, Chair of the International Institute for Migration and Development and member of a World Bank working group on migration and urbanisation. 

The main driver, Rajan explained is the “wage gap” between Indian and Western or Gulf salaries and added that “aspiration" or the desire for a better standard of life is an added incentive to leave India’s shores.

Historically, Indians have supplied labour to the European colonies – Fiji, West Indies, Indo-China, “we are now supplying labour to the rest of the world. Filling the gap between demand and supply… most of those who are going are taking up unskilled or semi-skilled jobs,” the migration expert said. 

According to a December 2023 study ‘Exodus From Rural Punjab: Analysing Its Drivers’, Canada remained the top destination of youth going abroad in search of work from the Punjab, attracting 42 per cent of migrants from the state. Dubai stood second at 16 per cent, Australia attracting 10 per cent and Italy (6 per cent) came next. 

“Unemployment, systemic disorganisation and fear of drug traps were compelling rural households to send their young to foreign shores,” according to the study. Some 19.38 per cent of migrants, went to the extent of selling their farmland, house, gold, car, and tractor with an average value of Rs 1.23 lakh per migrants household, to send their youth abroad. 

According to the latest Periodic Labour Force Survey published this month, the urban unemployment data for the age group 15-29 for the five quarters between January 2023 and March 2024, has ranged between 16.5 per cent and 17.6 per cent, with the latest January-March 2024 quarter posting a 17 per cent unemployment rate. 

Telangana had the highest unemployment rate among urban youth at 26.1 per cent in the January-March 2024 quarter. A dozen states had urban unemployment rates in the 15-29 age group above 20 per cent, including India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh. 

Paradoxically, India’s GDP growth grew at 8.4 per cent during the October-December quarter, on the back of buoyant manufacturing, construction and services sector according to government data. While the full-year forecast for 2023-24 has been raised to 7.3 per cent. 

"The sectors growing fastest such as services are not creating enough jobs and even manufacturing which creates most of the jobs has been growing sans significant job growth,” pointed out Biswajit Dhar, former Professor of Economics at JNU. 

Even labour-intensive sectors like textiles are experiencing intensive mechanisation. “With disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotisation coming in, job growth in manufacturing will be even slower in the future,” Dhar added. 

Lack Of Visa Power 

Of course, going abroad is not exactly an easy option for Indians to escape the lack of opportunities here. An Indian passport has an 81st rank in a global passport ranking scale compiled by Henley & Partners, out of 106 ranks, with many countries sharing the same ranks.

The first rank is shared by six countries including France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore, and Spain, and passports held by citizens of these countries allow them visa-free entry into 194 countries, mostly first-world nations. An Indian passport on the other hand allows visa-free entry into 61 destinations, almost all of them third world countries. 

Visa waits for Indians trying to go abroad for work stretch from months to years and are prone to rejections, especially from semi-skilled and unskilled workers. Nearly 18 per cent of visa requests from India to European Union countries were rejected in 2022 with Estonia leading the pack by rejecting 56 per cent of applications. 

Illegals On The 'Mule Route'

Illegal migration out of India has consequently become a big business. Jalandhar city itself has become a hub of travel agents working out of literally holes in the walls to send people out on false student visas or as illegals through the Balkans into EU nations and Latin America to the US and Canada. 

A few months back an Airbus A-340, flown by a Romanian charter airline, carrying Indians to Nicaragua was sent back on suspicion of trying to push illegals into the US. According to a November 2023 Pew Centre report, there are about 7.25 lakh illegal Indians in the US, making India the third largest source of illegals in America.

“The story of Indians going abroad through irregular processes, on what is now called the ‘Mule Route’ or the ‘Donkey Route’ because of the hardships they have to undertake over uncharted forests, borderlands, passage in containers, etc., has as yet not been properly understood or documented, just as the story of those who left Calcutta docks to travel to Suriname or Fiji was ignored in the 19th century,” said Samata Biswas of the Calcutta Research group, who has been working on migration-related research projects. 

The Remittances Story 

The huge labour outflow, of course, also has positive side effects for the Indian economy. India received a mammoth US$ 125 billion in 2023 as inward remittances from non-resident Indians, the highest among recipient countries, according to World Bank data. This is an increase of 12.6 per cent over 2022, and a six-fold increase over India’s 2004 inward foreign exchange remittances of US$ 18.75 billion.

According to an answer to a Parliament question tabled by the government last year, some 23.4 per cent of this inflow of hard foreign exchange from Indians working outside came from the US. While some 29.2 per cent came from Gulf countries, with 18.6 per cent coming from Indians working in UAE and another 10.6 per cent from Indians in other Gulf nations.  

“We find that the more Indians at the bottom of the pyramid we send abroad, the higher the inward remittances. They have a natural tendency to save and send across incomes back home. While the more educated Indians who go abroad, tend to save for a better life in the EU or US with their families,” said Dhar.

The Way Forward

This outbound migration of labour is likely to continue for another 40-50 years, Rajan predicted and added that as far as policy prescriptions go, the state and society will have to work to ensure “legal, safe and orderly migration.”

“There is a need for an evidence-based policy formulation by all stakeholders – the Indian government, state governments from where the workers depart and host countries,” he said. 

Experts believe that since stopping the flow is a difficult task, the better option would be to ensure India’s surplus labour is exported in an orderly fashion and legally while ensuring that outbound workers are not exploited by “labour migration mafias” or employer cartels and they get just wages and benefits.

To achieve this of course there is a pressing need to revamp both the Office of the Protector of Emigrants and the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs. Diplomacy, especially in the Gulf countries, also needs to be stepped up to ensure that Indian workers are sought after and yet get a good deal while striking work contracts, analysts believe.  

Researchers like Biswas point out that data on worker migration is poorly kept and states mostly have anecdotal data of the numbers who have gone abroad in search of work. 

State governments also need to build the capacity to handle labour export issues and emulate the good practices of the few states that have offices that handle this issue such as Kerala.

Till that happens the second wave of 'the great Indian labour exodus' will remain an unsung and little-understood saga.