Desicritics.org, India – Oct 1, 2014
October 02, 2014
Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta
Migrations have been a problem since the year dot. Whether we are talking about animals, birds, or people, we always have issues in some shape or form. In particular, when talking about human migrations, we have this to thank for the current debate about who belongs where. We also have migrations to thank for the birth of the conflict between hunters and farmers, for changing demographics and for wars. We have migrations to thank for language development, for the employment of legions of anthropologists, for the rise in imperialism.
Let us take a look at two types of human behaviour related to migrations (economic and political) with two examples each, which both came as a surprise and which we don’t know how to handle cleanly. The biggest migrations of the 20th century happened during the Partition of India, the migration in and out of Israel/Palestine, the migration of non-Western Europeans into Western Europe and migrating Mexicans into USA. In each of these cases, one of the most curious elements was the large amount of surprise at the phenomena. Out of all explanations, economics provided me with a good workable explanation.
As usual, many things came together for this essay. The first was when I read one of the finest and least biased books on the Israeli-Palestinian Crisis, namely Righteous Victims by Benny Morris. The second was an op-ed I read in The Financial Times about how Western Europe was taken by surprise by the sheer number of Eastern European migrants after the accession of ten Eastern European countries to the EU. The third was another article in The Financial Times the same day, talking about the lack of human capital within the Pakistani/Bangladeshi origin migrants in the UK. The fourth was an article in The New York Times about the total confusion and chaos behind the American policy and responses towards Mexican immigration and finally a book on global explorations and migrations by Felipe Fernandez-Arnesto called Pathfinders, A Global History of Exploration.
As I have mentioned before in these pages, I am an immigrant son of an immigrant. My father escaped from what is now Bangladesh as a refugee into India proper during British time in India. I, on the other hand, have settled in London, but have joined what is called “the tribe of International citizens.”
To go back to those horrific Partition times, it was one of the largest semi-forced political migrations known to man. The estimates of the two-way traffic between India and Pakistan range from five to fifteen million. Despite the original pious idea that this migration would have settled the issue once and for all, it is still bleeding almost every Indian Subcontinent country. In the past sixty odd years since independence, the percentage of minorities in Pakistan and Bangladesh has dramatically dropped. Sub-continental minorities are still looked on with suspicion and there is no true secular treatment, such as the lack of a uniform civil code.
Bangladeshis come over the fence into India by the thousands every month, so much that they have changed the demographic balance dramatically in the North-East of India. Sri Lankan Tamils have migrated into India and beyond; Nepalis have total freedom to move in and out of India and India has special Gurkha units in its army. Tibetans have moved into India, Afghanistan saw the migration of Afghans into Pakistan and Iran and then back. Kashmiri Muslims moved to Pakistan, while Kashmiri Hindus moved outside of Kashmir and so on and so forth.
It is so bad that most of the frontiers in the subcontinent are now getting the equivalent of the Churchillian Iron Curtain with fences, minefields, army patrolling, frequent accusations of forced migrations, suspicion of migrants and minorities. If I wear the economist hat, then the demand side is high, because of reasons such as physical security and economic opportunities while the supply side is present because of the flip side of large poor and scared minorities.
The other side of the world is seeing a massive migration of Hispanic, mainly Mexican, immigrants to the United States of America. The Federal and State governments, the two major parties, non-governmental organisations, civic society, media and all the rest of the Tocqueville institutions are all over this issue. A country built on immigration and resting on an iconic Statue of Liberty proclaiming,
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door,
is now frantically thrashing about, trying to find a compelling and coherent response to this problem. Again this has come as a surprise after a certain level of immigration has been reached. In many parts of the country, Hispanic minorities are heading towards becoming a majority. And the natives are restless, if you excuse the pun. Bottom line, the income differential between USA and Mexico is just too high just like we see between Bangladesh and India; the Mexicans are haring across the boundary, at the risk of life and limb because of deserts, snakes, robbers, electrified fences, military, vigilante and police patrols, minefields, you name it. The demand is greater than the supply, therefore the attraction.
The Israeli Palestinian issue is not pure economics driven, although there are some murmurs of economic based migrations into Israel from Russia, India and other places. But the inward Israeli migration was driven less by economics than by security (shades of migrating Muslims into Pakistan). On the flip side, the migration/expulsion (depending on which side of the fence you are sitting) of Palestinians was also driven by security reasons. If it’s migration, it is then driven by security worries by the Palestinians starting from the 1948 war. If it is expulsion, then it is driven by the security worries of the Israelis about the number of Palestinians in their territory. But the pure demand-supply equation still applies. Given a limited amount (supply) of land in Israel/Palestine, and greater demand than can be satisfied, with no possibility of pricing relief, the result is war and disputes.
But the classic example which illustrates all these factors is the European Union (EU). The EU was created out of a fervent wish for peace and security after two horrific insane world wars. One of the key elements of the EU is that there must be free movement of capital, services and labour. While there are many holes and excuses in this idealised criterion, labour has been free for decades now. To evaluate how the process worked, one can just look at the level of migrations between the various countries every time there was a step change in the number of countries joining the EU. The first was the core of six countries, and there wasn’t much migration between them, because their economic conditions were at parity. Then came the UK, which joined in the 70’s and this time there was a small movement of financial sector people into London and a small number of people moving off to the continent to enjoy better weather, food and cheaper houses.
Then the EU expanded to include countries such as Greece, Spain and Portugal. Again migration of the Southern Europeans to other EU countries was slight. Given this history, nobody expected that the 2004 round of accession by the ten countries (including eight ex-communist countries) would suddenly throw up a major move. Expectations by the EU ran to about a hundred thousand migrants to EU initially and then declining. As it happens, there are an estimated six hundred thousand migrants into the United Kingdom alone. This had serious implications across the EU. While keeping inflation down and increasing entrepreneurial activity, the infamous Polish plumber was a major reason of the rejection of the European Constitution in France, serious immigration discussions in Germany and strong representations against allowing the next two countries in line, Bulgaria and Romania, a free right to migrate to the UK.
The last is the most surprising; a country like the UK has been historically open to migrations down the centuries and has been a strong proponent of EU expansion. For various institutions to publicly warn against an open-door policy for the migrants from the new countries is surprising yet understandable, given the rise in worries about immigration. Never mind that the EU does not have a very good reputation of integration and managing migrants. Just look at the total paucity of thought around the challenges integrating European Muslims and the knee-jerk reactions against what has now become known as “European Islam.” Look at the total fluffiness around the African migration issue into Europe with Spain, Italy, and Greece all struggling to understand, cope and manage the overwhelming waves of poor African migrants. But, fact remains, economics drove the migrations (of Muslims, Africans, as well from the new EU countries) and while not understanding the scale of the issue, politicians and the public were surprised.
While the air is free in the world, capital is (mostly) free, knowledge is free, ideas and electrons cross merrily across the global internet, people are not free. For deep-seated reasons ranging from nationalism, identity, culture and economics, people look on migrations with fear, angst, anxiety, worry and occasionally even hate. In the profound words of Yoda in Star Wars Episode I – The Phantom Menace: “Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering.” One can put on the supreme idealist hat and declaim like Moses: “Let my people go,” but even if the people have gone, they have to be received somewhere. In our world, it is the reception of people which is the real challenge. The element of surprise means that measured thoughtful responses are difficult and knee-jerk reactions or blunted solutions are proposed. I am afraid there are no easy solutions, but transparency and honesty would go a long way in making this difficult transition easier.
But if one takes a long term view, as Felipe Fernandez-Arnesto did in his excellent book, one finds that over the long span of history, migrations and explorations will keep on happening. From the viewpoint of the old ages, there were explorations and now there is convergence. I strongly recommend this book for people who are concerned about very short term immigration and emigration, because as Felipe Fernandez-Arnesto says, the time of exploration will again come and humankind will be travelling amongst the stars.
All this to be taken with a grain of salt!
Dr. Bhaskar Dasgupta works in the city of London in various capacities in the financial sector. He has worked and travelled widely around the world. The articles in here relate to his current studies and are strictly his opinion and do not reflect the position of his past or current employer(s). If you do want to blame somebody, then blame my sister and editor, she is responsible for everything, the ideas, the writing, the quotes, the drive, the israeli-palestinian crisis, global warming, the ozone layer depletion and the argentinian debt crisis.
