SBajwa wrote:vimal wrote:Not sure what you find contradictory in my statement. All the top level jobs are with Goras and Arabis, rest everyone is just a working class with little or no rights. India simply cannot provide 3 million jobs to such semi-skilled workers in the medium term. Most Indians there make money only on the back of currency arbitrage rates.
I am not sure where you are coming from. I know that most engineers, doctors, nurses, accountants, bankers, entrepreneurs and technicians are from India in all over west asia(middle east). These professionals are in a much bigger proportion from India than from the other countries in Indian Subcontinent.
Many Indian companies are working at providing employment to indians at all levels.
You are absolutely correct. It is a mistake to consider Indians in the gulf as some kind of monolith.
There are, of course, the skilled and semi-skilled labour class. These folks are usually desperate, housed in appalling labour camp type conditions, at the mercy of their employer (passports etc are routinely confiscated to maintain leverage over them etc) and have little rights or voice. Most Pakis, BDs, Nepalis etc working in the Gulf fall under this category. There are plenty of Indians in this category, but the difference is that (unlike Pakis) we are also make up a large chunk of the other categories:
1> Service sector jobs (like hotel management, sales etc). This is where most of the filipinos etc work.
2> Professional and management jobs
3> Engineering and tech
4> Medical
5> Indian owned businesses and entrepreneurs
There are also quite a few large Indian businesses and inbound investment into the UAE, Indian MNCs operating out of there for their Gulf operations etc.
Probably over 50% of the passenger transit through their airports are also from the Indian market. I have flown Emirates and Etihaad to the US quite often and you can barely see any Pakis on the Gulf to US leg.
A huge chunk of the real estate market in Dubai relies on wealthy Indians. There are very few Pakis etc in that market (except for the Musharraf/Nawaz Sharif types who are just a handful).
India is indispensable for their economy and that is only going to increase. The Pakis are no substitute for India, ummah dreams notwithstanding. Even as unskilled labour nobody wants them around due to the problems that they create.
You can literally see this distinction in any cricket match (IPL, Asia Cup etc) held in the UAE in recent years. Unlike it was in the 80s you can see a clear class distinction with 80% of Indians filling the stadium (for the most part well heeled and occupying the better stands/seats) and only a few Paki types who can get the time off to come to the stadium, mostly occupying the cheaper stands.
So my overall point is, that a lot has changed since the 80s when Dawood Ibrahim was the VIP at cricket matches and Pakis could pretend to be on the same level as us (though even then it was Indians who were really contributing to the development there). And things will continue to change for the better at the national and strategic level, as India grows to be a 10-15 trillion $ economy we will have even better cooperation and partnership, similar to the years post independence where they used Indian currency (before we shot ourselves in our foot with license raj and the oil economy boomed for them). Don't take the rantings of some Internet jehadis at face value and throw the baby out with the bath water.
The only problem area that I see is the unskilled and semi-skilled labour. I think that with the growth of the Indian economy, we should try and ensure that most of these people can be gainfully employed locally. And for those skilled labour (construction workers, tradesmen etc) who are forced to return due to recession/COVID etc, I think they probably have a valuable role to play in building our own country. Anybody who lives in India knows how hard it is to find skilled tradesmen (carpenters, welders, people familiar with modern construction work etc), so govt can easily incentivize their return and find employment for them.