Social Exclusion, Discrimination and Xenophobia in the Middle East: A Sociological Study of Indian Emigrants

History of the world can be seen as the history of migration. People have been migrating since the beginning of their existence. Today, it has become a predominant phenomenon in the world. The present paper deals with the emigration from the Punjab state to the Middle East countries. It is a state situated in the northwest region of the Republic of India. People living in this area are known as Punjabis. Emigration is the part of Punjabi heritage, for centuries the Punjabis have been migrating to the different parts of the world; they have followed different trends and patterns in different periods to different destinations. But a totally new dimension was added in the profile of Punjabi emigrants after the oil boom in the gulf countries. Large numbers of Punjabis youngsters started migrating as semi-skilled or unskilled workers to the gulf region to meet the need of huge construction work in this region. This paper examines the migration of Punjabis to the Middle East countries and their trends and process of emigration. Attempts have been made to examine their interaction with the citizens of host countries and the reaction of the governments and citizens towards them. This paper also highlights violation of human rights of the emigrants by the host countries by focusing on the problems faced by them and their miserable conditions at work and in labour camps and as a result how this large group has been ignored by the government and socially excluded by the host country. The present paper is based on the two types of data: first, three hundred interviews conducted from the returned emigrants from the Middle East countries, and second, some secondary sources such as news papers, reports of various government and non government departments of both sending and receiving countries.