IMPACT OF GUJARATI INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, DIASPORA IN DEVELOPMENT PROCESS OF GUJARAT STATE: AN EXPLORATORY ANALYSIS

According to the Ministry of External Affairs of India (2001), about 33 million people of Indian origin live outside the country. The population has increased substantially in recent times in the era of globalization, ICTs, and rapid modes of transportation. Gujaratis are a well-known social diasporic group of India. They have emigrated abroad to work as traders, people in business, shopkeepers, hoteliers, professionals, etc. Most emigrated after India became an independent nation to the USA, U.K., Canada, European countries, and so on as semi-skilled and skilled migrants. They have made a significant contribution to host countries and their origin areas. The impact of remittances, association groups, and philanthropic contributions in different ways by the emigrants or social groups at the micro and macro levels could be easily seen. The International migration or Diaspora from a region is likely to contribute significantly through the economic and social remittances to the development process over a period to the economies and communities at the place of origin. Social remittances are ideas, know-how, norms, values, knowledge, behavior, practices, and skills that migrants bring home or send home from abroad (Levitt, 1998, 2001; Levitt and Lamba-Nieves, 2011). There are more than 8 lakh NRI accounts in Gujarat, and the total deposits amounted to well over US$ 40 billion (2006). The remittance flow from NRGs is so substantial that Madhapur, a Gujarat village, is amongst Asia's wealthiest. As noted earlier, Gujaratis are indulging more in social remittances in the forms of charity, gifts, and relief during disasters. The paper examines the understanding of the historical and contemporary pattern of international migration/ Diaspora from the state of Gujarat and its impact on the various levels of the development process of Gujarat based on the secondary and primary levels of data analysis by using the mixed methodology.