Discuss the consequences of international migration in India.

As per the census of India of 2001, higher than five million people have migrated to India from other nations. In addition to this, emigration from India is estimated to be around 20 million persons dispersed across 110 nations.

(A) Emigration:

A main benefit for the source area is remittance sent by the migrants. Remittances sent from international migrants are among the main sources of foreign exchange. Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Punjab receive very considerable quantity from their international migrants. If remittances tend to be the main benefits of migration from the perspective of the source area, the loss of human resources, especially highly skilled persona is a majorly serious cost. As a result, the present underdevelopment in the source area gets reinforced.

When persons move from a nation to the other, they act as agents of social transition; they carry ideas connected with new technology, etc. migration results in intermixing of persons from diverse cultures. It exhibits positive contribution like evolution of composite global culture in addition to widening of mental horizon of persons. In contrast, when people move out of their own nations to other nations because of differing cultural and social values, they feel isolated in addition to a sense of dejection among people and lose their identity as well. The sustained feeling of dejection may result in motivation of people to fall in traps of anti-social activities such as drug abuse and crime.

(B) Immigration:

Heavy influx of migrants from neighbouring nations, mostly being illegal results in many socio-economic issues. They result in an increment of population which leads to overcrowding, and development of unregulated colonies as well as slums. Furthermore, it results in an increment in stress on infrastructure which is incapable of coping up with enhancing population, pressure on government exchequers over social security schemes, and enhanced unemployment, thereby leading to over-exploitation of resources. It also results in an increase in crime rates, particularly against females as most migrants are males which hampers the age-sex proportion of recipient cities within India. It also results in tensions between native inhabitants and immigrants.