Abstract
In India, the literature on migration studies significantly captured the phenomena of emigration from Kerala to the Gulf countries. In Kerala, largest chunk of emigrant population is constituted by Muslims, but the existing literature put less focus on Muslims migratory pattern. With this outline, this chapter examines the forced nature of migratory pattern among the Muslims from Malappuram district, Kerala, to the Gulf countries. The findings from the fieldwork conducted among the Muslims shows that the factors that motivated the Muslim youth in Malappuram go beyond the reasons mentioned in the existing literature on migration from Kerala. The evidences from the village suggest that the socioeconomic situation that existed during 1960s, 1970s and 1980s and also the prevalence of poverty and unemployment level among the Kerala Muslims triggered them to emigrate to the Gulf countries, mainly to Saudi Arabia. Poverty, joblessness, availability of Umrah and free visa to Saudi Arabia, prevailing dowry system and the practice of luxurious marriage culture existed in the village. Coupled with one or more factors mentioned above, the dream and aspiration to work in the Gulf to enhance their standard of living motived them to emigrate. These suggest the forced nature of emigration from Malappuram to Gulf region.
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Notes
- 1.
Migration within India.
- 2.
Working paper on the results of the project, “Migration from Kerala: Social, Economic and Demographic Consequences”. The Centre for Development Studies sponsored the research, and the Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi.
- 3.
Nitaqat was introduced in 2009. Saudi Arabian government has categorised the companies and business organisations in those lines. Various sectors where emigrants were employed were further categorised into 41 types. According to the types of jobs, a particular number of Saudi citizens have to be employed in the organisation. Employers who followed this rule were given blue and green cards and were also given other benefits in recruitments. Organisations which did not follow this were given red cards and were reminded of rules and consequences. Meanwhile, the government has also increasingly started to trace out people who have emigrated to work with free visa and are working illegally, against the rules of the Saudi government. Emigrants who are working with this free visa were caught and sent back to their home countries.
- 4.
Sachar committee, which was appointed in 2005 by the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, was commissioned to prepare a report on the latest social, economic and educational conditions of the Muslim community of India under Justice Rajinder Sachar.
- 5.
Ezhava is a caste-based community or a group of castes among Hindus in Kerala.
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Acknowledgement
I thank Prof. Prem Saxena and Prof. S. Irudaya Rajan for their valuable comments and suggestions to develop this chapter. An older version of this chapter was also presented at the Annual meeting of Population Association of America in 2016 at Washington, DC, USA.
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Ajmal Khan, A.T. (2019). Forced Migration of Muslims from Kerala to Gulf Countries. In: Rajan, S.I., Saxena, P. (eds) India’s Low-Skilled Migration to the Middle East. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9224-5_9
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