Coming back home

Abstract

The Indian diaspora is a historically diverse and culturally heterogeneous group of people, newlineconnected by a strong sense of belonging to their homeland. Aside from this connection, newlinehowever, it is difficult (and perhaps incorrect) to perceive them as a cohesive group, because of newlinetheir inherent regional, ethnic, and linguistic diversity. However, studies on international newlinemigration or emigration from India, has until recently, viewed this heterogeneous community of newlinepeople with a very singular lens. They have been largely macro-level in their perspectives; by newlineeither analysing emigration through push and pull factors at the countries of origin and of newlinedestination, or, by situating themselves in the histories of specific emigrant communities. While newlinesuch studies generate substantial data on economic effects of out-migration, on impact of newlinemigration on specific regions (such as studies on Kerala migration), and also guide policy newlineendeavors; their macro perspectives, do not take into account an important phenomenon that newlinedefines the diaspora experience, that is, their desire to come back home. It is this aspect that the newlinepresent study attempts to investigate. newlineWhile there is some amount of data, both official (government data) and non-official newline(media records), on the number of out-migrants from India, there is, however, very little newlinerepresentation on the number of migrants returning home. Population surveys such as the census newlineand the National Sample Survey (NSS) annually enumerates the actual number of migrants in the newlinecountry, based on their place of origin and their place of destination, as well as their place of last newlineresidence. These surveys have so far, identified four main streams of migration in India, viz. (i) newlinerural to urban migration, (ii) rural to rural migration, (iii) urban to rural migration, and (iv) urban newlineto urban migration. Thus, although extensive, they seem to overlook the aspect of return entirely.