Two recent conversations a few weeks apart got me thinking about the impact of immigrants on the development , economic and cultural of the recipient region .
The first one was at a friends son's wedding. One of the guests a Sikh who has large farm holdings in Punjab was bemoaning the fact that the economic prosperity in India and the governments policy of providing guaranteed employment for a certain number of days to the majority of the population ,was making it difficult to find workers on his farm. Previously migrant labor from Bihar and other states would come to the prosperous states such as Punjab and Haryana during certain times of the year to find employment and it would be a "buyers market "for the farmers.Also some of these immigrant labor would settle in Punjab and in some cases even convert to Sikhism.
Things have now changed. With the governments minimum employment programme, some of the migrant would prefer to stay at home even if they get paid slightly less. This has caused problems in the farming states, as it has now become a "sellers market " from the job seekers point of view. The farmers representative now wait at the railway station and offer not just higher wages , but offer other incentives such as mobile phones, days off etc. to get the best workers. This particular gentleman said that he had instructed his foremen to offer twenty percent above the market straight off, so he was able to get the workers he needed. With one of the major input now going up, together with the gradual removal of subsidies for other inputs such as fertilizers, gasoline, diesel, electricity, are you surprised that the costs of your vegetables and grain are on a upward trend ? This is just the start. This will ultimately force the farmers to use more automation.
This is ironical because the youths in Punjab from the working class , and in some cases to the middle class all dream of going abroad - illegally if necessary , and where they are quite content to do manual labor in inhospitable climes. This has been going on since the sixties but one would have thought that with the increasing prosperity and opportunities at home, they would prefer to stay home, but that is not the case.
On the other hand the recent prosperity and the boom in land prices is enabling the harder working farmers to sell their land and with the same amount of money buy perhaps ten times or more farmland in places such as Canada and settle down there.The more adventurous have been taking long term leases on farms in places such as Madagascar !!
This brings me to the second conversation which I had over a dinner with a diplomat from Canada. We were talking about Japan and how the graying of the population in that country was the cause of the gradual decline of the second largest economy in the world. He said that during his posting he tried at various forums to convince the Japanese to open immigration but to no avail. According to him Canada allows in on an average two hundred and fifty thousand immigrants into the country and this enables them to grow. The United States , the United Kingdom and to a slightly lesser extent Europe have rejuvenated - if I may use the term , by opening their doors to immigrants from Asia, Africa , South America and now recently from Eastern Europe. They are willing to work at the bottom of the ladder. Over the decades this has caused problems in terms of the need of the immigrants to adhere to their own religions and their own cultures. Also the longer term impact is that with a higher birth rates they will change the character of the countries. I have written about it previously.
Unfortunately , as it happens during every economic downturn, the politicians make the immigrants the whipping boys and accuse them of stealing jobs, which they were not interested in doing in the first place.In Arizona where the state police is now authorized to stop and search any person whom they suspect of being an illegal or in the United States or Europe or the United Kingdom where you see random acts of " Paki bashing" or Indians getting shot or killed, purely for being who they are, which is very unfortunate.Fortunately in the long run they will be overruled and the there will be integration whether they like it or not and they will find them selves in the minority.
What we all forget , if anthropologists are to be believed , is that we ultimately all came from one place - Africa and none of us are different. Every country goes through a cycle of prosperity and decay depending on whom we select as a ruler. To think that there is a certain privileged class , as the Nazi did because of their race, is deluding yourselves.
The first one was at a friends son's wedding. One of the guests a Sikh who has large farm holdings in Punjab was bemoaning the fact that the economic prosperity in India and the governments policy of providing guaranteed employment for a certain number of days to the majority of the population ,was making it difficult to find workers on his farm. Previously migrant labor from Bihar and other states would come to the prosperous states such as Punjab and Haryana during certain times of the year to find employment and it would be a "buyers market "for the farmers.Also some of these immigrant labor would settle in Punjab and in some cases even convert to Sikhism.
Things have now changed. With the governments minimum employment programme, some of the migrant would prefer to stay at home even if they get paid slightly less. This has caused problems in the farming states, as it has now become a "sellers market " from the job seekers point of view. The farmers representative now wait at the railway station and offer not just higher wages , but offer other incentives such as mobile phones, days off etc. to get the best workers. This particular gentleman said that he had instructed his foremen to offer twenty percent above the market straight off, so he was able to get the workers he needed. With one of the major input now going up, together with the gradual removal of subsidies for other inputs such as fertilizers, gasoline, diesel, electricity, are you surprised that the costs of your vegetables and grain are on a upward trend ? This is just the start. This will ultimately force the farmers to use more automation.
This is ironical because the youths in Punjab from the working class , and in some cases to the middle class all dream of going abroad - illegally if necessary , and where they are quite content to do manual labor in inhospitable climes. This has been going on since the sixties but one would have thought that with the increasing prosperity and opportunities at home, they would prefer to stay home, but that is not the case.
On the other hand the recent prosperity and the boom in land prices is enabling the harder working farmers to sell their land and with the same amount of money buy perhaps ten times or more farmland in places such as Canada and settle down there.The more adventurous have been taking long term leases on farms in places such as Madagascar !!
This brings me to the second conversation which I had over a dinner with a diplomat from Canada. We were talking about Japan and how the graying of the population in that country was the cause of the gradual decline of the second largest economy in the world. He said that during his posting he tried at various forums to convince the Japanese to open immigration but to no avail. According to him Canada allows in on an average two hundred and fifty thousand immigrants into the country and this enables them to grow. The United States , the United Kingdom and to a slightly lesser extent Europe have rejuvenated - if I may use the term , by opening their doors to immigrants from Asia, Africa , South America and now recently from Eastern Europe. They are willing to work at the bottom of the ladder. Over the decades this has caused problems in terms of the need of the immigrants to adhere to their own religions and their own cultures. Also the longer term impact is that with a higher birth rates they will change the character of the countries. I have written about it previously.
Unfortunately , as it happens during every economic downturn, the politicians make the immigrants the whipping boys and accuse them of stealing jobs, which they were not interested in doing in the first place.In Arizona where the state police is now authorized to stop and search any person whom they suspect of being an illegal or in the United States or Europe or the United Kingdom where you see random acts of " Paki bashing" or Indians getting shot or killed, purely for being who they are, which is very unfortunate.Fortunately in the long run they will be overruled and the there will be integration whether they like it or not and they will find them selves in the minority.
What we all forget , if anthropologists are to be believed , is that we ultimately all came from one place - Africa and none of us are different. Every country goes through a cycle of prosperity and decay depending on whom we select as a ruler. To think that there is a certain privileged class , as the Nazi did because of their race, is deluding yourselves.
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