Indian Council of World Affairs

 

Unidentified Speaker: Good afternoon, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, so it is my pleasure to welcome you all to the Indian Council of World Affairs for this panel discussion on the theme Placing Government at the Centre of the Migration and Mobility Framework in India - A Paradigm Shift. May I kindly request you to keep your phones on silent mode. Thank you. We will start today's program with Ms. Nutan Kapoor, Additional Secretary, ICWA, delivering her welcome remarks. The panel discussion will be chaired by Professor and former ambassador Sanjay Bhattacharyya. We also have four esteemed panelists today.

 

Our first panelist is Dr. Rakesh Ranjan, South Asia Regional Coordinator for the Institute for Human Rights and Business, followed by Mr. Arindam Banerjee, Co-Founder and Partner, Policy and Development Advisory Group. We also have two panelists joining us online, Professor Binod Khadria, President, GRFDT i.e. the Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism. The last speaker is Dr. Divya Balan, Assistant Professor, FLAME University. The discussion will be followed by a brief Q&A session moderated by the Chair.

 

May I now request Ms. Nutan Kapoor, Additional Secretary, ICWA, to kindly give her welcome remarks.

 

Nutan Kapoor: Esteemed panelists, dear friends, India has a long history of migratory outflows of its people to different parts of the world. The last notable such outflows took place during the colonial period under the indentured labour mechanism of the British to the Caribbean, Africa, South East Asia, etc. as we all know, and later post-independence to the US, UK, Canada, the Gulf, Africa, South East Asia, Australia, etc.

 

While the indenture labour mechanism was formally and informally facilitated by the colonial rulers to serve the objectives of the empire and to perpetuate the concept of cheap labour sourced from underdeveloped and impoverished countries of origin like India, the 20th century outward migratory flows from India, as also of the current century, have largely been shaped by kinship networks, community connections, ad-hoc recruitment agents, and word-of-mouth stories about greener pastures abroad.

 

The government, dear friends, was largely a bystander when it came to migrant flows or the all-important issue of migrant well-being. A small first step by the Indian authorities was witnessed in the 1980s with the enactment of the Emigration Act 1983, which introduced a distinction between emigration clearance required and emigration clearance not required, ECR and ECNR countries, thereby introducing incipient regulation to reduce vulnerability, especially of blue-collared workers, from various kinds of exploitation, including fraud and wage theft.

 

This act also established a Protector General of Emigrants office, what is now called the PGE, which was entrusted with the regulations and the licensing of recruitment agents. This 1983 Act, however, has limited scope. It primarily focuses on ECR countries of the Gulf and the low- and medium-skilled migrants. This meant that the large quantum of people who migrate to the large majority of the non-ECR countries were not included in the migratory governance infrastructure.

 

Over the past several decades, and especially since the turn of the millennium, the nature of Indian migration has undergone a further significant transformation. Alongside traditional worker migration, there has been a significant rise in the movement of skilled professionals and students to the US, Europe, Australia and other destinations. From an institutional standpoint, the erstwhile Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, as some of you might recall, was established in 2004, but it came to be focused more on diaspora and persons of Indian origin, who are called PIOs, affairs than the traditional area of administering the 1983 Act, which the Ministry of Labour and Employment held prior to MOIA's establishment.

 

MOIA, or the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, was subsequently merged with the Ministry of External Affairs in 2016. Over the last 10 years, the government has taken structured and systematic steps in dealing with migration and mobility affairs. A range of initiatives have been taken, and earlier ones have been consolidated to build government interventions to regulate these flows from the point of view of ensuring migrant well-being. These have included initiatives like eMigrate, Madad, Pravasi Bhartiya Bima Yojana, and the Indian Community Welfare Fund. Though substantive, these measures are, however, few and far between, given the scale of the flows that India is dealing with.

 

Also, they are limited in scope, as they are largely aimed at the vulnerable sections, and do not adequately take into account the migration and mobility of high-skilled professionals and students in particular, and the overall framework of migration and mobility in general. Government's interventions need to be consolidated and enhanced, and government's role needs to be expanded. In fact, government needs to be placed at the center of migration and mobility frameworks in India so that it can better ensure the well-being of Indian citizens who choose to live, work or stay abroad and to better represent their interests in regional and international fora and in its dialogues with the foreign partners. Of course, this will be nothing less than a paradigm shift.

 

What would be the regulatory objectives of placing government at the center of migration and mobility frameworks in India? The following come to mind. One, ensuring migrant well-being. Two, ensuring informed decision-making by Indian citizens when it comes to migration and mobility while recognizing that the decision to live, study or work abroad is an individual's choice and while taking into account the social costs of migration such as fragmented families, integrity of communities, ghost towns and villages, etc. Three, promoting circular mobility so that citizens remain rooted in India, their home country.

 

Four, creation of a formal organized sector for recruitment and educational agents as a services sector in the country. Five, combating human trafficking. We have had discussions in the past in ICWA, for instance, where experts have held the opinion that indentured labour was nothing but a form of slavery with a convenient nomenclature to bypass British anti-slavery laws. Of course, human trafficking continues to be a very real challenge facing the world today. Six, protection of exploitation of various kinds in home and destination countries such as wage theft, fraud, overwork, racial abuse, etc. And seventh, of course, promoting cross-cultural intercourse and learning.

 

It is with this in mind that ICWA's Center for Migration, Mobility and Diaspora Studies has curated today's panel discussion on Placing Government at the Centre of the Migration and Mobility Framework in India - A Paradigm Shift. To deliberate on questions such as, what enabling frameworks can give a central role to government in governing and overseeing the mobility and migration frameworks in India in the interest of ensuring human security of its citizens? How can public opinion be shaped in support of government's central role in managing migration and mobility in India in the interest of ensuring migrant well-being?

 

I look forward to thought-provoking discussions and I wish the panelists all the best.

 

Unidentified Speaker: Thank you, ma'am. May I now request Professor Sanjay Bhattacharyya to give his remarks and conduct the proceedings.

 

Sanjay Bhattacharyya: Thank you very much. This is, I think, a seminar that is most timely. We are all aware of the winds of change around, and I thank ICWA for the invitation to have us all over here and for the initiative to look at this. What we have been discussing within the panel is to see that we look at 21st century mobility and migration, because this is something that we face that has very new challenges. In some ways, this is an aspect which is about the stability of labor markets. It's also about development and innovation. In some ways, we have to respond to the aspirations of citizens who are gradually becoming more empowered, and we have to recognize that.

 

That's why we need policy instruments and governance structures, as well as much more international cooperation. Today, we are looking at about 300 million people who are the number of people we count as international migrants. They are roughly about 3% of the global population, but they are 10% of the global GDP. Migrants are very productive people. If we were to look at them, we find a very wide cross-section of people in the migrants. They're long-term migrants who go and settle down. There are also others, like the Additional Secretary mentioned, who are in shorter-term mobility or in terms of circular mobility.

 

Very often, what we find is the issues of integration of migrant communities into the destination countries is very, very important, and something that doesn't always get its due role and importance. The drivers of migration have broadly remained the same. You have issues that are economic, social, environmental, political strife, wars, and now we have a new feature, which is what we call the future of jobs in the digital era, which also has become a new driver.

 

What we find is that within this particular construct, there are differing priorities between destination countries and source countries. Both need migrants, either to go or come, but their priorities are often different. So we have found from our experience, particularly in India and many other parts of the world, that we benefit when governance structures are integrated and aligned, and when migration policy proceeds with development policy. In other words, the integration of migration and development policy is very essential.

 

Globally, we have come to an understanding on the GCM or the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. It's aspirational, it's not binding, but I think the expectation is that we move towards greater coordination and capacity building. And also we have to recognize that there are new challenges as well as new protectionist walls that are coming about, which is one of the reasons why I think today's session is so pertinent.

 

In India, we do have a recognition of the idea of Pravasi, that is the person who lives overseas. And it encompasses two broad categories, NRIs who are citizens of India, as well as OCIs, EIOs, who have become citizens of another country. And therefore, as you can understand, the governance structures would be slightly different depending on whether they are citizens or not. The policy objectives that we have defined for ourselves in India is to improve the potential and capacity of the NRI. In other words, what we are trying to do is to upgrade their skill levels so that they can earn better, establish new pathways that there are continuity and new opportunities, and also to leverage something called the India factor.

 

And when we look at the Migration Mobility Partnership Agreements, this India factor has become an important one, the greatest democracy, the fastest growing economy, youthful population, these are all big factors. As the Additional Secretary had mentioned, our legal framework has largely been towards taking care of what we call the vulnerable workers, the low-skilled, semi-skilled workers. And for them, obviously, we try and go about skill mapping, upgrading their skill levels, certifying their skills. And also, as we said, migration platforms being integrated. And if it comes to the worst, we must have security and welfare measures so that they're not exploited in countries overseas.

 

But along with this, there is a new dimension, and I think the new legislation that is currently on the table is looking at that, is how do we facilitate the mobility of students? How do we provide smoother pathways for very highly qualified professionals? And the MMPs that I mentioned have worked on this, and the new generation FTAs, we've had about eight of them since COVID happened, have also got these particular aspects built into them.

 

As you can understand, a country that is deeply embedded with digital physical infrastructure, our approach has also been to have a digital citizen-centric e-governance approach. So the kind of modifications that you've seen through Passport Seva to give you a secure identity, or the eMigrate process, which looks at the guarantees and transparency for workers who are going overseas to work, and the new immigration bill, there is a lot more that we can do today, but we have to recognize that the Indian worker is much more empowered and demands governance.

 

I'm so happy that we have with us a very outstanding panel to discuss all these issues. We have Dr. Rakesh Ranjan from the Institute of Human Rights and Business, Arindam Banerjee from the Policy and Development Advisory Group, and online, I hope you're online, Professor Binod Khadria from the Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism. And finally, we have Professor Divya Balan from the Flame University in Pune.

 

What we've thought is that we would have about 10 to 12 minutes of presentations initially, we would have a small discussion, and then we throw it up to the audience for your comments so that we can have a fruitful discussion.

 

May I invite Dr. Rakesh to begin his presentation.

 

Rakesh Ranjan: Thank you, sir. First, I'd like to thank ICWA for the invitation. This is actually a very important time to discuss this very important issue. Migrant workers, wherever they are, and whoever they are, they are the responsibility of someone. And government and the state has to take the responsibility. And government and state has to take the responsibility of not just workers, but the process and all the stakeholders.

 

I work with an organization called Institute for Human Rights and Business. We work on the intersection of business and human rights. In 2012, I'll quickly go back for a moment. We developed something called DACA principle for migration with dignity. DACA principle is a cycle. It has 10 principles and two core principles. A very first principle of DACA principle is no workers would pay for the job. And this is where we do lots of work around zero recruitment cost.

 

Our very important initiative is we developed something called employer pay space. Employer pay principle is no workers would pay for the job. The cost of recruitment should not be borne by the worker, but by the employer. Now, today, in front of this important gathering, I will be very specific. I'll focus on only one slightly improvable legal aspect, which if government can do, will be very helpful for a number of migrant workers.

 

To start with, I just wanted to quote, India cannot fully promote safe and orderly migration while workers are still expected to bear the cost of migration. This recruitment cost, the process of recruitment cost, process of paying money to get recruited for the job is a serious administrative responsibility of the government. India has been very successful with the migration. We received more than 100 billion of remittances and this is 2.8% of GDP. Sometime it goes to 3% of GDP also. I have also seen this is like for some year it was 4% of GDP.

 

This 1.2 billion remittances and this, how many people are there? I was looking at eMigrate data. More than 8 million workers have received immigration clearances. There are more than 2,358 active recruitment agencies and very specific, very important to note, 2,93,738 foreign employers are registered with emigrant. I am intentionally quoting these numbers to highlight how important Indians are for the world. There's Indians, there are two ways. So usually when we discuss about migration, we consider migration is sometimes very much desperate need.

 

But at the same time, people are getting recruited because their skills, their requirements, their need is very much urgent and there is a demand for workers. While coming for this session, coming for this discussion, I was listening to a podcast by Sophia Kangan. She is from ILO. She is a Chief Technical Officer of ILO. She mentioned two very important technological innovations by governments. South Korea has EPS and Indian government has eMigrate. She only mentioned these two very important initiatives. And this eMigrate has been one of the most important technological innovation of Indian government.

 

So I'm saying India has been proactive. India gave a slogan called "Surakshit Jaye Prashikshit Jaye" which is one of the very most important safe migration and orderly migration. India had Additional Secretary just mentioned about Immigration Act 1983. I would like to highlight a very specific rule under Immigration Act, which says every recruitment agency can charge up to INR 30,000 in order to recruit a worker. A worker is supposed to pay up to INR 30,000. Now, this INR 30,000, for me, has created a legal space for problems, for corruption, for vulnerability for a worker.

 

I'd like you to think a bit on this particular issue. Recruitment cost is just not a fee. This creates a huge cycle of vulnerability. INR 30,000 is always not INR 30,000. So if I'll go to an agency for employment, they'll tell very simple thing. They'll say, okay, INR 30,000, because government has allowed me to take INR 30,000. Now, INR 30,000 plus flight ticket, plus visa, plus healthcare, plus legal documentation fee, plus digital technological uploading document on eMigrate, plus your local logistic, plus supporting you and doing all the things. So this INR 30,000, most frequently get converted into INR 3 lakh, INR 2 lakh at least. This I know from my own experience.

 

And INR 2 lakh from a migrant worker, which also create, like, usually they take loan. And I know most of these loans are coming from informal moneylenders, which also creates vulnerability for them. This is a kind of continuous economic threat. And just think about, like, we all can add-on on this particular vulnerability issue. Healthcare, education, empowerment, elderly care, family requirements, house, marriages, a number of things are being affected because the very small loophole we have kept in the process. India is a signatory of Global Compact for Migration. GCM-6 talks about recruitment and decent work.

 

There will be International Migration Review Forum on 5th and 8th, May 2026, and then after two months. This is something we'll have to respond. And this is something, and why I am discussing this now, I could have taken any… there are a number of other issues we could have discussed here. And we'll be discussing, the other panelists will be taking other issues also. But I think this particular issue becomes more important because we are about to enact a bill called Overseas Mobility Facilitation and Welfare Bill 2025.

 

We have recently signed FTA with Europe. Intentionally, we have left labor and environment out of the focus of the FTA. Okay, that's perfectly all right. But I know a number of companies will be trying to do business in India. And many of these companies have to have a certain obligation. They do have to follow international supplier code of conduct and human rights policy. In order to do better business, they will have to ensure that no worker is paying the fee. So what I'm trying to draw here, I'm trying to draw a complete cycle of vulnerability because this particular small gap in the process is also creating problem for businesses to do better business in India, for migrant workers to get better, safe, and protected migration.

 

And again, we have to also think about international standards like ILO, Fair Recruitment Policy, Employer-Based Principle. These international codes have been asking us to make the changes. And this is not just about India. I know we are far better than most of our competing countries, like even Nepal, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, and others. But still, this kind of small thing can make the change.

 

And to conclude with, intentionally, I wanted to add gender aspect also in this. Migrant workers, India is a, sorry to say, but pretty much patriarchal society. When someone has to migrate, and if you have to finance your own migration, often male members usually afford that expenses. Female workers, female prospective migrant workers are usually get delineated, sidelined, because there is only one person can be… like you can only take debt for one person. Because of these small things. So gender is one of the aspects. We can take into consideration a number of different issues, different institutions getting affected because this small, very little, and easily changeable thing.

 

So, this will be my submission from this test, from my speech today. Think about changing this. Zero-fee policy is not a very difficult thing to do. We should do, and government's role is only to make the changes. Very simple, recruitment cost is a business cost, and should be paid by the business. So workers will not be paying. Recruiters will not be paying. No charity or NGO will be paying. Only business supposed to pay. And that should be the idea behind the change and I'll request government, last line, just to conclude here. We have to ensure that a worker should leave India with a contract and protection, not with debt. Thank you.

 

Sanjay Bhattacharyya: Thank you. Dr. Ranjan, that was a very powerful statement about the costs part of it. In fact, you're right, there is a move for fair labor ethical recruitment, and these are items that need to be taken on board. And I do hope that the new legislation when it comes about will provide for rules that can incorporate these concerns. They have been there for a long time. And thank you for highlighting this because a lot of the irregular movements also are victims of such unnecessary costs. If I may say. Thank you.

 

If I may now move to Arindam Banerjee to make your presentation.

 

Arindam Banerjee: Hi, audible, I guess. Presentation is up on the screen. Yeah. Okay, well, I think, I have a kind of, I would not say a presentation per se, but these are just mere thoughts and some visuals that go with it. And before I move in, firstly, I think, thank you, Additional Secretary and the resource director, Yashna and Kishle for actually facilitating what I believe is not only a timely, but something that's going to govern a lot of lives and policy matters in the near future and the coming future.

 

I guess, my previous panelist, Rakeshji, you mentioned about remittances, and I'll begin with a very small number. I mean, it's a large number, but it's actually very small. We have 17 million Indian workers abroad contributing to $135 billion, accounting for three to 4% of the GDP. But if you look at the per capita contribution in terms of remittance, it's actually lower than that of Vietnam and Cambodia and Philippines. And that's from the World Migration Report 2025 by World Bank, which is the most seminal one in terms of looking at migration and its impacts and effects on families back at the houses and households.

 

On that note, I think I'll begin. And I think there's a line there that we feel at PDAG work has showcased that migration cannot be treated as a fragmented kind of an isolated viewpoint, but it requires a very significant integrated, coordinated public approach and an institutional approach for that matter. Again, we need to redefine and reframe the idea of migration governance is what I would hypothesize here. It is not just a technical and an administrative issue. It's also political and institutional in nature.

 

Migration governance has to define and determine who is visible to the idea of the state and the state as an institution. It shapes who is protected and who bears the risks of migration. It reveals where accountability actually sits, with whom lies the power, with whom lies the redressal capacity. It also tests whether our public institutions, over these years are also at pace with mobility at large. And the real issue is also not whether migration governance and its kind of tenets are there in place, but whether the institutions will keep pace with what Professor Bhattacharyya already mentioned, a very focused, aspirational approach around human mobility that we are already seeing. And I think it's going to just increase in a multifold and a manifold pathway ahead.

 

And what is broken today, again, I think everyone in this room, including the stalwarts sitting around, we have all worked on multiple strands around some of these things. But just to kind of bring it together on one table, what we have is a very fragmented institutional approach. Everyone's intent is brilliant. But then if you look at it, mandates are split across so many sectoral ministries, so many sectoral thematic spaces, as well as the center and the state. And lest we forget, labor is a concurrent subject, while overseas affairs is an union subject. And we see a confluence between the both.

 

So whether it's labor, it's MEA, it's skilling, it's education, it's social welfare, and to the point, the panchayats and even the districts. So institutions do not start and begin here with MEA or maybe ICWA or with the state government. We are looking at households. And the lowest unit is also the PRI. But are they part of this discourse on migration governance? Probably not. Then the administrative visibility. States are not aware. And the biggest example, I think, is a watershed moment in India's history, which was COVID-19 exactly six years back today, where we never knew who moved, where they moved, how they moved, for what work they moved, in what conditions they are in, and under what terms they can always return.

 

Then opaque intermediation. My previous panelist also mentioned about recruitment. And any form of recruitment, even a small service delivery in this country, irrespective of all the efforts, benevolent efforts, well-meant efforts, will create a sense of intermediary that we have. And it's a sheer demographic base, the denominator that creates that. Because our public service institutions with such brilliant individuals around still do not have that capacity and that number to deal with such a huge volume of applications, such huge volume of service delivery at any given point of time.

 

So it's easy to compare to European standards and then kind of pontificate on the fact that why are we not there. But the fact is, it's also limited. And then therefore, it will always give rise to recruitment agents, consultants. It will give rise to sub-agents. But we need to understand how to bring them into the fold rather than kind of making it a cautionary progressive and a kind of restrictive approach. Then we grievance kind of mechanisms. And it's an example I always give. Yesterday or tomorrow or today, one of us in this room, people like all of us, if we lose our passport in the streets of Rome, which is now happening very regularly, we know that the embassy is there.

 

We go and just apply for the pink slip and the white slip and get an immediate kind of a note. It will take two days. It will require us to submit an online application. And we'll get it. But 35 care workers in London from the tribal villages of Ambikapur in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Orissa are stuck in one house in Southall in London for the last five years. And the Indian High Commission, in spite of the best efforts, have been unable to redress what their grievances are. So it's not a fault. But the fact is it's also how class and caste operate in all our institutional hierarchies.

 

And I'm talking of an example which I encountered just a month back in London. And then public trust deficit. We are speaking of governance at the center of migration as a paradigm. And that's what we are looking at it today. But then who is the government for? We are a welfare state at the end of the day. When you speak of public policy, then where is the public in that policy? If the state does not provide that infrastructure, there will always be a gap. And no gap is ever left unfulfilled in any forms of economic paradigm.

 

So then we should not be complaining about non-state actors, private bodies kind of coming in and trying to fill that vacuum. What you see on the left-hand side of the screen are two pictures that shows how state as an institution can be empathetic, can be equitable, can be accountable, can be institutional, and can also maintain evidence with it. The first picture on your left is a photo of 85 workers from the Santhal Parganas of Jharkhand and West Bengal who were evacuated on 28th of May from the high treacherous passes of Zozila in Kargil by the state government of Jharkhand through an airlift mission, which continued for four days.

 

So if the state wants, it can. And it is at the end of the day, the workers who are working on a state project, which is nothing but road projects of the Border Roads Organization. And what we see below is that one of the workers from those queued up actually interacting with the chief minister who was there on that day at the airport to receive those workers. So again, an example of what state can actually do. If it keeps public, if it keeps people, and if it keeps institutional capacity at the core of its belongingness. And what we are looking at is what? Origin systems, registries, mobility data, pre-departure orientation.

 

If you look at all the points here, we actually have a policy and a scheme for everything. Yet we are harping, yet we are discussing, yet we're debating. So somewhere down the line, there's a lot of gap between the cup and the lip. And that gap also comes because we collectively, institutions, think tanks, private sector entities, businesses, we are not working to strengthen the institutional framework that's already there, we are working around it. And I believe that's one core area migration particularly needs that approach, which is a coordinated approach rather than a fragmented and a silos approach.

 

Our work and our evidence over the last six years literally showcase exactly the same thing. 2020, COVID was a moment of governance rupture in our entire migration history. No other event other than the partition of India actually showcased crores of people walking back on those roads, lest we forget, six years back. And I think most of us have forgotten. And it's not our fault, because migrant workers have never mattered. Yet, our economic trajectory and the journey towards 2047 cannot be completed if we are not acknowledging those who are building our ports, our roads, and our industrial corridors, and everything that accounts, and including our defense corridors and our defense borders and roads.

 

And when we speak of safe and responsible migration, there is also a way to understand how does it get operationalized. It is easier said than done. In the history of Indian bureaucracy and its public sector governance, labor ministry or labor departments in all states have always been given the mandate to look at it from a regulatory approach, never from a welfarist approach. So it's easy to blame, saying that, "are kya kar rahe log, officers kyu nahi dekh rahe." But you have been trained to operate where you are going to check licenses. But you are not trained to operate to understand that, okay, how many workers are actually receiving welfare benefits.

 

So that's also one of the things that need to be taken into account, that how does our institutions focus more on welfare rather than just on the regulatory approach. And that also includes the new bill that is up. And most of the things that the bill gets right has already been mentioned, I think, by Professor Bhattacharyya and my previous panelist here. But also, in case some of you are interested, we were part of a few of the states who asked us to kind of share some of the inputs in terms of what they sent back to MEA in terms of some of the comments.

 

And what has been given up is that states need to be also very integrally part of this new bill. It cannot be just an implementation approach where states are given the mandate to do things. Because at the end, again, as I mentioned, labor is a concurrent subject. Overseas is an union subject. There needs to be a marriage between the two. And we are talking of cooperative federalism, left, right, and center throughout. And for that to come into practice, we need to have that accountability and onus even on the states, because they need to be well-capacitated. MEA cannot do everything. MOL cannot do everything.

 

Five messages to leave the room. I know Professor has already marked a minute. Migration governance has to be institutional, not reactive, and not episodic. We cannot react to just one episode like a COVID. Safe mobility has to begin with visibility first. People are people. People are not numbers. They are not mere footnotes. Intermediation must be formalized in whatever transparency can accommodate them. And the bill is an important beginning, but it has to be operational, federal, and worker-centric.

 

And for that, people need to work with states as consortiums, as collectives, rather than waiting to just see the state function out of it. And at the end, government means government in service of migrant dignity and informed choice, because at the end, it's a choice of people as additional secretary, very aptly put it together. And I'll end by saying that when we speak of skilled mobility and migration, what we are also looking at is an emerging future, a resilient future, and an inclusive future. Thank you.

 

Sanjay Bhattacharyya: Thank you, Arindam. That was a very persuasive argument. And I think the additional feature that comes in to the discussion is the relationship between internal migration and international migration. I think most of us in ICWA and the Ministry of External Affairs have been looking at the aspects of international migration and what we need to do about it and the governance structures for that. But I think you've highlighted a very important point about what can be the interrelationship between it.

 

One of the things that does happen today in a larger way than before is that we are moving towards evidence-based policy structures. If you were to look at this interrelationship, what are the kinds of data that you think would be necessary?

 

Arindam Banerjee: Do you want me to come in? Yeah, I think I'm all good. So on this, I think there are, one is the profile and flow data. When you're speaking of data, we need to also understand there's a difference between data and there's a difference between evidence. We have lots of data, but do we have evidence? Do we actually know where is that $135 billion flowing in? We know of the macro number. What is it getting used at? How much of it is getting invested? How can states in their own capacities and private sector kind of feed into that remittance economy?

 

I'm talking mostly in terms of international migration. Do we even know what are the skill clusters that are unknowingly getting formed just because kinship networks tend to and adhere to taking people from the same region with similar skill sets. That's why very often we say, "Yaar, that's Cook, he must be from Orissa." It's not a construct. It's also because we have seen that. "Okay, he's a plumber, he must be from Bihar, he must be from Muzaffarpur." And we have seen that. While working with the government of Jharkhand to institutionalize the entire approach, we have seen how internal migration around skill clusters, because it was well mapped from a particular region, which is near Bokaro, moved to international to Gulf, because there was a need for electrical transmission lines construction.

 

And thus, a skill cluster was identified that nearly 7 out of 20 people in that area, based on a state migration survey, which obviously last week got also quoted in the state economic survey, that are into electrics and electronics related work. Now, if the evidence was not generated, how would a state get to know what are my skill clusters? We are still then kind of troubling in the dark. Then corridor data, when we're speaking of corridors, we are speaking of Germany and India as a corridor, Germany and India as a corridor, great strategic partnerships, MMPs. How many states actually have people who are moving into Germany over here?

 

Sitting in this room today, do we actually have a sense? Probably no. We need to immediately look around multiple sources, and each source has a conflicting data. And yet, we look at Germany, because we recently worked with the EU, ILO kind of work to prepare a country brief for over a year. My colleague, Bhargavi, was doing that work. Fantastic data sets in Germany, which is openly accessible. We got to know more about each province in Germany hosting Indians than what we can actually look at Indian provinces and states having data going to Germany.

 

Sanjay Bhattacharyya: I think that's a very important point, because we need data. We need reliable data. The migration surveys have been done for very few states of India. And we probably need to encourage every state that sends migrants out to look into that. We now move to the next panelist. Professor Binod Khadria has done a lot of work in this area. Professor, if you're online, can we invite you to come on?

 

Binod Khadria: Thank you. As I said, Sanjay Bhattacharya. Am I audible?

 

Sanjay Bhattacharyya: Yes, you are. Please continue. Thank you. You have about 10 minutes.

 

Binod Khadria: 10 minutes. I know, because two minutes have been cut. And that is not a problem, because my predecessors, my previous two speakers, Ranjan and Mr. Bhattacharyya, Banerjee, have addressed very important issues. And you have also finally said about data, which is objective number one of the GCM. And we don't have to repeat those issues. But both the speakers have very importantly addressed the nuts and bolts of migration issue in the country in terms of governance at the ground level.

 

And I think it was Nutan Kapoor, Additional Secretary, has also mentioned that our entire focus in governance has been with respect to what Peter Drucker classification, if I take between knowledge workers and service workers, it is focused on service workers. We have not done much on the knowledge workers and students, which includes the students, the professionals, as well as the students. So if we look at this part, then this part is completely out of the purview.

 

Before going into that, let me just mention that why is India's comparative advantage? I want to say that placing government at the center of the framework would require serious and meaningful introspection on India's comparative advantage, where the government is already playing a decisively major role and where it is not. So it is already clear that it is playing a major role in the case of the unskilled and the medium-skilled workers going abroad. And then there are problems there. Both the speakers have highlighted that.

 

And that is the comparative advantage. At the root of the comparative advantage is India's large population. India's large population, and then added to that is the demographic dividend, which is the age structural change that we got in the 2001 census. So I'm not going into the details of that. That's more or less taken for public knowledge now. But we also need to add to this the segmented higher education sector. We have a very large higher education sector, which actually feeds into formation of highly skilled population, which is actually a large part of the 17 million that Arindam had mentioned is comprised of that. I'm not going into those data and statistics again.

 

But I would like to say that Indian government's focus in terms of playing a central role so far has been to do with the service workers. And that's where if we take the three phases of protection and then welfare, I think we have more or less succeeded in providing the protection. There are so many schemes that have been mentioned. But I'm made to think by Arindam's comment that we have not succeeded even in welfare. But the third phase, we have not even touched development, development of the migrant community itself, including the disprivileged and the highly privileged. The middle class has been the privileged one, but the lower middle class has not been.

 

Now, why this has happened? This has happened because this paradox, and I call it a paradox, is not true in the case of migration of knowledge workers, the highly skilled workers. There's no question of protection because they can protect themselves. They can take care of their own welfare. And in terms of development, their own profile development, they already have higher profiles. And that's why they have been able to occupy that space in the global labor market of professionals and even students as future workers.

 

This has been left to lazy fare. This is left to the market forces, to the global labor market. And Indian government does not have much or not played that role, which it could have. What has happened as a result, we need to go back a little bit into modern history that this lazy fare has come through some paradigm shifts. This is not the first time that we are facing the paradigm shift. There were paradigm shifts starting with independence when following the independence period, we found that our immigration regime are very restrictive, regulatory.

 

Actually we should remember that the whole issue of large scale migration of doctors actually brought in the issue of brain drain and large scale migration of doctors to United Kingdom. And then that was because that was to fill the gaps of the British labour market in terms of their own doctors migrating to the United States. That was the beginning of the brain drain discourse. We cannot forget about that. What has happened, we have been made to forget the brain drain because it was by design that we were tried to first be persuaded that remittance is brain gain. Remittance is the compensation. That was migrants' money. That was not the money given by the destination countries.

 

So there are those issues whereby this whole discourse has been hijacked from brain drain to brain gain in terms of people coming back. When do they come back? They come back when they are no longer in the labor market. They are retired people who want to come back. I'm not going into those details, but let me say that this doctor's migration was followed by the engineers' migration from IIT because they did not get jobs in India. The IIT engineers actually provided the human capital to NASA because they were given further education and engineers were turned into scientists.

 

So those histories cannot be forgotten in terms of if the government has not played a role in the case of knowledge workers as much as it has played in the case of service workers. When did the next paradigm shift? Because when the brain drain discourse was going on, the migrants were made to feel guilty. They were called deserters of the motherland. They were called the… there were names being called to them. And that's why in 1977, Jagdish Bhagwati, you all know about him, our noted economist who is equally eligible to have gotten a Nobel Prize but didn't.

 

Amartya Sen did get his contemporary. He proposed this brain drain tax and in Bellagio, there was a conference in 1977. This was a unique conference of comprising economists and jurists. M. Partington was the jurist representative. They proposed this to the United Nations that 10% of the earnings of the Indian migrants, should have a surcharge and that should be remitted back to India for investment in education because it was the subsidies which were lost by brain drain because Indian higher education system has been subsidized by the taxpayers' money.

 

And then the recipient country, the destination country should give a matching contribution to that. It did not take off because of the United Nations did not ratify this. There were problems of intergovernmental territory jurisdiction and so on. Again, I'm not going into the details of that, but I must say that at the same time, in the same year, 1977, the perspective, the perception about being the deserters of the motherland changed. It is the Janata government who came to power in India and that they started shaking hands with the diaspora, with the Indian diaspora.

 

Earlier, the Indian diaspora were highly disappointed because they had aspirations that when India gets freedom to look after their interests. But Indian policy of non-interference, non-aligned movement actually the Indian government distanced itself from the diaspora and that changed in 1977. That was the turning point. And that was because we started celebrating the diaspora because they had high incomes, they were the top of the rank, some of them got the Nobel Prize and brought laurels to the country. So, that's the beginning of celebrating the diaspora.

 

This is the background of the 1983 legislation, the last Migration Act which was being referred to. So, we find that the next subsequent government did not revert back. It called brain drain as brain bank, that you can rely on this at the time of crisis and then, of course, that question, the issue of the destination countries hijacked that and brought in the terminology of brain gain which is questionable.

 

It was Atal Bihari Bhai Vajpayee's government in 1999 that they set up the high-level committee on the Indian diaspora, which took a stock of the total number of 20 million Indians spread over as NRIs or as PIOs as you have mentioned in different countries. These were guesstimates, but that was the beginning which was important for putting the government in the central place. That was the beginning of that and that's when we got the Pravasi. You mentioned the term Pravasi. Pravasi Bharatiya Divas was started in 2003. I was a member of a subcommittee.

 

I was a member of a subcommittee of the high-level committee and I was also at the MOIA that you mentioned that came up in 2004. I was also very closely associated because they constructed an academic committee.

 

Sanjay Bhattacharyya: Professor, can we request you to try and wind up?

 

Binod Khadria: Yeah, I wind up. I will just say the last word. I will say that the MOIA was finally 10 years ago, 12 years ago, it was brought into the fold of the MEA and then it has been doing all that work but MOIA was mainly focused on service workers in terms of these policies that have been in place. So what we have is that particularly to the Gulf countries and West Asia, I would like to say that we are at a juncture where the case of the knowledge workers, particularly professionals and students also it was the OCI 2006, Overseas Citizenship of India was launched. Why? It was launched to bring the diaspora capital to India to attract them but it boomeranged. It did not.

 

I anticipated in 2006 Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in Hyderabad. The prime minister was there and I said that this is not going to bring investment into India. What would happen? Indians would become foreigners. They gave up Indian citizenship, took OCI and became Americans, naturalized citizens of India. So they distanced further. They were not under the jurisdiction of the Indian government anymore. The NRI term was only for the purpose of income tax, income tax that whether you are a resident Indian or a non-resident Indian.

 

So I will just wind up here to say that where does this come from? The development part is lost. The lazy fairy, high-skilled migrants invest their own money in education, the subsidized education. Okay, supply part is subsidized but there are also parts which are borne by the parents, borne by themselves, borne by the banks and so on. So that investment is not reaching to the service workers and that's why they are equally vulnerable and they continue to be vulnerable. This kind of the alignment that we are talking about, a holistic migration policy would require that we equip them, provide them the access to education and health because today you will be surprised that although we have 140 billion remittances coming, but the per capita, Arindam mentioned about per capita, the per capita productivity, I'm sorry to say, we are at the bottom of the league of all countries in terms of per capita, per hour, purchasing power, parity dollar, product contribution to India's GDP. Thank you.

 

Sanjay Bhattacharyya: Thank you. Professor, I think you've made several very, very important points and please don't go away because we'll come back to you at the end. The importance of the knowledge sector, now that as you've said, we've dealt with the vulnerable sections, we need to focus on the knowledge sector in terms of our immigration policy and this overall development focus, which is very necessary. A migration policy without a development link is a meaningless policy. So we need to have the two going hand in hand.

 

I now move to Professor Divya Balan. The floor is yours.

 

Divya Balan: Thank you, chair. Good afternoon, everyone. And I thank ICWA Regional Secretary, Mrs. Kapoor, Yashna, Kishle, for this opportunity to contribute to this very critical discussion. In the context of what my previous speakers have elaborated and also building upon what Mr. Arindam has especially talked about, the confluence of center and state. In my intervention, I would like to focus on the state, especially state as the, I would say, the first responder to migration. And my proposition for today's conversation is basically the migration governance in India cannot remain overly centralized, especially when migration itself is very deeply decentralized in its social origin.

 

I'm slightly moving from policy and remittances and all of those conversation to also social in relation to migration and what determines and how migration is being experienced is what I'm trying to look at also from a very subnational state-centric view. And if we look very closely at patterns of international migration from India, we see that it's not uniform across the country. It's already been mentioned by my previous speakers. There are regional specificities that we could see. I mean, migration patterns across states differ significantly in terms of, for instance, state-level historical migration traditions, regional development trajectories or labor markets for that matter, socio-cultural networks, gender norms, educational systems, recruitment infrastructure, state-level institutional and welfare arrangements. I can go on and on.

 

If you again think about India as a whole, some states have very long-standing migration traditions that have normalized migration as a livelihood strategy. For instance, migration to the Gulf since the 1970s oil boom, for instance, have produced a very powerful migration culture in Kerala where overseas employment has become widely and popularly accepted as a pathway to household mobility and social advancement. I myself is from Kerala and throughout my time, especially as a student and later after my studies, there was a lot of pressure on me to migrate and many of my relatives still don't understand, why I'm still in India even though I'm not in Kerala but in Pune but why not in Gulf or any other popular Malayali destinations.

 

So, sometimes it's also this migration culture of the states that we are looking at. Same is the case with if you think about Punjab or Gujarat where colonial time migration that has happened to East Africa, UK, Canada where created a very established diaspora network in these places which continues to shape migration trajectories from these regions even today. So, the point I'm trying to make is migration in the sense is socially embedded and often intergenerational, which produces these different aspirational cultures of global mobility but within these particular subnational communities. You can't really kind of generalize India as one single unit of migration.

 

And also as my previous speakers have mentioned migration systems in India are highly strongly network driven. It's kinship, caste, village, religious network, you name it, you think about it. Also, the case of gender regimes that shape certain sectors and destinations. For instance, if you look at Tamil Nadu and Telangana, women from these states have migrated to Gulf largely into domestic work sectors. So, sometimes, these have connections as well. So, all these subnational factors and features shapes who migrates, where they migrate, through which channel they migrate, and under what conditions they migrate.

 

The first and the broader point that I would like to make is international migration from India is not a single national phenomenon. It is a set of distinct subnational migration systems. It is fundamentally state-centric, community-centric, and hence, migration governance cannot be designed primarily as a centralized, one-size-fits-all national framework, which you will see that tendency in 1983 Act, which you will also see the same tendencies in the bill that has been proposed, the 2025 bill. And this is where my submission that states governments should also be recognized as or rather recognized as frontline actors in managing the migration processes from the country.

 

However, as earlier mentioned, we have the central and concurrent list set up that is there in managing migration. So I mean if you look at this entry '19 of union list which is international treaties or visas, passports, emigration and entry '23-24 of concurrent list, which is labor and social security. In the first glance, this division appears to be administratively logical. In practice, it actually produces structures that kind of disconnects in the migration framework that we are having. And because of this governance mismatch, especially since migration is socially organized at the subnational level or the state level, but the larger governance architecture that we are looking at remains largely centralized. It is administratively fragmented and reactive and episodical rather than coordinated and proactive.

 

So this very fact also calls for a greater decentralization and stronger institutional roles for state governments within India's migration framework. The state government must be recognized as I have mentioned earlier as frontline actors not merely as welfare providers, which is what is I think largely the approach right now. There are some responsibilities but it's mostly responsibility of providing welfare to the migrants and the returnees. But what my submission is to consider states as active participants in shaping migration system by giving greater mandate for maybe data generation, ethical recruitment oversight, migration protection and welfare which they are already doing and also return and reintegration.

 

And also all of this requires greater coordination among centers, state, local governments. To kind of make it much more clearer to all of us, I look at the state of Kerala and the institutional mechanism that the state is having and also looking at two scenarios which is currently at play. For instance, the data sharing and coordination between the regional POEs, protector of immigrants offices, that is very limited even in Kerala where a robust state-level migration infrastructure exists.

 

Also, in the case of Kerala, there is a problem of governance duplication because if you look at the functional relevance of the POEs have been significantly diluted as this institution NORKA, Non-Resident Keralite Affairs and there is an operational arm of NORKA which is NORKA Roots because they already perform many of the practical governance functions and general duties of the POE, which is mentioned in section four of 1983 Act. So there is a duplication here. There is a governance duplication that could see at a state where migration decentralization has actually happened or have strong migration infrastructure.

 

And when you look at from a very practical point of view, as I have mentioned, you could see that, migration is very highly institutionalized in the state of Kerala. And NORKA is actually often more responsive and accessible than the Central Immigration Bureaucracy. And even NORKA interacts far more closely with migrants and families than the POE offices. Basically, these institutions of the state are embedded within the local migration ecosystems of these longstanding migration corridors to the Gulf and the OECD countries. There is a very strong Malayalee diaspora ecosystem, which is there. NORKA has extensive operational capacity.

 

While if you look at the POE offices, that tend to operate more as a procedural clearance points that proactive migration managers. So you see this mismatch here. And if you also look at the 2025 Bill Overseas Mobility Facilitation and Welfare Bill, the bill says that…

 

Sanjay Bhattacharyya: Divya, can I request you to start winding up your conclusion?

 

Divya Balan: Sure, sure. So you could see that the POE system will be replaced by these regional overseas mobility offices. There is a proposal for mobility resource center as well. But at the same time, the bill retains highly centralized governance model, where I think if the state has given a lot more mandate, Kerala is a model here in that sense. And if the rest of the states, because what has happened in Kerala, since I would say 1960s, is actually is going to happen in UP, Bihar and other newer emergence to the corridor of India Gulf.

 

So this is kind of like you could very confidently say that if we strengthen the state governance system, and when I say state governance system, let me also add the panchayat, local governance systems as well, would be then spaces for policy innovation and experimentation. And Kerala has this local Kerala Sabha. If I get more time at some point, at the interaction or Q&A, I'll explain that as well. But this I think is the way forward, because also where the migration is happening from, it's from the origin. And the origin is it's our villages and the towns and the cities. So strengthen the local governance system and the state system is what is my humble request and submission to this forum. Thank you so much for listening.

 

Sanjay Bhattacharyya: Thank you, Divya. I think that was a very important point that you've made. And increasingly there is a discussion and debate that's ongoing about what it's sometimes called paranationalism or regional governance structures. And in fact, NORKA has been doing remarkable work for the migrants from Kerala. It has been, in a sense, a trendsetter NRI divisions and departments have been set up in several other state governments as well. And what we do find is that there is a lot of capacity building that can be done in terms of greater consultation between state governments and the central government.

 

At the end of the day, given the constitution that we have, the negotiations that you have for having migration pathways or improving potential for your migrants to various countries, and I'm talking of international migration, will not happen through state governments in our system. And so those negotiations will have to be done by the central government. But what I think Divya has pointed out is there's probably much greater need and scope for consultations between the central and the state government. And I think that is a very important takeaway. Please don't go away Divya and Binod, because I think we are now opening up for questions. So please identify yourself and you'll have just 30 seconds to give your question and please say who the question is addressed to. Yeah. The lady here first. The lady was raising the point.

 

Unidentified Participant: Thank you for that interesting discussion. My question is for any of the panelists who can answer. So I wanted to understand your perspective on the rising anti-immigration narratives that are going around the world. So how can Indian government set a better discourse dealing with this context and situation? Thank you.

 

Sanjay Bhattacharyya: There are rising protectionist walls. Yes, please.

 

Deepak Maheshwari: Deepak Maheshwari, Senior Policy Advisor at CSEP. So my question is to Divya, in terms of the state should have a role, proactive role, for example, right now, however, would the state also pick up part of the tab for bringing people back, for example, in this type of crisis? Thank you.

 

Sanjay Bhattacharyya: The back over there.

 

Abhishek Gaur: Good evening to the respective chair and esteemed panelists. So my name is Abhishek Gaur and my question is that in the light of recent India-Finland mobility agreement and given the experience in overseas Indian affairs, so how is the Indian government ensuring this high-level facts translate into tangible passport power and a seamless digitized visa experience for the Indian professionals who are abroad or here, both.

 

Sanjay Bhattacharyya: I get your point. Who is that question to?

 

Abhishek Gaur: To you.

 

Sanjay Bhattacharyya: Oh, I'm not a panelist, but I'll take that.

 

Abhishek Gaur: Thank you so much, sir. One last one over here. Yeah.

 

Azra Shahab: Good evening. My name is Azra. I'm a research intern at the council. My question is directed to any of the panelists they can answer. India's global mobility strategy, it often focuses on high-skilled migration such as IT professionals and students, while a large proportion of Indian migrants abroad are low-skilled laborers. So my question is how can policy ensure that migration governance does not privilege skilled mobility while neglecting vulnerable labor migrants?

 

Sanjay Bhattacharyya: Right. Just one last question, then we'll move to the panelists.

 

Amba Pandey: Thank you. I'm Amba Pandey. I just have a small comment to make. I completely agree that this is not the first time that we are witnessing paradigm shift. What we have written in our research papers and what we teach to students, I have divided four phases for where we can see the paradigm shift. Now I will add the fifth phase now. My only problem is that we are concentrating more on mobility rather than migration as a full package, where the welfare of migrants at the destination countries, the destination also matters. So we are not fully addressing that issue.

 

And I also agree with the fact that migration culture plays a very important role as far as migration is concerned, whether it is internal and international. But one strange phenomenon that I have witnessed is that both UP and Bihar has the migration culture, but both the governments are not in the forefront as far as migration management and the welfare of migrants are concerned. This is quite a strange thing that I have witnessed. Kerala has that, I really appreciate. So these are two, three things that I observed and…

 

Sanjay Bhattacharyya: I'll just make a comment on that. I think there are many other state governments which are also very active about their NRIs, but it's not so publicized. So I think what we'll do now is, with your permission, we might spill over a little bit and I'll ask all the panelists to come in one by one. May I start with Professor Khadria out in DC, perhaps? If you could come in with your comments, maybe about two minutes.

 

Binod Khadria: Yes. No, I think all the questions have generic answers, they are very broad questions in terms of accepting those which are related to particular state government functions. But what I will say, there was one question on which was, I think, asked to you, is about the passport versus the visa, passport regime and the visa regime. Now passport is a national, the origin country's regime, a domain, whereas the visas are of the destination country.

 

Now, the visa issue is a hot potato. It is never discussed in the multilateral negotiations. It is shrouded under sovereignty. Don't touch it. This is not your business. That's the approach that is being taken. Now, I have been arguing in the United Nations, in GCM, in the second debate, I was the thematic expert. And I said, GCM for SOR, safe, orderly, and regular migration. Now, I asked the question, what is that orderly thing? Tongue in cheek, I asked that question. And it was said that orderly means this is not disorderly. And everybody laughed, that was the answer we got from one of the member states.

 

Now, you see, you don't expect migration flows to be orderly, like regimented, like troops coming in marching, and so on, it would remain disorderly. Now, it is the role of the government. And that is, I think, the onus lies on the visa-granting countries. The visas, there are so many visas, it's a money minting business. We talk about agents and recruitment agents, but you look at the agents who manage the visas, and there are airport visas. One time I asked I was coming from Singapore to Washington, DC, changing in Paris, and I had to buy the French visa. And I asked the consular, why do I have to keep he was very honest. He said, we want your money, sir. So that's the kind of sense.

 

Sanjay Bhattacharyya: That's a very interesting personal experience as well. If I just add over there to what Professor was adding, if you look at the new generation FTAs that we've done with the European Union, the UK, with EFTA, these are Western countries, the elements of mode four of the WTO agreement have now been introduced into these FTAs. So there is a window, but as Professor said, correctly, it is still seen as a sovereign country aspect. May I move to Divya, please, for your comments before we come to the ones over here?

 

Divya Balan: Sure. Thank you. So I'll, I'll take up that question on return and repatriation by the state as well as why Kerala is slightly different from maybe other states. So I would say and I'll club the answer together. So, I mean, we could see that it isn't just that we are publicizing, the Kerala government is publicizing it better. It's also because we have evidence. So Kerala migration surveys have started sometime in 1990s. So we always have the data. And with data and evidences also comes clarity. So whenever there is a question on migration, the Kerala government and the institutional mechanism is very clear.

 

We know that in 182 countries, there are Malayalis and we have a rough figure as well. And this data is coming not only from the Kerala migration survey, but also from the NRK registrations, non-resident Keralite registrations that happen with NORKA. Because that is also attached to the welfare policies, insurance policies. There is a notion of policies that I would say, which is also functional. Now, all NRKs know about these policies. I won't say yes, but majority of the Malayalis know about it. Half of them are beneficiaries of it. So data plays a major role here.

 

And also, for instance, we recently have concluded this local Kerala Sabha, which is the fifth edition of it. And I was part of the Sabha as a delegate from Maharashtra. And I have firsthand witnessed how much these, and these aren't elite migrants that I'm talking about. I'm talking about construction workers and the plumbers and the, as we, in all skill levels for that matter. And when they are in the legislative assembly, having this conversation with the speaker and the chief minister and the MLAs and MPs of Kerala, the migrants themselves feel very empowered. And so that is also…

 

Sanjay Bhattacharyya: Thank you, Divya. I think you made the very important point over there. We'll move to the other panelists. Data is very critical. Thank you for pointing that out. We'll move to Arindam.

 

Arindam Banerjee: Yeah. I think one of the colleagues here mentioned about the skilled mobility vis-a-vis the low skilled kind of workers and why there's a kind of a differentiation approach towards it. I think, see, it also starts from the internal migration and then it moves to international migration. So no one actually begins directly by going internationally. Unless the exception, obviously, which is Kerala during the Gulf, most of the other states over the past couple of decades, if they've had clusters and corridors of international mobility, the workers have begun internally. And here the role of re-skilling also is paramount and important.

 

Because unless people, when they're coming back, when you speak of seasonal migration, internal migration in India is predominantly and primarily seasonal and circular in nature. Unless the very few out of a percentage who are graduating every passing year in terms of finding new employment opportunities. When we are speaking of skilling missions, ideally, the people who are coming back have much more to offer and much more to upgrade to in order to kind of move them a league up and onwards, which is skilled mobility.

 

Otherwise, skilled mobility will always remain a domain of what essentially gets tied to brain drain. It will never be circular or rooted in nature because if I'm making a choice and investing let's say a crore to study in the Royal School of Medicine in London, I would definitely first work there to pay my debts off. Why would I come back here because I know that I'll not be able to pay off so easily. So that's I think my take on it, that reskilling and upskilling of returning migrants across states and reintegrating them to a better skilled avenue can lead to skilled international mobility rather than low skill and vulnerable mobility, bordering human trafficking.

 

Sanjay Bhattacharyya: I think that's a very important point that you've brought about internal migration leading to international migration, though I think there may be different views on that. I think data also seems to suggest that there are certain parts of the country where there is a certain cultural inclination towards international migration. And some of that goes back to what Nutan had mentioned about the background of the indentured labor. So you find both in the eastern part of the country and the southern, there is a tendency for people to go out. What we also find is that in the latter part of the last century and this century, we've had other parts in Western India where people have not been domestic internal migrants but have actually gone out.

 

But the important point to note is that skilling has become an important element. And in that particular context, that issue of skill mapping and matching certification of skills so that there is better predictability and transparency. In other words, if your recruitment cost can go down, you know you're getting the kind of plumber that you're looking for. It's going to become easier to move on. But I must leave the last word for Rakesh before I wind up.

 

Rakesh Ranjan: Yes. I'll briefly talk about skill also, especially a question around high tolerance. So if you can remember pandemic, pandemic gave us very interesting lessons, healthcare definitely, but also in terms of migration. We all know when all migrant workers left internal as well as international, states start sending buses. So Punjabi, Punjab sent buses, not government, but Punjabi businesses. They sent buses to Bihar to bring back migrant workers. And also countries like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, they started asking government to create that safe bubble so that migrant workers can come back.

 

India has signed a number of MOUs with all GCC countries and also Malaysia. In none of these MOUs, you talk about the skills. You have Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana. You are training all your prospective migrants, but there is no skill negotiation with destination countries. Why only IT and healthcare workers are skilled, and why cook, drivers, and all sort of blue-collar workers are not skilled? The negotiation between Finland and India has a skill component. The negotiation between India and Saudi Arabia has only facilitation. And unfortunately, sorry to end with, the new bill also has only facilitation.

 

When I was working with the Ministry of External Affairs for some time, we were comparing Filipino model with Indian model. Filipino model has very clearly written promotion, because they openly accept they are promoting migration. The moment you accept you are sending migrant workers outside, your policy moves with that thing. But you have stuck with facilitation, and facilitation basically means you are very much into withdrawal stage. Thank you.

 

Sanjay Bhattacharyya: Thank you. I think there will be many interpretations of this particular story, which is still developing, but some of the new features, and that's why it started with the need to look at the 21st century. And I think if you look at the new bill, or at least what its intention seems to be, is to address 21st century challenges. We are a young country with a demography dividend. We are one of the fastest-growing economies, the fastest-growing major economy. We are going to be playing a much greater role in the globalized world. And we do believe that migration is something that we need to deal with at an international global level, which is why we've been partners in the GCM.

 

There are new challenges coming about because of technology and innovation. And it is important for us to understand that the idea of skills is moving over to something called competencies. And we need to be aware that we have to provide the people who have those competencies so that they can provide the solutions that they want for themselves. We need recognitions for our pravasis, wherever they are, wherever they are.

 

And I think Professor Khadria added a very important point, which I wish to conclude with. For a long time, and this was probably a vestige of our colonial approach, we were concentrated more on the vulnerable worker. Over a period of time, we've seen how the so-called vulnerable worker, not without exception, of course, they have been exceptions, have been able to overcome the bulge. And they are far more empowered and enlightened today than they were in the past. And they can take care of a lot of it. And we do have the protection mechanism.

 

So as Professor Khadria said, and I want to end with that, I think the time now is to move towards the knowledge economy and to become an important lever for the promotion of people who will provide this flip to the knowledge economy globally. And India, with its youthful population, its technology-driven education system, and its fast-growing economy has the wherewithal to be the perfect example for this new world. Thank you very much. We've overstepped by 10 minutes, but we started 10 minutes late.

 

Unidentified Speaker: There's no doubt that today's discussion has been both insightful and thought-provoking and has contributed significantly to our knowledge. So on behalf of the Council, I would like to express my deep gratitude to the distinguished chair and panelists. My special thanks to Ms. Nutan Kapoor, Additional Secretary, ICWA, and Dr. Niveta Ray, Director, Research, at the Council, for their constant support and guidance. I would also like to thank my colleagues and the audience for their engagement. To know more about ICWA's research work, events, outreach programs, and publications, do visit our website and social media handles on X, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook. Thank you, and please join us for high tea in the foyer.

 

Sanjay Bhattacharyya: Thank you very much.

 

Nutan Kapoor: Thank you very much.

 

Rakesh Ranjan: Thank you.

 

List of Participants

1. Chair-Prof. Sanjay Bhattacharyaa, Jindal School of International Affairs and Former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs dealing with Overseas Indians Affairs
2. Dr. Rakesh Ranjan, South Asia Regional Coordinator, Institute for Human Rights and Business
3. Mr. Arindam Banerjee, Co-Founder and Partner, Policy and Development Advisory Group (PDAG)
4. Prof. Binod Khadria, President, Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism, New Delhi (Online)
5. Dr. Divya Balan, Assistant Professor, FLAME University, Pune (Online)