S. Irudaya Rajan - Dreaming Mobility and Buying Vulnerability: Overseas Recruitment Practices in India

Dreaming Mobility and Buying Vulnerability

S. IRUDAYA RAJAN
V. J. VARGHESE
M. S. JAYAKUMAR

First published 2011 in India
by Routledge
912 Tolstoy House, 1517 Tolstoy Marg, Connaught Place, New Delhi 110 001

Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, OX14 4RN

2011 S. Irudaya Rajan, V. J. Varghese and M. S. Jayakumar

Typeset by
Star Compugraphics Private Limited
5, CSC, Near City Apartments
Vasundhara Enclave
Delhi 110 096

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-0-415-68765-2

A significant chunk of India's population lives and works outside the country, and the number of Indians choosing overseas work has been increasing consistently. The Indian migration experience has engendered a variety of academic studies, ranging from attempts to profile emigration and quantify remittance to endeavours to map out delicate social transformations consequent upon emigrations and the diverse forms of exchanges that occur between sending and receiving countries/cultures through the migrants. However, studies on one of the important aspects of international migrations from the country, namely, overseas recruitment practices, have been conspicuously absent. The system of emigration governance in the country and the recruitment processes and varied practices associated with it have largely escaped academic scrutiny, even when the administrative mechanism has been commonly intuited as inept and corruption-ridden and the field of recruitment as replete with fraudulence and extreme informalities. The human suffering as a result of these flaws has become a matter of serious concern, to the extent of a candid admission of institutional failure by the Indian government itself. Ever since the formation of the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA), the Government of India has been seen as taking active interest in the affairs of emigrants. For rectifying the anomalies in the system as well as to understand the varied dynamics of migration and its administration, the Government of India has been in need of policy feeding at various levels. One of the important factors underlying MOIA's funding of the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Thiruvananthapuram, for establishing a Research Unit on International Migration (RUIM) was the intention to support the ministry with academic inputs towards informed policy and institutional reforms with regard to the administration of emigrations from India.

It was our earnest desire to help the government purge the weak elements from the institution of emigration governance in the country that led us to embark on this study under the aegis of RUIM. The intention was to look at the institution of emigration governance and its efficacy with special reference to the issue of overseas recruitment. It was realised right at the outset that this was not going to be an easy task, as data collection has been bogged down by indifference from various quarters. Our determination to go ahead with this exploratory study remained unbeaten and was reinforced by enthusiastic support from various other quarters. Overseas recruitment is a sector of intimidating complexity, and it has not been easy to explore the channels and methods of corruption in its delicate details. Hence, whenever the formal data failed us or remained inadequate, we sought to supplement our filed inferences with case studies and inputs from the contemporary media. Still, this remains largely an exploratory study, but one driven by the solemn motivation of promoting safe and orderly migration from the country. We hope that this pioneering exercise will encourage more serious studies on India's system of emigration governance in general and overseas recruitment in particular.

This riveting but rambling exercise has gathered many debts over the last two years of its making. It was the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, Government of India, New Delhi, that commissioned and financed this study. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) shored it up with additional financial support, which allowed us to expand the study to its present scale. The administrative and organisational support of MOIA largely enabled a hassle-free conduct of the research. S. Krishna Kumar, former Secretary, MOIA, and Ranbir Singh, former Director, Emigration Policy, MOIA, and later the Protector-General of Emigrants (PGE), showed tremendous enthusiasm and steered us to new ideas and clarity. The late J. Panda, former PGE, ensured the necessary logistical support from the Protectors of Emigrants (POEs). K. Mohandas and Nirmal Singh, former Secretaries of MOIA, and Didar Singh, the present Secretary, showed considerable interest and unfailing generosity towards this study. S. Gurucharan, Joint Secretary, MOIA, actively supported our endeavour right from the stage of a scrappy proposal. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the support of the Protectors of Emigrants, recruiting agents and their associations, intending emigrants, return emigrants, foreign employers and government officials who cooperated enthusiastically with this study and facilitated it with their valuable time and patience. The Indian missions in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar and Bahrain extended all possible help at these destinations during the course of our study. We are thankful to the foreign employers, labour-recruiting companies, government functionaries and emigrant labourers in these countries for cooperating with the study. Mehru Vesuvala of the Migrant Workers' Protection Society wholeheartedly extended her support in Bahrain during our visit to the country in connection with this research. We are also thankful to Mr Rajeevakshan, Superintendent of Police, Central Bureau of Investigation, Cochin, for sharing the details of the recruitment fraud involving the Thiruvananthapuram POE and 18 recruiting agents.