Diasporic engagement and the climate crisis in Kerala: inclusive disaster relief and reconstruction?

ABSTRACT

India has been identified as one of the most vulnerable countries within the global climate crisis. Kerala has been highlighted as a hotspot of climate vulnerability within India, and this was illustrated by the floods of 2018. Nearly, 500 people lost their lives during the floods and 1.4 million were displaced, with the reconstruction programme still taking place today. Anecdotal andmedia accounts have suggested that the Keralan diaspora played a significant part in the disaster relief and reconstruction effort both during and after the floods. However, there has been very little detailed empirical investigation into this particular diasporic engagement during a time of crisis. Drawing upon original empirical research, this paper will examine the nature and impact of Keralan diasporic engagement during, and after, the 2018 floods, particularly focussing upon whether this was an inclusive relief and development effort across the categories of caste, region and religion within the state.

KEYWORDS:

• Kerala
• diaspora
• floods
• caste
• transnationalism
• inclusive development

Introduction

Kerala, located at the south-western tip of India flanked by the Arabian Sea to the west and the Western Ghats to the east, has long been recognised for its progressive human development statistics. The Kerala model of development has been represented globally as enabling positive health outcomes, the reduction of hunger, the promotion of gender equality and the provision of universal, quality education. Outward international migration, particularly to the Arabian/Persian Gulf, and the resulting remittance flows from the Keralan (often also referred to as Malayali/Malayalee) diaspora back to the state, has long been seen to play a prominent role within this development process of the past 40 years (Prakash 2020; Zachariah and Rajan 2009, 2018). Kerala’s reputation has been reinforced recently by it continually topping the ranking of all Indian states on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) India Index from 2018 to 2022 (National Institution for Transforming India 2018, 2022), and this is despite the devastating impact of both the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2018 floods within the state. The impact of these 2018 floods, and more specifically the role of the Keralan diaspora in the relief and reconstruction effort following them, is the focus of this paper.

India has been identified as one of the most vulnerable countries within the global climate crisis. Kerala has, in turn, been highlighted as a hotspot of climate vulnerability within India (Bhagat 2017; Rajan and Bhagat 2017), and this was illustrated to devastating effect by the floods of 2018. These were the worst floods in the history of the state since a great deluge of 1924. Nearly 500 people lost their lives from June to August 2018 and 1.4 million were displaced. 13 out of the 14 districts across the state were deeply affected, with the reconstruction programme still taking place today. Anecdotal and media accounts (e.g. Business Standard 2018; Jacob 2018; NDTV 2018; Rakesh 2018) have suggested that the Malayalee diaspora, already widely famed for their remittance-led role in the development of the state, played a significant part in the disaster relief and reconstruction effort both during and after the floods. However, there has been very little detailed empirical investigation into this particular diasporic engagement during a time of crisis. Drawing upon original empirical research conducted between 2018 and 2023, this paper will examine the nature and impact of Keralan diasporic engagement during, and after, the 2018 floods, particularly focussing upon whether this was an inclusive relief and development effort across the categories of caste, region and religion within the state.

In the context of a recent upsurge in forms of diasporic non-government organisational (NGO) environmental citizenship, and contemporary policy discussions (e.g. European Union Global Diaspora Facility 2022; International Organization for Migration 2022) focussing upon the increasingly significant role for global diasporas within responses to climate change, this paper contributes to a limited but growing body of academic literature on (to date largely faith-based) South Asian diasporic transnational environmental citizenship/activism (e.g. Hancock 2020; Mooney 2018; Prill 2015), as well as to a larger, more established, body of work on global diasporic transnational responses to climate-induced events/disasters, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami (Aldrich 2011), the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir (Rytter 2010), the 2010 Haiti earthquake (Esnard and Sapat 2016), hurricanes in Puerto Rico and Honduras (Griffith 2020) and rising sea levels in the Pacific Islands (Enari and Jameson 2021). While there has been some previous study of the complex relationship between international migration, the Malayalee diaspora and the 2018 floods (Rajan, Heller, and Ranjan 2018; Rajan et al. 2020a; Rajan, Suresh, and Irudayarajan 2022; Rajan, Shibinu, and Rohit 2023), this has primarily focussed upon the potential impact of the disaster upon large scale labour migration patterns to and from Kerala and the associated policy implications of these, as opposed to the detailed empirical examination of diasporic involvement in the flood relief and reconstruction effort, and how inclusive or otherwise these activities were/are, which is being undertaken in this paper. Existing work from the Centre for Social Studies and Culture (2018) suggests that existing inequalities and marginalisations (of caste, gender and region) were exacerbated by the 2018 floods and the post-flood relief operation in Kerala, but there has been no consideration of the activities or role of the Keralan diaspora within these processes.

This paper will identify a significant role for the diaspora in the relief and reconstruction effort during and after the floods. It is undoubted that lives were saved and that livelihoods were protected and (re)developed as a result of the voluntaristic and altruistic actions of the Malayali diaspora and its organisations from 2018 onwards. This should never be underestimated. However, we will also question whether this relief and reconstruction effort was truly inclusive across caste, religion and region, ultimately arguing that, following a period of ‘intensive transnationalism’ (Esnard and Sapat 2016; Rytter 2010) during and immediately after the floods, longer term diasporic engagement in this particular crisis is perpetuating, rather than challenging, existing caste, religious and regional inequalities within Kerala. Consequentially, we will challenge dominant, mass mediated, narratives which have articulated a wholly unifying role for the Keralan diaspora within the 2018 floods relief effort, and we will also argue that the (at least part) reliance of the Keralan state government upon its diaspora for the reconstruction of Kerala following the floods is seriously undermining inclusive development across the state.

Keralan caste, religion, region and migration

Caste differentiation, ‘a form of social stratification involving a mode of hierarchically arranged, closed endogamous strata, membership to which is ascribed by descent and between which contact is restricted and mobility impossible’ (Teltumbde 2010, 12), or India’s ‘hidden apartheid’ (Teltumbde 2018), is one of the most deeply embedded, enduring, horrific and concealed forms of oppression the world has ever seen. Relations of caste domination and subordination have been primarily identified with and in South Asia, particularly India, but they have spread around the globe alongside the long history of South Asian international human migration. Despite being a significant determinant of life-chances and opportunities for 20–25% of the world’s population, there is remarkably no mention at all of caste within the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (Mosse 2018) which supposedly aim to transform the world by 2030, ensuring ‘prosperity for all’ and ‘leaving no-one behind.’

Caste oppression is not a relic of the past. There is overwhelming empirical evidence that caste oppression and caste atrocities are widespread and intensifying (Saracini and Shanmugavelan 2019; Shah and Lerche 2021; Teltumbde 2010, 2018; Yengde 2022). Although they have endured for over three millenia, caste hierarchies have been, and are, incredibly complex, dynamic and regionally differentiated. The nature of caste continues to change through time, while distinct religious contexts have played a significant role in the divergent experiences of caste domination and subordination across India and globally. Although caste differentiation is primarily identified with, and legitimated by, the scriptures and religious practice of Hinduism, caste oppression is also enduring and entrenched within non-Hindu Indian states and transnational communities. Kerala and its global diasporas are religiously diverse and yet caste-divided spaces.

The population of Kerala is predominantly spread across the religions of Hinduism (55%), Islam (27%) and Christianity (18%) (Census of India 2011). The Kerala Public Service Commission (2022) identifies 53 Scheduled Castes (SCs, groups at the bottom of the caste hierarchy, also referred to as Dalits) and 35 Scheduled Tribes (STs) across the state, while the 2011 Census of India (the latest available) indicates that Keralan Dalits constitute 9.1% of the state population, with STs accounting for 1.5%. It has been estimated (Zachariah 2016) that a further 2.6% of the population of Kerala are Dalit Christians who are not afforded official SC status within census statistics or government assistance/reservation programmes. 99% of the officially recorded SC population of Kerala, as per the Census, are Hindus (Census of India 2011).

There is clear evidence of deep, enduring caste inequality, and social exclusion on the basis of caste, between Dalits and non-Dalits in Kerala (Centre for Social Studies and Culture 2018; Deshpande 2000; Devika 2010: Osella and Osella 2003; Teltumbde 2018; Zachariah and Irudaya Rajan 2016; Zachariah, Mathew, and Irudaya Rajan 2003). SC/ST economic activity is concentrated within low income agricultural and informal labour, and there is a gross over-representation of SCs and STs below the poverty line (Zachariah and Irudaya Rajan 2016). While the SCs and STs are spread throughout Kerala, Pramod (2015) and the Centre for Social Studies and Culture (2018) identify spatial marginalisation and discrimination as an aspect of caste-based social exclusion and inequality within the state, with over 60% of Dalits concentrated within what are officially termed ‘habitats’ but more generally known as ‘colonies’, residential areas of low status with few links to local governance systems and/or social support and networks facilitating opportunities and benefits, and which are also highly risk prone, particularly to increased flooding. More widely:

One crucial defining feature of Dalit lives in Kerala is the remoteness of their settlements, which make it difficult for them to access basic services and amenities essential for a dignified, decent, existence. It also makes their engagement and participation in the local governance either difficult or negligible … in general, most of the settlements of the marginalized; the Dalits (and STs) … are in remote, under-serviced and natural hazard prone locations lacking infrastructure. Many are located on risky hill slopes, marshlands or perennially submerged lowlands cut off from the ‘mainstream’ Kerala, disconnected from the ‘model’ that the state is so proud of. (Centre for Social Studies and Culture 2018, 18)

As noted above, Kerala’s economy and acclaimed relative prosperity and development is highly driven by remittances resulting from outward international migration. At the time of the 2018 floods there were 2.2 million Keralan international migrants across the world (Rajan, Zachariah, and Kumar 2020b) and it was estimated that 36% of Kerala’s State Gross Domestic Product (SGDP) originated from international remittances (Rajan and Zachariah 2017, 2018), which is almost 13 times higher than the proportion of remittances within India’s overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the nation which was then, and still is, celebrated as the largest foreign remittance receiving country in the world (World Bank 2017). One out of every four households in Kerala has a migrant, with migrant workers constituting the single largest contributing group to the state economy. Mohapatra, Joseph, and Ratha (2009) argue that remittances acting as a safety net after natural calamities increase in countries with a higher share of emigrants and Rajan, Heller, and Ranjan (2018) predicted that the 2018 floods would facilitate an increase in both international migration from, and the receipt of remittances by, Kerala, with significant proportions of the latter being spent on the reconstruction and repair of houses and other assets damaged during the disaster. This seemed to be confirmed in the immediate post-flood period with the World Bank (2019) noting a more than 14% increase in overseas remittances to India and attributing this primarily to the financial help sent by the global Malayalee diaspora to their families in order to help them cope with the aftermath of the floods. Longer term trends of this phenomenon, however, are very difficult to discern following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and its impact on international migration and remittance patterns, in early 2020.

It is important to note that while international migration has contributed to a dramatic increase in Kerala’s economic growth figures and indicators of progressive development figures over the past four decades, there is little evidence that current migration and associated forms of diasporic transnationalism contribute positively to reducing caste, regional and religious disparities within the state. International migrants from Kerala originate predominantly from the regions of Malappuram, Kannur, Kollam, Thrissur and Thiruvananthapuram. Furthermore, immediately prior to the floods, only 3% of Keralan Dalit households had an international migrating member, with only 2% of overseas remittances into the state being received from Dalit migrants (Rajan, Zachariah, and Kumar 2020b). Also at this time, 86% of Hindu Dalits in Kerala were classified as non-migrant. With particular regions and religions of Kerala, and certain castes (SCs and STs), having been historically excluded from the international migration process, they have also been excluded from the social, economic and cultural benefits which can result from it.

Whilst high volumes of remittance receipts have contributed significantly to reducing poverty, unemployment and relative deprivation in Kerala, the migration-induced development model, also referred to as the ‘Kerala miracle’, has thus far excluded some regions, religions and castes. In fact, international migration has arguably intensified the developmental divide between different caste, regional and religious groups. Osella and Osella maintained in 2003 (113) that while migration in Kerala is ‘a key tool in family strategies towards upward mobility and identity fashioning’, it had also led to deepening inequality as well as changes in the nature of inequality, an argument also supported by Zachariah and Rajan (2009), Rajan, Taylor, and Kumar (2017) and Kannan and Hari (2020). We will be pursuing our analysis of Keralan diasporic engagement at a time of crisis, the 2018 floods, in the context of this wider, existing research which suggests that international migration from Kerala, and resulting forms of diasporic transnationalism, have sustained rather than challenged some existing inequalities and have undermined an inclusive development process.

The 2018 Kerala floods

Due to its close proximity to the sea, with a coastline of nearly 600 km, and the presence of numerous rivers, lakes, backwaters and estuaries, a considerable proportion of the total land area of Kerala is susceptible to floods and landslides. The state has a humid tropical climate, the dominant climatic phenomena being the South-West (June to September) and the North-East (October to December) monsoons. In fact, Kerala is known as the ‘gateway’ of the summer monsoon over India, with its onset beginning there. It is reported that almost 14.8% of Kerala is prone to flooding, and the proportion in some districts is almost 50% (Government of Kerala 2019). Landslides are a major hazard along the Western Ghats in Wayanad, Kozhikode, Idukki and Kottayam districts. Such phenomena are only projected to increase in future years under the impact of climate change (Hunt and Menon 2020).

The 2018 Kerala floods took place between June and August. Total rainfall during this period was 2226.4 mm, 42% in excess of previously average levels, with 164% more rainfall than that expected within August (Centre for Social Studies and Culture 2018), the month that saw the most severe flooding and landslides. The heavy rains, along with landslides of varying types and intensity in different parts across the state, swelled up the rivers and the multiple dams. The Kerala government was required to release water from at least 34 dams despite the downpour. The outcome was disastrous as nearly 500 people lost their lives and 1.4 million people were displaced from the resulting floods and landslides. More than 500 landslides were reported during August 2018 (NDMA 2018). 12,251 relief camps were opened across the state in order to accommodate the displaced population (Government of Kerala 2019). Besides the causalities, the floods caused severe infrastructural damage and led to the loss of houses, livestock, and sanitation facilities. It has been estimated that the 2018 floods caused economic losses of 3.4 million US dollars across the state (Hunt and Fletcher 2019). 13 out of 14 districts across Kerala were affected, with only Thiruvananthapuram escaping, but the impacts varied regionally, with the regions of Alapuzha, Ernakulam, Idukki, Kottayam, Pathanamthitta, Thrissur and Wayanad the most deeply impacted. A year after the deluge in 2018, another downpour of incessant rains resulted in further disastrous floods and landslides in August 2019. However, the impact of the floods in 2019 was of a lesser magnitude than those of 2018. Nevertheless, in 2019, 300,000 people were temporarily displaced and considerable destruction to land and agriculture was reported.

The research process

The data upon which this paper is based was collected between 2019 and 2023, enabling us to evaluate the impact of the 2018 floods in Kerala, and in particular the role of the Malayali diaspora in the relief and reconstruction effort and the relationship of this to inclusive development or otherwise within the state, in both the short and medium term from 2018, although it must be acknowledged that any such analysis becomes difficult and complicated following the added impact of COVID-19 within Kerala between 2020 and 2022.

Our research was initially part of a wider project, of which the authors were a part, conducted in 2019 by the Centre for Development Studies, Kerala and Northumbria University, UK, investigating the more generic impact of the 2018 floods upon livelihoods across Kerala (see Rajan et al. 2020a). All relevant and appropriate permissions to use the data from this 2019 project within the present paper were obtained. The wider (2019) study was based upon the methodology of the Kerala Migration Survey (KMS) (2018), a sample survey of 15,000 households across the state focussing upon migration-related issues. There were 500 localities in KMS 2018, with each locality containing 30 households. The sample households are the distribution of the total households by the districts of Kerala, taken by using a stratified multistage random sampling method. The 14 districts of Kerala are divided into 28 strata with one rural and urban stratum in each district. The households are distributed between the district’s rural stratum and urban stratum proportional to the district’s rural-urban households in the 2011 Census. The villages and the wards given by census are taken for each rural and urban stratum respectively selected by the proportional sampling method. Systematic random sampling methods were used to select samples from each ward from the available list of households at the time of the survey.

Our 2019 survey of the impact of the 2018 floods upon livelihoods in Kerala engaged the same sample households as KMS 2018 but focussed upon those districts that were most deeply affected by the floods and landslides, four districts in the north of Kerala (Kannur, Palakkad, Wayanad, Thrissur), four in the south (Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha, Kollam, Kottayam) and one in the central part of the state (Ernakulam). A total of 1800 households were selected for the study, out of which 294 were untraced households, thus the sample size of the 2019 survey was 1506 households. All the selected households were part of the KMS 2018 survey prior to the floods, enabling a unique before and after comparison in order to evaluate the impact of the disaster. This survey was then followed by a project, undertaken solely by the authors of this paper between 2022 and 2023, consisting of 80 individual, semi-structured, qualitative interviews with a representative sample (across caste, gender, age and rural/urban areas) of respondents from the originally sampled households and focussing particularly upon experiences of the relief and reconstruction effort following the 2018 floods and the role of the Keralan diaspora within this. All of these interviews were conducted face-to-face, principally in a mixture of Malayalam, Tamil and English, and were recorded and transcribed (with the permission of the participants). These interviews, and the 2019 survey described above revealed an apparently key and significant role for Malayalee diasporic organisations and their transnational activities in the 2018 flood relief and reconstruction effort. Thus, in 2023, we also conducted 20 semi-structured, qualitative interviews with key representatives of Keralan diaspora organisations worldwide, based in Canada, the UK and the Arabian Gulf (Oman, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and Qatar), who were involved in transnational flood relief and reconstruction from 2018 onwards. All of the latter interviews were conducted on-line and in English, via Zoom, and were recorded and transcribed (with participant permission). All interviews (face-to-face and on-line) were collectively analysed by the authors and all of the research which informs this paper received ethical approval and clearance via Northumbria University, UK.

Diasporic transnational Malayalee flood relief and the reconstruction of Kerala: ‘We couldn’t have coped without them’

As noted above, the Keralan diaspora undoubtedly played a prominent role in the immediate relief effort during and immediately after the 2018 floods, and they have also provided strong support for the reconstruction of the state since this devastating crisis. Our empirical research revealed that much of this was channelled through Malayalee diasporic organisations and the transnational social, economic and cultural relations which constitute them. Perhaps one of the most obvious examples of Malayali transnationalism is the global celebrations of the Onam Festival, the biggest harvest festival in the Keralan calendar. Since the 2018 floods took place only days before Onam in that year, all of the representatives of the global Malayalee diasporic organisations who we interviewed recounted how preparations for the festival celebrations immediately gave way to providing support for the victims of the floods in Kerala when news of the disaster became known. As a Secretary of one of these (in this case UK-based) organisations commented:

It was an overwhelming feeling that every Malayalee around the world was coming together to support and help their fellow Malayalees back home. We cancelled our age-old tradition of Onasadhya (Onam banquet) in 2018, which was celebrated since the 1970s so that the ticket money for the Sadhya (banquet) could be instead contributed to tackling the Kerala floods. Many Malayalee restaurants (in London, UK) too contributed a part of their Onam profits to the cause.

The distribution and use of the proceeds from the global Keralan diasporic Onam fundraising for flood relief in 2018, to buy much-needed goods for disaster relief and then distribute them through pre-existing transnational networks and social/economic relationships demonstrated both the strength of contemporary Malayalee diasporic transnationalism and the wider significance of the latter for Kerala’s economy and society, as illustrated by a key representative of a Malayali diaspora organisation based in Oman:

One of the members from our organisation gave us two fully unfurnished flats for storing … (the purchased) goods. This helped us stock all the items received from people throughout Oman in a single place. We then used our contacts and with the help of container trucks we transported it to the airport. From there we send the items in the cargo to Trivandrum and Ernakulum Airport. We had a tie-up with some local NGO’s specifically in Trivandrum and Pathanamthitta. They had arranged volunteers prior to the arrival of goods. From the airport they collected the goods and delivered it in areas which had requested the help. We had opened a few (telephone) contact numbers. We would get hundreds of calls every day from specific areas throughout Kerala for the delivery of goods. We noted this down and sent things accordingly catering to specific needs. For example, orphanages needed only kids items and we delivered only that to them. Also since we can’t transport food from here (Oman), we sent money to the volunteers there and they buy parcels and distribute it accordingly … we ourselves didn’t know our strength before the floods and … we are continuing (in 2023) to support a few institutions in Kerala and we will be actively involved if anything goes wrong in the state. We have a bond with the people whom we have helped.

The sheer scale of the Keralan diasporic response to the 2018 floods, and its long-lasting effects, are worthy of note. For example, a further research participant and key representative of a diaspora organisation focussing upon Malayali health care, this time spanning the UAE, Oman and Qatar, as well as Kerala, claimed to have ‘50,000 plus members’ and those residing in the Arabian Gulf set up 24 hour call centres in the immediate aftermath of the floods to deal with urgent health-related issues:

They got 100 plus calls every day and they would connect it to each district representative and the concerned person will take it from there. We partnered with private health care centres and private ambulance services to provide healthcare to the people affected. We had also set up a whatsapp group where people can request for blood … we gathered people from all over the state who were willing to donate blood as well as volunteer for the relief activities … we also helped people relocate to safer spaces. Once the flooding reduced we … set up medical camps three times a week in the areas which were severely affected … it helped people to start getting aid and get back to good health. We … set up awareness drives on how to start rebuilding for a better tomorrow. Lastly we also helped people clean their houses post-floods … we helped them clean the house completely and also ensured they had supply of medicines and food.

A representative from a diaspora organisation based in Saudi Arabia reported similar experiences:

We have around 50,000 active members … we collaborated with local leaders at the time (of the floods) to identify people who needed the most help. We provided food in packets for almost 2 months. We also made sure medicines were delivered to every house in which people above 60 were residing … in the relief camps … we made sure no items ran out and everyone got whatever they needed.

We have also already suggested, as noted by the World Bank (2019), a crucial financial role for the Keralan diaspora in the flood relief effort, with a significant increase in the already hugely important flow of overseas migrant remittances to Kerala in the immediate post-2018 period. This point was also strongly supported by our empirical research. The Chief Minister of Kerala made a specific appeal to the Malayalee global diaspora for financial assistance in the immediate aftermath of the floods and the Keralan transnational community duly obliged. Thus, for example, a prominent member of a diaspora organisation based in Saudi Arabia recounted how some of his members were able to mobilise, collect and donate the equivalent of 20,000 US dollars during the floods in August 2018, and then 150,000 US dollars in 2019, to the Chief Ministers fund. Donations of a similar financial value in response to the Chief Ministers appeal were recounted by the majority of the representatives of the Keralan diaspora organisations interviewed.

The role and importance of the Malayalee diaspora, and specifically the transnational activities of the organisations representing this diaspora, in the flood relief and reconstruction effort following 2018 was certainly recognised and valued by the majority of our research participants in the most severely flood-affected districts, in both our 2019 survey and our 2022 qualitative interviews. In fact, these respondents often noted an absence of Keralan state government resources and services of flood relief from 2018 onwards, in the immediate aftermath and in the longer term reconstruction and recovery process. When discussing the importance and role of the global Malayali diaspora in supporting the citizens of Kerala to recover, one respondent, representative of many, stated ‘I’m not sure where we would be if it wasn’t for the help provided by our brothers and sisters abroad … the (global) Malayalee community … put simply many more people would have died … we couldn’t have coped without them.’ These sentiments were more specifically articulated by an interviewee, representative of many within our study, from Pathanamthitta, who lost his house during the floods and received help from the diaspora organisation which he was formerly part of while he was a migrant labourer in Saudi Arabia:

I had sent the photos of my house and explained the situation to the people in charge. They had sent me some money when I was in Kerala. Later after 6 months, they approached me saying that they will help build a house for me. So they funded 75% of the construction and the rest I took a loan and constructed a house at the same place with a better architecture, strong base and strong roofing … I am forever grateful to them … from the government, we received food parcels for two months … the government didn’t help in relocation of people in my area.

It is clear from our research that the value and significance of Keralan diasporic transnationalism in providing immediate rescue and relief for many of those deeply impacted by the 2018 floods, as well as crucial support for the longer-term reconstruction of Kerala in the years following the floods, should never be underestimated. It is undoubted that many lives and livelihoods were saved by the thoughts, motivations and actions of this transnational community. However, we now turn to the question of whether the process of recovering from, and rebuilding after, the 2018 floods has been a truly inclusive development process across Kerala.

Inclusive transnational development or intensive transnationalism?

The majority of our research respondents representing diaspora organisations who were engaged in flood relief and reconstruction efforts during 2018 and beyond were very keen to argue that their activities were truly inclusive and aimed at alleviating the suffering of people across the state regardless of caste, regional or religious background. The following comments, the first from a key representative of a diaspora organisation based in Saudi Arabia and the second from a leading figure in the UK Malayalee transnational community resident in the UK, reflected this majority view:

The floods taught everyone an important lesson of equality. There was no discrimination of any sort as far as my knowledge goes. Everybody was helping each other irrespective of the background. Also, the work from our side was also based on who deserved the help more.

All the funds raised by our organisation were raised to support the ailing families in Kerala during the flood. We did not particularly target any religious or caste group. To be mindful of the relief activities being inclusive in all forms we had early on decided to concentrate on communities rather than individuals. Since Alappuzha was one of the worst-hit districts, most of the funds were directed to activities in Alappuzha.

However, this view was not widely shared by all of the respondents within our 2022 individual interview sample, particularly those belonging to Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes and/or the Hindu religion. While it was felt that there may have been a genuine intention to provide immediate relief from the floods and to provide support for all livelihoods regardless of background through the transnational activities of Keralan diasporic organisations, especially in 2018, this did not translate into an inclusive flood relief and reconstruction experience or process ‘on the ground.’ We have already noted the spatial marginalisation and ‘ghettoization’ of much of the Dalit population, into often hard to reach and geographically isolated habitats/colonies, across all regions of Kerala. Thus, while the district of Alappuzha may have been targeted for diasporic Malayalee transnational aid and support during and after the floods, this was restricted to certain, easy to reach, parts of the district where the diaspora were able to draw upon existing transnational networks and connections with the local population. As a Dalit resident of the Kuttanadu area of Alappuzha, and a participant in our 2022 interviews, explained:

We were left completely stranded by the floods, left alone … no-one came anywhere near us to help, not the government, not any migrants, or any outsiders … I don’t even know who the diaspora are or what it means … we face floods all the time because of the paddy areas where we live, no-one else wants to live there so we have been isolated there for generations … the floods in 2018 were the worst for a long time but we received no help, people lost their lives, their houses, their livestock and we still have not recovered.

The relative exclusion of Keralan Dalits, and particularly Hindu Dalits, from the international migration process from Kerala over the past four decades and the economic, social and cultural benefits that can accrue from this, also meant that these groups were not part of the social networks and connections that, as we have already seen from the evidence above, much of the transnational diasporic flood relief and reconstruction effort in 2018 and beyond was built upon. While there was some evidence of initial transnational diasporic aid and support during the floods for Keralan Hindu Dalits in non-international migrating regions of Alappuzha, such as Muttar, and Idukki, such as Perumkala, our interview respondents in these areas suggested that any support and aid completely disappeared once the flood waters had started to ease and the Malayalee diaspora retreated to their existing family and community connections and networks, exclusive of (particularly Hindu) Keralan Dalits and the often hard to reach colonies in which they reside. The following comments from a Hindu Dalit participant within our research from Muttar were representative of these narrated experiences:

We did receive some small help from outside during the worst of the floods … people were sheltering from the rains on the tops of houses and they could not feed themselves or their families … their livestock and livelihoods had been swept away … some people came with food parcels twice but they left very quickly and we didn’t see them again … we later heard that the parcels had come from some people in Canada, we had thought it was the government … we had no help from the government.

Our research here suggests that the Keralan diasporic transnational relief effort during the floods, at the height of the crisis, could be considered as a form of ‘intensive transnationalism’ (Esnard and Sapat 2016; Rytter 2010), a period of immediate crisis when ‘normal life’ is suspended and a transnational community, regardless of regional, religious or social differences, comes together to collectively respond. However, as Rytter (2010) suggests in his analysis of the global Pakistani diasporic transnational response to the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir, once this initial crisis period is over (i.e. the floods recede) and there is a need for a longer term human and structural reconstruction of the state, existing regional, religious and social divisions often return and the diasporic transnational response to this need can reinforce and exacerbate, rather than challenge, existing inequalities and hierarchies. Our key informants from Malayalee diaspora organisations within our 2023 research, who co-ordinated and led the transnational response to the 2018 floods, themselves confirmed that they used existing social and cultural connections to deliver aid and support, to regions and people who were already part of the international migration-development nexus within Kerala. The majority of participants within our 2022 interview sample confirmed that those who received long-term diasporic transnational support for recovery and reconstruction following the 2018 Kerala floods always had some pre-existing connection to the diaspora organisation delivering the help, as was the case with the former international migrant labourer who received support to rebuild his property following the floods who is quoted above. Our research suggests that sustained and long-term support from the Keralan transnational diaspora following the floods seldom reached those with no pre-existing connection to the international migration-development nexus within the state, particularly Hindu Dalits living in hard to reach colonies dispersed throughout the regions which were most heavily affected by the 2018 crisis.

Conclusions

The 2018 floods in Kerala constituted a major crisis from which the state is still recovering. There is strong evidence that these floods, claiming nearly 500 lives and leaving 1.4 million people displaced, were at least partly induced by climate change and that similar events are very likely within south-west India in the very near future (Hunt and Menon 2020). Thus, analysis of the response of key governmental and civil society actors to this 2018 crisis is not only a valuable reflection exercise but may also provide crucial insights for the response to future events.

The response of the Keralan state government and the Indian central government to the 2018 floods has been covered elsewhere (e.g. Centre for Social Studies and Culture 2018; Rajan, Heller, and Ranjan 2018). This paper has focussed upon the role of the Malayalee transnational diaspora in the relief and reconstruction effort following the floods, as anecdotal and mass media accounts have suggested that the Keralan diaspora, already widely famed for their remittance-led role in the development of the state and its impressive economic growth over the past four decades, played a significant part in this disaster relief and reconstruction at a time of crisis. Our paper is the first to evaluate these claims by drawing upon extensive and highly original empirical research with households, individuals across castes, genders, religions and regions in Kerala, and key actors within Malayalee transnational diaspora organisations.

We argue that while the role of the global Keralan diaspora in flood relief and human and infrastructural reconstruction from 2018 onwards was undoubtedly significant, most particularly because it enabled many lives and livelihoods to be saved and this should never be downplayed, this did not facilitate an inclusive reconstruction and development process across Kerala. We contend that the resources and support provided by the Malayalee diaspora at this time of profound crisis in Kerala’s history did not reach all castes, religions and regions equally. More specifically, following a relatively brief period of ‘intensive transnationalism’ during the floods, at the height of the crisis, where some attempts were made to reach all citizens in need across Kerala regardless of caste, religion and region, our research suggests that the longer term process of human and infrastructural recovery and reconstruction following the floods (post-2018) has progressively excluded those, particularly Hindu Dalits concentrated in hard to reach, often isolated, colonies across Kerala, who are not already connected to the famed international migration-development nexus within the state. The role of the Keralan global diaspora in the relief and reconstruction of the state following the 2018 floods has and is ultimately sustaining rather than challenging existing inequalities and social divisions. That said, the Malayalee global diaspora and its transnational organisations are only one set of actors within the reconstruction and development story of Kerala. During our research, there was also much criticism of the failings of the Keralan state and Indian central governments for incoherent and under-prepared responses to the 2018 floods (Centre for Social Studies and Culture 2018). The Keralan state government has actively sought the participation of the Malayalee diaspora in the economic and social development of the state over the past 40 years and is famed for the (economic) success which this diasporic engagement has apparently facilitated. However, the data and argument presented in this paper is perhaps a cautionary note for the Keralan state government’s at least partial reliance upon the global Keralan diaspora for the continuing reconstruction of Kerala following the floods and an inclusive development process across the state more widely.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Steve Taylor

Steve Taylor is a Professor of Sociology/International Development within the Centre for Global Development, Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Northumbria University, UK. He has researched and published previously on the migration-development nexus within the Indian Punjabi transnational community, meanings of ‘home’ and belonging amongst the Eastern and Western Punjabi diaspora and Dalit migration from Punjab and Kerala. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the South Asia Institute, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.

Deborah Booth

Deborah Booth is a Researcher within the Centre for Global Development, Northumbria University, UK. She has previously researched, and published on, narratives of children in the brick kiln industry in India, child trafficking in the north east of England as well as working for a range of NGOs and global development agencies, with a specific interest in the lived experiences of refugees and asylum seekers. Deborah is currently working on a project examining the relationship between the global South Asian diaspora, climate change and environmental citizenship.

Rohit Irudayarajan

Rohit Irudayarajan is a Masters graduate in International Development from the University of Northumbria, United Kingdom. He has earlier completed his bachelor's of Economics from Madras Christian College India. His major areas of Interest are Student Migration and Climate Change. He is currently working as a Research Associate with Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad on the Project ‘Odisha Migration Study’ He is also affiliated as a Research Fellow at the International Institute of Migration and Development, Kerala.