Chapter 8
Diaspora, Brain Circulation and Indian Development Perspectives from Australia and New Zealand Wardlow Friesen
8.1
Introduction
The reserves of goodwill amongst the Indian Diaspora are deeply entrenched and waiting to be tapped if the right policy framework and initiatives are taken by India. --- Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the then Prime Minister of India, January 2002 (quoted in Khadria 2003, p. 12)
The work of the Indian Diaspora not only benefits New Zealand, but also New Zealand’s relationship with India by providing a ready constituency for enhanced trade, tourism, scientific and educational links. --- Sir Anand Satyanand, New Zealand’s first Indian Governor General, November 15, 2010
In the literature on the relationship of Indian diaspora and development, there has been considerable focus on linkages to the United States and Europe, especially in relation to the information technology industry, but also other science-based sectors (e.g. LeClerc and Meyer 2007; Kale et al. 2008). However, although there are a number of studies of Indian migration and settlement in Australia and New Zealand, few focus on the development impacts for India of this ‘diaspora down under’. One recent paper on the Indian diaspora in Australia and New Zealand focuses more on the historical and political contexts than on the development implications (Kaul 2009). The chapter has developed from the author’s work on the Indian community in New Zealand, focusing on issues of settlement, identity and transnationalism (Friesen et al. 2005; Friesen and Kearns 2008; Friesen 2008b). It looks at existing evidence of diaspora-development linkages and considers future possibilities for research. This chapter starts from the premise that the concept of ‘brain circulation’ is an important starting point for consideration of the relationship of the Indian diaspora
W. Friesen (*) School of Environment, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand e-mail:
[email protected] S. Sahoo and B.K. Pattanaik (eds.), Global Diasporas and Development: Socioeconomic, Cultural, and Policy Perspectives, DOI 10.1007/978-81-322-1047-4_8, © Springer India 2014
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and development in India, since much recent Indian migration to settlement countries such as Australia and New Zealand has involved skilled migrants or international students. The focus on ‘brain circulation’ in the academic literature and among government policy makers has developed from an earlier (and still relevant) debate about ‘brain drain’ which channelled skilled migrants from the global South to the global North, usually to the advantage of the latter over the former. Brain circulation tends to have a more positive spin, in that circulation ‘…promotes integration into global markets’ (Crush and Hughes 2009, p. 346) and involves ‘… skilled immigrants being of increasing benefit to both home and hosting nations’ (Hsu 2009, p. 385). Issues considered include migrant settlement and outcomes, transnational linkages, return migration, student migration and knowledge transfer. Although the starting point is brain circulation, this chapter goes on to consider a wider range of possible ways in which the Indian diaspora in Australia and New Zealand might impact on development in India. To some extent these are related to, and perhaps outcomes of, brain circulation as manifest in migrant settlement and student mobility. These include trade and investment relationships, including possible free-trade agreements, increasing levels of tourism and cultural diffusion, each of which appears to be impacted by the higher visibility of India as a result of increased Indian populations in Australia and New Zealand and also the higher visibility of those countries in India.
8.2
Brief History of Indian Migration to Australia and New Zealand
The Indian migration histories of Australia and New Zealand have many similarities and a few differences. In Australia there were a few Indian migrants in the early nineteenth century, and through that century Indian migrants included domestic servants, agricultural indentured workers, itinerant merchants and ‘Ghans’ (Afghanis, considered ‘Indian’ within the context of the British Empire) brought in as camel drivers (Lal 2006, pp. 383–385). There were also Indians in New Zealand in the nineteenth century, mostly later in the century, some arriving independently as traders and others moving on from the indenture system in Fiji (Leckie 1995). In both the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, racist legislation against ‘Asians’, mostly Chinese and Indian, was implemented. In 1901, the Immigration Restriction Act (often called the White Australia policy) came into force, virtually stopping Indian immigration to Australia until the middle of the twentieth century, despite India’s status as a British colony (Lal 2006, p. 385). The New Zealand equivalent of this was the Immigration Restriction Act of 1899, and this was not repealed until World War II, after which there was a modest rise of Indian migration to New Zealand (Leckie 2007, pp. 73–79, 109). The contemporary context of Indian immigration ‘down under’ resulted from changes in national immigration policies and globalising forces. The Immigration
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8 Diaspora, Brain Circulation and Indian Development Bangladesh
India
Nepal
Pakistan
Sri Lanka
Fiji
India Settlers + Onshore permits
30,000
25,000
Number of Arrivals
20,000
15,000
10,000
5,000
0 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Year
Fig. 8.1 Settlers to Australia from South Asian countries and Fiji 1991–2010 (Note: ‘Settlers’ are those who have applied from offshore; dashed line includes onshore permits for India)
Restriction Act in Australia was not fully repealed until 1966, after which Indian immigration slowly increased especially from the 1980s onwards. This migration came not only from India but also from Fiji, Malaysia and other ex-British colonies (Lal 2006, p. 385). Although New Zealand’s immigration policy from the 1950s onwards was not explicitly anti-Asian, it was not until 1987 that the policy moved from a ‘preferred country’ system to criteria based on education, skills, age and investment potential, opening the way for increased Indian migration (Friesen 2008b, pp. 48–50). Globalising forces accelerated the levels of immigration in Australia and New Zealand and resulted in diversification of both the sources of migrants and the diversity of mobility types including permanent residence, short- to medium-term labour migration and international student movements (Hugo 2006). As a source of migrants to destinations worldwide, India’s role has become increasingly important, as has its role in attempting to benefit from the resultant expanding global diaspora (Khadria 2009). Over the last two decades, there has been a considerable increase in the numbers of migrants settling in Australia from India, and to a lesser extent from the other countries of South Asia and from Fiji (of whom about 90 % are Indo-Fijian) (Fig. 8.1). In comparison to earlier Indian migration to Australia, the makeup of recent migration is much more diverse in terms of region of origin within India, country of origin and occupational status of migrants. Indo-Fijian and ‘India-direct migrants’ often form distinctive social groups (Voigt-Graf 2008, pp. 99–105). The 2006 Census enumerated 147,106 as born in India and a total of 234,718 of Indian
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India
Nepal
Pakistan
Sri Lanka
Fiji
10,000
9,000
No. of Visas & permits granteds
8,000
7,000
6,000
5,000
4,000
3,000
2,000
1,000
0 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Year
Fig. 8.2 New Zealand permanent residence granted to migrants from South Asian countries and Fiji 1991–2010
descent, or about one percent of the Australian population (ABS Table Builder). Three years later it was estimated that there were nearly 50 % more India-born people in the population (Australia DIAC 2011). The largest concentration of Indian population is in New South Wales, largely in Sydney, and the second largest concentration is in Victoria, mainly in Melbourne. This concentration in the largest cities is typical of recent migrant population in other settlement countries, for example, in Canada and the United States of America. Indian migration to New Zealand is somewhat less in absolute terms than to Australia (Fig. 8.2), but is significant in relation to the base population of New Zealand. From the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, the surge in Indian immigration was mainly driven by migration from Fiji, after two military coups in 1987 which were seen to be anti-Indo-Fijian. The early twenty-first century increase in Indian population was mainly a result of migration from India but, by 2010, migration from India and Fiji was at similar levels. There is not a single explanation for the surge of immigration from both countries shown from 2000 to 2003, though contributing factors seem to have been more proactive migrant recruitment and chain migration from India which was reduced after a 2003 change in immigration policy which imposed more restrictive English language and skill criteria on all migrants. There has been some migration from other South Asian countries, but it has been relatively modest with the exception of small surges of immigration from Sri Lanka, often as part of refugee intakes.
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The 2006 New Zealand Census enumerated 43,341 people born in India and 104,580 of Indian descent, 2.6 % of the population of New Zealand (Bedford and Ho 2008). Similar to Australia, the Indian population is diverse with birthplaces of Fiji and New Zealand being nearly as important as India and significant numbers from South Africa and Malaysia. Nine Indian languages have more than a thousand speakers each (Friesen 2008b, pp. 48–51). Another similarity to Australia is the urban concentration, with 71 % of all Indians settled in the primate city of Auckland, and many of the rest in the next largest cities of Christchurch and Wellington.1
8.3
International Education
Nation states have increasingly viewed international education as part of the commodification of education, contributing to a ‘knowledge economy’ and ‘knowledge society’, and also as an important export (Martens and Starke 2008, pp. 4–5; Khadria 2003, pp. 9–11). Although relatively small in global terms in relation to the absolute number of international students it attracts, New Zealand is one of the countries ‘… most active in pushing the concept of education as a business sector’ (Martens and Starke 2008, p. 4). Australia too has been rigorously pursuing international education as an export opportunity and also as a way of developing a more cosmopolitan education system (Voigt-Graf and Khoo 2004; Khadria 2003, p. 11). Figure 8.3 shows the number of student visas granted in Australia to the eight largest source countries. China has been the predominant source of international students, but was briefly surpassed by India in 2008–2009. It should be noted that the numbers in this graph represent new students so, for example, at the end of 2009, there were 120,913 Indian students resident in Australia, about twice the number of new students (www.india.embassy.gov.au/ndli/study.html).2 The downturn since 2009 probably reflects the widespread reporting in the Indian and Australian presses of attacks and other racist incidents involving Indian students in Australia. This was despite the efforts of the Australian government during the visits of (then) Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard in September 2009 and the (then) Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in November to assure the Indian government that Indian students were safe (Kaul 2009, p. 195). The international education system in New Zealand has been similarly dominated by students from China, followed by South Korea (Fig. 8.4). It is only in the last few years that the number of students from India has begun to rise; in 2010–2011 they actually passed the number of Korean students. It may be that the controversy in Australia has resulted in some Indian students choosing to go to New Zealand instead. An earlier wave of student movement from India to Australia and New Zealand, from the 1950s onwards, was facilitated by the Colombo Plan, which was a British
1
Where statistical data are not referenced, these have derived from the author’s own analyses, often from customised data from Statistics New Zealand. 2 Note that even this higher number does not include some students since many international students undertake language and other courses on tourist or other visas.
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South Korea
India
Japan
Thailand
United States of America
Brazil
Malaysia
70,000
Number of Student Visas Granted
60,000
50,000
40,000
30,000
20,000
10,000
0 2002/03
2003/04
2004/05
2005/06
2006/07
2007/08
2008/09
2009/10
2010/11
Year
Fig. 8.3 Australian international student visas granted by top eight source countries 2002–2011
China
South Korea
India
Japan
Thailand
United States of America
70,000
Number of Student Visas Granted
60,000
50,000
40,000
30,000
20,000
10,000
0 1997/98 1998/99 1999/00 2000/01 2001/02 2002/03 2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 2006/07 2007/08 2008/09 2009/10 2010/11
Year
Fig. 8.4 New Zealand international student visas granted by top six source countries 1997–2011
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Commonwealth initiative to provide education to ‘less developed’ nations of the Commonwealth (Tarling 2004). One of the operating principles of the Colombo Plan was that students studying abroad returned to their country of origin, thus contributing to development in their home country, rather than being part of a ‘brain drain’ which had become part of the discourse of migration and development by the 1960s (Crush and Hughes 2009). However, the student migrations of recent times have quite different characteristics from those earlier movements. While some student scholarships are provided by government and multilateral agencies such as the Asian Development Bank, and in some cases may require a student to return to work in their home country for a period of time, many of the recent student migrants are privately funded and have no such requirement (Voigt-Graf 2004). Further, for many students, one of the objectives of getting a student visa and foreign education is to facilitate the future acquisition of permanent residency as recent statistical evidence shows. The evidence in Australia and New Zealand suggests that many Indian students view international education as a stepping stone to permanent residency in those countries. For many years Australia has allowed students to work for 20 h a week during semester, and full time during vacation, and this has enhanced the abilities of students to apply for permanent residency (Voigt-Graf and Khoo 2004, p. 435). Evidence from the mid-2000s showed that graduates with the highest rate of transition from study to permanent residency were South Asian, with 73 % of Indian students graduating in 2003 acquiring permanent residency (Baas 2006, p. 8). Important changes were made in New Zealand in 2005 to allow international students to work while they study and to qualify for a ‘graduate job search work visa’ that allows them to work after graduation and potentially qualify for permanent residency (NZ Department of Labour 2010, pp. 41–42). Figure 8.5 shows that this has become a popular option for international students from India, with India’s proportion rising from 15 % of all of these visas in 2007–2008 to nearly half of all visas in 2009–2010 (NZ Department of Labour 2010, pp. 41–42). In recent years, 72 % of Indian students made the transition to jobs and 47 % received permanent residency, compared to 43 % and 23 %, respectively, for Chinese students (NZ Department of Labour and Australia DIAC 2011, pp. 133–137; NRI Community 2011).
8.4
Study, Settlement, Transnationalism, Return: A Continuum
Despite fluctuations, the overall trend is towards increased numbers of students and increased (permanent?) settlement of Indians in Australia and New Zealand. In both cases this would appear to be evidence of brain drain from India, although this depends on the outcomes for migrant Indians in these settlement countries and their future linkages with India in the form of transnational movements, investments and other links, and also the potential that they might return to India in the future. This chapter will not consider settlement outcomes for migrants to Australia and New Zealand in detail since that is already one of the best documented aspects of Indian migration to these countries (e.g. Voigt-Graf 2008, 2005, 2004; Collins 2008;
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2008/09
2009/10
Number of approved temporary workers
4,500 4,000 3,500 3,000 2,500 2,000 1,500 1,000 500 0
India
China
South Korea Source country
Fiji
Malaysia
Fig. 8.5 New Zealand’s top five source countries of graduate job search visa approvals, 2007/2008, 2008/2009 and 2009/2010 (Source: NZ Department of Labour (2010) Migration Trends and Outlook 2009/10, Wellington)
Leckie 2007 ; Friesen et al. 2005; Friesen 2008b). This literature shows that there have been many successful transitions in both Australia and New Zealand— however, there have also been many challenges related to language barriers, real or perceived racism, underemployment and other issues. Successful applications for permanent residency have not always resulted in ‘successful’ migration outcomes, at least not in the short term. New Zealand government policy in the 1990s focused on the recruitment and processing of migrants and less on the settlement outcomes for migrants (Bedford et al. 2010). Therefore, in some cases, skilled migrants were unemployed or underemployed despite their levels of education and skills, and Indian migrants were no exception to this (Trlin et al. 1999). Unemployment often resulted in Indian migrants taking less-skilled jobs than they were qualified for, or reskilling through further education (Trlin et al. 1999). In the twenty-first century, New Zealand government policy has focused more on assuring migrant outcomes, and changes in immigration policy, which align education and skill criteria with employment possibilities, have been implemented in order to improve migrant outcomes. While this has partially overcome the problems of unemployment and underemployment (Bedford et al. 2010), there is some evidence of return or on-movement of Indian migrants from New Zealand, as discussed later. Employment success is not contingent only on the simple procurement of a job suitable to one’s education and skill levels. For example, a study of Indian computer professionals in Australia identified tensions within the workplace related to differences in organisational structure and workplace practice between India and Australia (as well as other factors) and concluded that ‘… the emergence of
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transnational social spaces has complex and contradictory outcomes’ (Lakha 2005, p. 354). This case study of an IT joint venture with an Indian company showed that Australian-based employees maintained career aspirations in India and globally and hence were working in Australia hoping to ‘… elevate their skills within the international division of labour’ (Lakha 2005, p. 356). Thus, whether these workers are permanent residents or on working visas in Australia, they are part of the transnational workforce who are likely to maintain ongoing linkages to India, and possibly return there in the future. Within migration and diaspora studies, and especially in the consideration of brain drain and brain circulation, the issue of return migration has been much debated in recent years (Gamlen 2010). Transnational studies emphasise the nonpermanency of much ‘permanent settlement’ migration and also question the idea that return migration will result in long-term or permanent residency in the ‘homeland’ (Jeffrey and Murison 2011). Nevertheless, even if it is not permanent, the return of migrants with increased skills and expanded global networks is usually seen as evidence of brain gain and successful returns to brain circulation (Jeffrey and Murison 2011). However, evidence of return migration from Australia and New Zealand is fragmentary. In New Zealand permanent residents of Indian nationality have relatively low rates of emigration. The most recent available data show that of those who applied for permanent residency between 1998 and 2005, 15.3 % had left New Zealand by the end of 2006.3 This proportion is lower than for some other major migrant countries (Taiwan 47.1 %, Malaysia 30.9 %, China 23.2 %) but higher than others (United Kingdom 13.5 %, South Korea 12.5 %, South Africa 12.0 %) (NZ Department of Labour 2008, p. 122). For both Australia and New Zealand, there is some evidence that many of those who have left have returned to their country of origin (NZ Department of Labour and Australia DIAC 2011, pp. 160–161), though others have moved on to third countries, although further research needs to be done to confirm this. Data for Australia is also elusive but could be the focus for a future study, perhaps with data from Indian sources as well as from Australia and New Zealand. At this point then, there is little evidence of the scale of return migration from ‘down under’ and the benefits that might accrue to India.
8.5
Development Benefits to India: Remittances and Knowledge Transfer?
Remittances are perhaps the most obvious benefit to India of the Indian diaspora, whether from short-term or long-term migrants. While it is difficult to get accurate time-series data, the World Bank (2011) estimates that remittances to India in 2010 totalled about $US55 billion, making it the largest recipient of remittances in the world. The top 25 source countries for remittances to India are shown in Table 8.1, with more than half of the total coming from the top three countries: United Arab Emirates, United States and Saudi Arabia. Remittances from Australia were 3
Leaving New Zealand here is measured by ‘long-term absence’ at 31 December 2006.
148 Table 8.1 World Bank estimates of remittances to India: top 25 countries in 2010
W. Friesen Remittance-sending country Millions of $US Rank United Arab Emirates 13,821 1 United States 11,977 2 Saudi Arabia 5,258 3 United Kingdom 4,087 4 Canada 3,422 5 Kuwait 2,070 6 Bangladesh 1,899 7 Oman 1,615 8 Australia 1,505 9 Nepal 1,499 10 Qatar 1,180 11 Singapore 1,006 12 Sri Lanka 712 13 Italy 627 14 Bahrain 607 15 Germany 457 16 Malaysia 318 17 New Zealand 256 18 France 245 19 Spain 192 20 Japan 138 21 Israel 126 22 Netherlands 110 23 Sweden 108 24 Ireland 105 25 Total 55,000 Source: World Bank 2011, www.siteresources.worldbank.org/
estimated at US $1.5 billion in 2010, making it the ninth largest source country, and from New Zealand at US $256 million, eighteenth. Though these are relatively modest, and together comprise only about three percent of total remittances to India, it is likely that these numbers will continue to grow as settlement migration is continuing and the size of the population of Indian origin increases in both Australia and New Zealand. The perennial debate about whether remittances are beneficial to development depending on whether they are used for ‘productive’ rather than ‘consumptive’ activities will not be entered into here, except to say that recent studies have suggested that the boundary between these binaries is not a simple one. In either case, remittances are important in maintaining familial linkages which are important to the well-being of both receiving and sending families, or households. This can be considered as a kind of development in its own right: ‘… remittances are a special kind of transnational family money. This money is a medium of care, support and filial relationship across countries’ (Singh 2006, p. 391). Of the top country origins of remittances, the Gulf states rank highly as do some of the ‘settlement’ countries, but the nature of Indian migration to these groups of
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countries is quite different. In the former, many migrants are semi-skilled or even unskilled, whereas in the latter, they are predominantly educated and skilled. The diaspora in settlement countries, such as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, may thus return benefits to India that might be more significant by some measures than direct cash remittances. Of particular interest is the possibility of ‘knowledge transfer’ (or ‘knowledge exchange’). This is a discourse which has arisen from the well-known debates about ‘brain drain’ which focus on the movement of skilled workers from the global South to the global North and which is usually seen to be of benefit to the latter but not the former (Teferra 2005; Crush and Hughes 2009; Mullan 2006). Knowledge transfer also considers the potential for ‘brain gain’ and is more comprehensive in considering the movement of human capital in a broader sense to include both people and their skills and knowledge, including tacit knowledge. Such a transfer is often in a direction back to the less-developed country where migrants originated (Williams 2007; Kale et al. 2008). Knowledge transfer may take several forms including the return of migrants to their country of origin with new skills, knowledge and perhaps capital; transnational movement back and forth for the purpose of transferring knowledge; and the transmission of knowledge ‘back home’ by electronic or other means. The latter two of these are often facilitated through transnational social networks (e.g. see Voigt-Graf 2005; Friesen 2008b).
8.6
Broader Impacts of Diaspora: Trade and Investment Linkages
India has had trading relationships with Australia and New Zealand since before Independence, and these have expanded in recent years, although not necessarily in India’s favour. In 2010 Australia was India’s fifth largest source of imports, but only 29th in terms of visible exports (Australian DFAT 2011), and these positions were exactly the same as 4 years earlier (Beal 2010, pp. 201–202), reflecting a massive visible trade imbalance of about eight to one in Australia’s favour. New Zealand’s position was much further down the trading hierarchy, at 49th for imports and 67th for exports, reflecting only a small trade imbalance in New Zealand’s favour of about 1.2 to 1 (Beal 2010, pp. 201–202). Interestingly, these trade relationships are the inverse of what is often generalised as being typical of less-developed to more-developed trade flows. That is, Australia and New Zealand tend to export primary products to India, while many of the products flowing in the opposite direction are manufactured products, both factory and artisan produced. In terms of value, Australia’s largest exports to India in 2010 were coal, gold, copper and petroleum, while India’s top exports in the opposite direction were pearls and gems, jewellery, medicaments and motor vehicles (Australian DFAT 2011). New Zealand’s largest exports to India by value in 2006 were coal, logs, wool, butter and sheepskin, while India’s exports to New Zealand were diamonds, bed and table linen, medicaments, jewellery and footwear (Beal 2010, pp. 203–204). There was also an imbalance of trade in services between Australia and India of about five to one,
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with ‘education-related travel’ comprising much of this imbalance, while tourism was more balanced between the two countries (Australian DFAT 2011). Issues around international education have already been mentioned and tourism is discussed later. Of major interest currently are the free trade agreements being negotiated between India and Australia and between India and New Zealand. Negotiations towards a free-trade agreement between India and New Zealand began in January 2010 and were one of the topics of discussion when the New Zealand Prime Minister visited India in June 2011. These negotiations were in their eighth round in June 2012 (NZ MFAT 2012). While visiting Australia in May 2011, the Indian Commerce and Industry Minister, Anand Sharma, formally launched negotiations for a freetrade agreement with Australia and made special note of ‘… the positive role being played by the entrepreneurial Indian Diaspora in promoting a strong relationship and people-to-people linkages between the two countries’ (The Indian (2011b), 13/5/2011). These negotiations are also still under way with the third round taking place in May 2012 (Australian DFAT 2012). Perhaps it is the realisation of the potential for expanded trade between India and Australia and New Zealand that is one of the most significant impacts of the growing Indian diaspora in these countries: India has become flavour of the season and the realisation that India is the next big trade frontier for Australia is slowly sinking in. (The Indian (2011a), January 25, 2011) [New Zealand] Prime Minister John Key said there was immense potential to promote twoway trade and investment between New Zealand and India. (Indian Newslink (2010), November 29, 2010)
To what extent, though, will an expansion of trade be to the benefit of India’s development, rather than to the benefit of its wealthier trading partners to the south? Considering the nature of the trade imbalance, the large-scale exports of primary products such as minerals and agricultural products from Australia and New Zealand are less likely to be influenced by the presence of the Indian diaspora ‘down under’ than the development of small- and medium-scale enterprises. Linkages at this scale may return more benefits to India than those apparent at the level of large-scale visible trade. The role of entrepreneurs is a common theme within the discourse of diaspora and development (Lever-Tracy et al. 1991; Collins 2008). Evidence is mixed about the role of Indian entrepreneurs in Australia. For example, a study in the early 1990s concluded that migrants from India were under-represented as ‘independents in the labour force’ (i.e. self-employed) compared to the Australian average (Lever-Tracy et al. 1991, p. 1), though the composition of the Indian diaspora has changed significantly in the subsequent 20 years. Nevertheless, a more recent study has come to a similar conclusion that the rate of entrepreneurship among migrants from India is below the national average (Collins 2008, p. 50). Though the latter study does not explain this adequately, it can be surmised that this is not surprising when many Indian immigrants are working in professional occupations which lend themselves to jobs in established corporate or government sectors. At the same time, there are many examples of Indian entrepreneurship in both Australia and New Zealand (Indian Newslink (2010), 29/11/2010).
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The expansion of India’s banking system internationally is facilitating trade and investment linkages with India. One example is the establishment of the Bank of Baroda in New Zealand in 2010, with full services provided from 2011. The Bank of Baroda has operations in 26 countries, often tending to be those with large Indian populations, for example, in Fiji where it established a branch 50 years ago (Indian Weekender (2011), 4/2/2011). In New Zealand the Bank largely services the Indian diaspora, with 95 % of its account holders being of Indian origin, although this is expected to change over time as it has in other countries (ibid). Although domestic mortgage financing is an important role of the Bank, one of its attractions for the Indian diaspora is that it facilitates finance linkages with India, for both personal and business purposes (ibid).
8.7
Broader Impacts of Diaspora: Tourism
Another of the broader impacts of increasing diasporic Indian populations in Australia and New Zealand is on tourism. Figure 8.6 shows that tourism both to and from India slowly increased during the 1990s, but escalated more rapidly in the twenty-first century. In contrast to the visible trade imbalance mentioned earlier, visitor number trends are remarkably balanced both between India and Australia and India and New Zealand. In 2006 the growth of outbound tourism from India was said to be the most rapidly growing in the world, so the increases in Indian tourism to Australia and New Zealand are not exceptional, though can be partly attributed to the efforts of both Australian and New Zealand governments to promote their countries in India (Beal 2010, p. 193; Sharda and Pearce 2006). The degree to which the growth of tourism in both directions can be attributed to the presence of diasporic populations is difficult to determine. It is likely that the increased numbers in Australia and New Zealand generate diasporic returns, but also that many ‘tourists’ from India are likely to be visiting friends or relatives in their countries of settlement and/or to be carrying out reconnaissance for possible settlement there themselves. However, many other factors may also be at work. One is the active role of the Indian government in attracting members of its diaspora back to India, even if just as tourists. For example, during the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (non-resident Indians’ day) in New Delhi in January 2011, the Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia was quoted as saying that ‘… overseas Indians [should] not invest in [India] if they feel their money can be better invested elsewhere … but take interest in India. Exciting things are happening here … rather than investing in India…NRIs should give a holiday package to their children [to visit India]’ (Indian Link (2011), 13/5/2011). An important linkage between India and New Zealand which has grown rapidly in the last decade and appears to have had an impact on tourism is the production of Bollywood (the Hindi film industry based in Mumbai) movies in New Zealand. Between 2004 and 2007, an estimated 120 Bollywood films were shot on location in New Zealand (Beal 2010, p. 193), and during the visit of the New Zealand Prime
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W. Friesen India to NZ
India to Australia
Australia to India
NZ to India
180,000 160,000 140,000
Number of Arrivals
120,000 100,000 80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000 0 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Year
Fig. 8.6 Visitor numbers between India-Australia and India-New Zealand 1991–2010
Minister to India in June 2011, an ‘Agreement on Audio-Visual Co-Productions’ was signed (NZ Government 2012) aiming to increase the number and quality of co-produced films.
8.8
Broader Impacts of Diaspora: Cultural Diffusion
Although the impacts and influence of the Indian diaspora so far discussed tend to have focused on economic aspects, ‘development’ can also include social and cultural dimensions. It is argued here that these are of benefit not just to the diasporic communities themselves and to their host communities, but that they can also have benefits to India. One of the global impacts of the spread of the Indian diaspora has been the diffusion of various aspects of culture including Bollywood, diasporic novels, plays and movies in English, development of Indian ethnic associations, the celebration of Indian festivals, the proliferation of Indian media in English and Indian languages and the establishment of Indian cultural centres worldwide. Although the largest centres of these diasporic forms are the United Kingdom and the United States, they have also rapidly developed in Australia and New Zealand. There are many examples, but perhaps the most prominent are the large-scale Diwali festivals held in Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland and many smaller festivals in cities such as Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Wellington. The important role of ethnic associations in migrant settlement, and in linking the Indian diaspora back to India, has been reviewed elsewhere (Friesen 2008b).
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Perhaps one element which has the most obvious benefit to India is the diasporic media. While primary objectives of media such as newspapers, online news sources, television and radio include entertaining and informing diasporic communities, they also generally serve to maintain and strengthen economic, social, cultural and political linkages to India and in some cases to other diasporic communities (Miller 2008), for example, Fiji in the case of New Zealand and Australia.
8.9
Conclusion
This chapter has presented a preliminary review of the relationships of the Indian diaspora in Australia and New Zealand with India, starting with the possibility that there is a degree of brain circulation which has benefits for both India and the settlement countries. It moves on to suggest that there are broader factors at play in relation to economic relationships, as manifest in trade and investment, tourism and cultural diffusion. However, there remains much to find out about these relationships both in a statistical sense and in relation to the more qualitative detail about individual migration histories and experience, and in terms of the networks that have become increasingly important. Further, there is a need for more nuanced theorising around aspects of brain circulation and the role of the diaspora in development. While globalisation has resulted in accelerated movements of people, trade, investment, knowledge and many other things, sovereign borders remain, and the role of governments remains important in the regulation and facilitation of human mobility and the mobilities of other factors impacting on development. The immigration policies of Australia and New Zealand have been evolving, and there is a recognition that a variety of mobility types besides permanent residence are possible and desirable and that the transition from one type to another should be facilitated. Further, these and other governments have begun to consider the linkages that their immigration policies have to develop in source countries (Bedford and Ho 2008; Agunias 2010). Finally, the rapidly growing focus on diaspora by the Indian government (Khadria 2003), and by Indian academics, illustrates the increasing role of source country actors in influencing the impacts that mobility systems have and will have on development.
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