The Indian Diaspora present in Gulf countries is an asset for India, however there are multiple challenges associated with it. Discuss.

The gulf countries such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, etc are important to India from 2 aspects.

1. Energy security
2. Remittances & Diaspora

Advantages:

• Soft power in these nations as they are dependent on Indian labour.
• Reduce balance of payment crisis due to massive remittances. As per International Organization of Migration, India is the receiver of maximum remittances in world.
• Helps present our case against state sponsoring of terror in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
• We get skilled labour back & also know-how exchange is a boon.

Challenges:

• Security challenges such as Yemen civil war, kidnapping of Indian nurses in Iraq, etc.
• Religious freedom of Diaspora in Theocratic countries,
• Must avoid tendency to ‘punctuate’ middle-east only as a counter-weight to Pakistan.
• Many organized crime networks use West-Asian countries as their base of operation.
• NPCI needs to develop tech so that migrants send remittances easily.

Way forward:

As per UNDP SDG 15, international collaborations are the need of hour. Hence, more people-people collaboration is needed.