The Migrants
By: Phds Of India
Tags: International Relations, PhD, Kerala, Índia, Migrants

“I am the kind of person who doesn’t like to follow the convention. In Kerala, engineering is a convention. When most of my friends and my family members went for engineering after school, I instead decided to pursue English Literature for my Bachelor’s. Though I was fond of all subjects belonging to natural sciences in general, literature and humanities intrigued me more. During my graduation, I was exposed to a lot of books pertaining to society and its power relations and I was drawn to that. I discovered the field of ‘International Relations’ through one of my seniors and it immediately caught my attention because it had a section dedicated to human rights. I had recently got interested in the current affairs of politics and it was my desire to pursue a field where my work could impact society directly while having opportunities to travel across the world.

The idea of doing a PhD, however, wasn’t very clear in my mind. It was one of my professors who suggested that I could think of doing research after being highly impressed by one of my project assignments. I went on to do an MPhil on foreign policy of India, which had an extended scope of research. So I continued with the same topic for my PhD in the same university.

But a few months down the line, I realized it was not something I enjoyed working on because my work needed just occasional visits to government organizations, archives and libraries. I was longing to travel and talk to actual people, but was too embarrassed to say it out loud. I thought it was unprofessional to change a PhD topic. Even on the personal front, my family wasn’t very happy when I decided to pursue a PhD. They were concerned about my financial stability and occasionally thought that it would be difficult to find a suitable match for an overly qualified woman like me. And with my fellowship taking over a year to start, I felt extremely burdened. I did not want to be monetarily dependent on my family. So, to support myself, I did freelance content writing jobs. Those first few months of my PhD, were terrible for me both at the personal and professional front.

I eventually gathered the courage to go up to my supervisor and tell him that I didn’t want to work on foreign policies of India but rather on vulnerable groups that needed more immediate attention. I thought he would be angry but to my amazement, he said, “I was waiting for you to come and say that.”

I wanted to do something at the grassroot level and since human rights anyway had piqued my interest long ago, I started working on sub-national migration governance structure of Kerala, with a focus on the NORKA department which redress the grievances of Non-Resident Keralites. It is the first of its kind in India. India is one of the largest countries housing international migrant workers and a good percentage of the Indian economy is dependent on these workers, particularly in Kerala, where 35% of its GDP comes from migrant labourers. There are a lot of studies going on in this regard revolving around migration patterns and remittance flow, but there has been very little focus on analysing governance structures implemented by the State. As a researcher working on an area like this, I think it is critical to look at the migrant governance structure as well.

In addition, I did not want my research to be just about numbers and statistics. I wanted to document the personal experiences of these migrant workers and humanize the whole process, which unfortunately isn’t popular in policy/governance studies. Social sciences is the study of human beings. One cannot reduce them to mere objects and generalize that every human would respond to a specific situation in the same manner. They don’t! For example, the popular notion in Kerala is that the majority of people migrate to other countries for economic benefits, but that’s not the only reason; they can have other aspirations which are often disregarded. Also the stereotype images of them as portrayed in movies and media often cloud our judgement. And that’s why we cannot have a definite set of rules to study real human beings. Each has its own perspective.

I have talked to roughly 650 migrant labourers in the past four months, who were laid off during the pandemic and were forced to return back empty handed. This was done as part of a campaign run by an international migrant rights organisation to document such cases and provide free legal service to these people. When we saw the workers returning in pathetic conditions with absolutely no financial support, we knew we had to do something about it. Most of them were clueless about their basic rights. It gives me fulfillment to assure them of their rights and that I could be of some help to them. I also ensure their consent and remuneration when international journalists interview and write about them in international newspapers as often the journalists get paid but these poor people are left out. In fact, I try to stay in touch with most of them even after collecting the required data. Initially, it was emotionally challenging for me to hear so many stories of distress. But I have trained myself to not panic, be calm and lend an ear when they share their most gruesome experiences. Sometimes, all one needs is someone to hear their plight and not judge. I try my best to be there for them as much as I can. I do face sexism at times when people demand talking to a man instead of a woman but overall it has been a good experience for me.

Kerala did fairly better with the migrant workers as compared to the rest of India which might be motivated by the state’s economic dependency on them. It also has fairly accurate data on these people which gives us ample scope of conducting migration research but still there are pitfalls: we do not have significant data on women migrant workers or undocumented workers.

Having worked inside the system for a couple of years now, I can say that the policy structure concerning migrant labourers is outdated and needs modification based on migrant welfare rather than surveillance. There is a huge gap amongst the academicians, policy makers and actual beneficiaries of these policies, which adds to the problem. Moreover, I think most of these issues exist because of the inherent lack of political will to bring about a change.

Since data manipulation is quite common in our field, to produce quality content, we need good funding which is inadequate in India. Field study requires expenses. A research scholar, who is committing a significant time of his/her life, into doing something for society, must be ensured a dignified life. You cannot blame people for leaving the country by calling it ‘brain-drain’ when you yourself fail to provide them with a decent remuneration.

Dealing with societal issues has made me strong and has helped me grow and it seems my family has also grown with me. I have contemplated leaving home several times during my PhD because my own people didn’t see value in what I was doing and naturally I related it with my self-worth. But over the years, they have understood the importance of my line of work, especially now when the migrant worker crisis happened. Being a single girl child and having been brought up in a conservative family, I had to sacrifice a lot initially but now my parents trust that I am capable enough to make my own decisions. Not only them, I have also been privileged to work under a very supportive supervisor who has given me enough space to think freely and work at my own pace.

We all have high hopes of revolutionising the entire world, but trust me, it doesn’t happen that way. We should first be aware of our surroundings, our own localities before debating endlessly on the ongoings of the White House. If we can bring a change in our own family, our own neighbourhood and our local government for the better, I think that would be enough to bring a significant change in the world.”

-Parvathy Devi, PhD in International Relations, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala