God’s Own Diaspora

“Thirike madunguvan theerathu adukuvan njaanum kodhikarundennum” -Arabikatha, 2007

Kerala is ubiquitous. The globe is full of invisible Keralas. One can take Malayalis out of Kerala, but never Kerala out of them. Witty Malayali banter in the streets of New York, Dubai, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Montreal, and Addis Ababa. A bevy of Malayalam newspapers, magazines, and TV shows to choose from, in all corners of the world. The taste of Kerala in food trucks and restaurants halfway across the planet. Mohanlal and Mammooty gracing silver screens thousands of miles away. Well-thumbed pages of Basheer, Benyamin, Thakazhi, or Chullikkad in remote reading corners. Small overseas communes of Malayalis and seasoned Malayali Associations striding out to welcome overwhelmed migrants from that narrow strip of land, cosseted by turquoise seas, green fields, lush coconut groves, swooning backwaters, and mighty mountains. Malayalis, habitual migrants that we are, have pitched our flags of belonging in every continent, every nation in the course of the last fifty years or so. Little surprise then that “the sun never sets” on God’s Own Diaspora (T V Thomas, Malayali Diaspora).

One can take Malayalis out of Kerala, but never Kerala out of them.

The story of Kerala, its becoming and evolving, lies deeply intertwined with histories of migration and diaspora. Once a lucrative hub of exotic spices and goods in ancient trade routes, opened out to centuries of trysts with different ocean-faring cultures, the region has always harboured an impulse towards cosmopolitanism. It is this very consciousness of world citizenship, the sense that global spaces may be inhabited without forgoing ‘Malayaliness’, that, against all odds, bonds the scattered diaspora of Kerala together.

The diasporic experiences of Kerala have played a pivotal role in birthing the unique social fabric of the state.

Interestingly, the diasporic experiences of Kerala have played a pivotal role in birthing the unique social fabric of the state. During the Gulf Boom of the 1970s and ’80s, millions of Malayalis migrated to the GCC states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, toiling away amidst the sand dunes. Their collective remittances, averaging 600 crores annually, fueled the much-vaunted Kerala Model of Development, which is today globally acclaimed as a framework for social justice. If the first wave of foreign migration from Kerala consisted predominantly of blue-collar labourers, consequent waves of the diaspora included skilled and white-collared workforces. The destinations of Malayali migrants soon expanded to include North America, Europe, Africa, and other Asian countries. Malayali professionals from different streams of work, spread out across the vastness of the planet, continued to mould the socio-economic and cultural trajectories of the state. In the heyday of the ‘Gulf-Malayali’, it was their trove of goods such as perfumes, sunglasses, and radios that initiated a whole generation into the wonders of global consumerism, while their remittances kept Kerala floating, and kept the fire burning many a Malayali hearth. Their dissemination of knowledge about foreign lands, and the technological and social advancements they witnessed, went a long way in the rapid acceleration of development in Malayali soil. In a sense, the diaspora translated/transmitted the futuristic world out there for the benefit of the home.

The histories of Kerala’s transnational connections exceed the material and cultural connections it has with these foreign geographies. These distant geographies are rendered into intimate spaces of Malayali sensibility through the many fond memories, affective recollections, and longings that they evoke. Malayali’s emotional repertoires are replete with images that brim with nostalgic reminiscences of exotic spaces that many might not have visited all, thus making many of us diasporic at heart. The wistful evocation of Kerala’s cultural scapes, that harks back not only to the folklorish histories of past opulence during the reign of Mahabali but also excites the Malayali aspirations for returning to their idyllic and verdant coast laden with ‘foreign gold and riches’ is best embodied through songs such as “Kadalinnakkare ponorae kaana ponninu ponorae…”, that brought cinema and television networks into Malayali’s popular parlance, their very social imagination. Many lyrical homages to Kerala, continue to stimulate the sensual registers of the Malayali diasporic population even as they create new aspirational grammars for all Malayalis. The cinematic reconstruction of diasporic spaces has undergone a palpable shift too in the ways in which the big screen has begun to imagine the larger diasporic populace, from the Gulf countries to the Global North. While films like Pathemaari (2015), Gadhaama (2011), Arabhikatha (2007), Jacobinte Swargaragyam (2016), and Diamond Necklace (2012) attempt to articulate the polarity of lived experience in Gulf countries, bringing into the fore class concerns that constitute one’s everyday interactions. Their juxtaposition with films that are set in exotic foreign locations in developed countries alerts the viewer to new hierarchies that distinguish various diasporic locations. Films like Ivide (2015) and English: An Autumn in London (2012), attempt to appeal to a reality where the millennials who hail from various socio-economic contexts are enamored by the mobility and prospects that could be provided by developed countries like the USA, Canada, and New Zealand. There is also a largescale student migration. Lifestyles represented in these films receive fresh affirmation in the statistics on covid migration by the World Bank, which reveals that almost 50% of the migrants who returned to Kerala following the onslaught of COVID-19 desire to re-migrate (World Bank. Resilience COVID-19 Crisis Through a Migration Lens Migration and Development Brief 34 May 2021).

The Malayali diaspora bore the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic, being especially vulnerable in foreign lands away from their dear and near ones. Yet, they contributed significantly to rebuilding Kerala when it reeled under the shock of the multiple disasters that hit this small resilient State. In this digital age, the word ‘diaspora’ might no longer evoke a sense of unforgiving distances, where Malayali digital diasporas are some of the most connected users in the world, participating vociferously in the unfolding of everyday social relations and events in Kerala. In a world where space and time have shrunk in an unprecedented manner, the Malayali diaspora is as much in Kerala as outside, their labour and dreams seeping into the very soil, scripting Kerala in new ways.