Indian Diaspora and the Effect of Other Countries' Policies on India's Interests

The Indian diaspora: size and spread

India has the world's largest diaspora. According to the Ministry of External Affairs, there are about 3.5 crore (35 million) overseas Indians. They fall into two groups:

• Non-Resident Indians (NRIs): Indian citizens living abroad.
• Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs): foreign citizens of Indian descent. The PIO card scheme was merged into the Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card in 2015.

The UN's International Migration Report has repeatedly ranked India as the top country of origin for international migrants.

Waves of migration

1. Ancient and medieval: traders and Buddhist monks travelled to South-East Asia, and Indian culture spread to places such as Angkor and Bali.
2. Indentured labour (1834–1917): after slavery was abolished, the British took Indians to Mauritius, Fiji, Trinidad, Guyana, Suriname, South Africa and Jamaica. They were known as "girmitiyas", from "agreement". Gandhi campaigned against indenture, and it was abolished in 1917.
3. "Kangani" and "maistry" systems: labour went to Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Myanmar to work on plantations.
4. Post-independence: professionals and workers went to the UK (1950s–60s), and later the USA, Canada and Australia. Many were highly skilled, which caused a "brain drain".
5. Gulf migration (from the 1970s oil boom): semi-skilled and unskilled workers went to the GCC countries. This is now the largest concentration of NRIs.
6. Recent: IT professionals, students, and care and health workers moving to Europe, Japan and Israel under mobility agreements.

The diaspora's contributions

• Remittances: India is the largest recipient in the world. According to the World Bank, inflows reached about US$125 billion in 2023 and about US$129 billion in 2024. Remittances stabilise the current account and support households in Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and other states. The source mix has shifted towards advanced economies such as the US, UK and Singapore, according to RBI surveys.
• Investment and knowledge: diaspora investors, knowledge networks (for example the Indian-American leaders of global technology companies), and the role of returnees in the IT industry's growth.
• Soft power and lobbying: support for the India–US nuclear deal (through Indian-American groups in the US Congress), the cultural spread of yoga, cuisine and films, and political leadership in several countries.
• Philanthropy and disaster relief.

Institutions and schemes

• Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, held on 9 January, the date Gandhi returned from South Africa in 1915. It began in 2003 following the L.M. Singhvi High Level Committee (2001) on the diaspora. The 18th PBD was held in Bhubaneswar (January 2025). The Pravasi Bharatiya Samman is the highest honour for overseas Indians.
• OCI card: lifelong visa, no need to register with police, parity with NRIs in many economic matters. It does not give voting rights, the right to government jobs, or the right to buy agricultural land. India does not allow dual citizenship.
• Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (2004): merged with the MEA in 2016.
• Emigration Act 1983: Emigration Check Required (ECR) passports for workers with less education going to 18 countries; e-Migrate portal. An Overseas Mobility (Facilitation and Welfare) Bill was proposed in 2025 to replace the 1983 Act.
• Pravasi Bharatiya Bima Yojana: insurance for ECR workers.
• Indian Community Welfare Fund (ICWF): assistance for Indians in distress abroad.
• MADAD portal: consular grievances.
• Know India Programme: for diaspora youth.
• Labour mobility agreements: with Japan, Germany, Portugal, Israel, Taiwan, France and others.
• NRI voting: NRIs can vote in person in their home constituency (from 2010). Proxy or postal voting has been proposed but not enacted.

Challenges facing the diaspora

• Exploitation of workers in the Gulf: the kafala (sponsorship) system ties workers to employers. Problems include wage theft, passport confiscation and poor working conditions. Some countries, such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, have reformed the system.
• Nationalisation of jobs: "Saudisation" (Nitaqat) and Kuwait's measures to reduce expatriate numbers.
• Restrictive immigration policies: US H-1B changes (a US$100,000 fee on new petitions was announced in 2025), the UK's tighter rules, Canada's student cap, and deportations of undocumented migrants (US flights in 2025).
• Hate crimes and racism, and illegal migration routes ("donkey routes").
• Separatism: pro-Khalistan extremism in Canada, the UK and Australia. India–Canada relations hit a low after Canada alleged in 2023 that Indian agents were involved in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, which India rejected as "absurd". Diplomats were expelled in 2024. A reset began in 2025 with the restoration of high commissioners.

Effect of policies and politics of other countries on India's interests

The syllabus asks about the "effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India's interests". The useful framework is to identify a policy, explain the channel through which it affects India, give an example, and describe India's response.

Developing countries' policies matter too:

• China's BRI and debt diplomacy shape South Asia.
• Pakistan's support for terrorism.
• Gulf labour laws.
• African and Latin American mineral policies, such as lithium nationalisation in some countries.

Practice: Mains question

*"The Indian diaspora is a strategic asset, but also brings challenges for India's foreign policy." Discuss. (250 words)*

Hints: remittances, soft power and lobbying (nuclear deal) vs Khalistani extremism, worker protection in the Gulf, evacuations, and immigration politics abroad.

Brain drain or brain gain?

Emigration of skilled people was long seen as a loss. Today many economists speak of "brain circulation". Emigrants send remittances and invest, transfer knowledge, build networks for Indian companies, and often return with skills and capital. Silicon Valley–Bengaluru links helped create India's IT and start-up ecosystem. Global firms have also set up more than 1,700 Global Capability Centres in India, partly because immigration restrictions make it easier to hire talent in India. The real challenge is to create opportunities at home for research and innovation, through the Anusandhan National Research Foundation and better universities, so that talent can choose to stay or return.

Diaspora diplomacy

India actively engages the diaspora through community receptions during prime ministerial visits, through cultural centres (ICCR runs many abroad), and by celebrating the International Day of Yoga, which the UN adopted in 2014 on India's proposal (21 June). Engagement must be careful. Diaspora politics can import India's domestic divisions abroad, and host governments may see mobilisation as interference. The best approach respects the diaspora's primary loyalty to its country of citizenship while nurturing cultural and economic ties with India.