Migration Memoir
Recounting or reminiscing the memories will help academicians like me not to lose the zest for life. I joined the Centre for Development Studies (CDS) in 1986, which can be said as a completely different time, a period when zoom calls and mobile phones were non-existent and access to academic papers was not available at the click of a button. My initial years at the institute were a time of self-exploration, and with a desire to step into the academic journey, I met Dr KC Zachariah, who had prepared the United National Manual on internal migration and had served as a senior demographer at the World Bank. He was serving as an honorary fellow at CDS and he manoeuvred me to the field of migration studies with the first Kerala Migration Survey in 1998 in all its manifestations and have been working in the field ever since. The rest is history.
Years of toiling and reinventing at CDS finally bore fruit as i was able to gain a strong foothold at the institute where I ended up spending 34 years of my academic life and led me to acquire projects nationally and internationally that had significant impacts academically as well as on the policy side. During my stay at CDS, Iwas able to complete eight rounds of Kerala migration surveys, replicated the Kerala model of migration surveys in Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Gujarat and Goa. Set up a Research Unit on Internal Migration at CDS with full financial support from erstwhile Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, Government of India, for a period of 10 years (2006-2016) and acted as a Chair. Over the period when I buried myself with work, I met pulsating individuals who were engaged in various realms of academia. In addition, I started two series with Routledge – India Migration Report (since 2010) and South Asia Migration Report (since 2017) and also Founding Editor-in-Chief of Migration and Development (Taylor and Francis). During my academic journey, I met Anna at European University Institute and as we were in the same academic pursuits we planned to collaborate. The collaboration which started several years back is still going strong, even during the jolting corona ride. As I joined the International Advisory Board of Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration, Ryerson University the academic collaborations also spread to new avenues.
Just before the disastrous pandemic hit us, we had a meeting at Ryerson University in 2020, where I met Mehrunisa Ali and pitched the idea of a study on student migration. Amidst the pandemic, Mehru came with a more nuanced plan which was unobtrusive by all means. As I was retiring from CDS during the submission of the project for funding, my institute showed some hesitancy initially in approving the affiliation, which was later on sorted out through administrative procedures. To my own surprise, I was blessed with equanimity and something that I had planned and dreamt of a lot, was finally taking shape, an Institute devoted entirely to research on migration and allied fields. With a team of experienced researchers and young talented cohorts finally IIMAD | The International Institute for Migration & Development (external link) came into existence (www.iimad.org (external link) ).
Even after that, I was supposed to pull up my socks to make sure everything falls into place. As the new institute doesn’t meet the requirements of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (an act by the Government of India to receive the foreign funds), the processes became complicated and I was complacent to go back to CDS. As i was working as a visiting professor at the Loyola Institute of Social Sciences Training and Research (LISSTAR) i tried to wire the funds through the institute. But things did not materialize due to some procedural issues connected with the SSHRC grant and Ryerson University, following whichI attempted to wire the funds through another research Institute based in Kerala, Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation (GIFT), where I am an honorary fellow which also did not find success because they were not eligible to receive foreign funds. At last, the funding issues were sorted through Kannur University where I serve as Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences and that brought an end to the insoluble dilemma. As new doors are opening up post-covid, I hope our timely study will engage academically as well on a policy basis. As I sum up my writing, I understand we are on the verge of recovering, reinventing and restructuring for a post-pandemic future and let’s hope our project will go beyond academia and aid in advocacy
