India's growing diaspora makes evacuation from conflict zone now more crucial

India has the largest transnational community in the world; 18 million were living outside India in 2020, according to the International Migration 2020 report by the UN.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine led to the latest incident in the last two years when Indian nationals had to be rescued from a foreign country, and urgently so. Why is it that whenever the world sneezes, Indian migrants are most likely to catch a cold?

This is because India has the largest transnational community in the world. In 2020, 18 million Indians were living outside their country of birth, according to UN's International Migration 2020 report. Mexico and Russia, with 11 million each, and China, with ten million, living outside the countries, follow India in the list.

Between 2000 and 2020, the size of the Indian diaspora grew by nearly 10 million, the largest in the world. India's diaspora is mainly distributed across the United Arab Emirates (3.5 million), the United States of America (2.7 million), and Saudi Arabia (2.5 million). Australia, Canada, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, and the United Kingdom also host a significant number of Indian migrants.

While a significant portion of India's diaspora lives in the Middle East, Europe is home to the largest number of international migrants in the world (87 million). North America follows Europe by hosting nearly 59 million international migrants.

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The Indian diaspora is the largest in the world, and the remittances sent home are also the highest globally. Remittance inflows to India amounted to $87 billion in 2021, the largest in the world. The Chinese and Mexican diaspora came in next, sending $53 billion back home in the same year, according to the World Bank-KNOMAD report.

Other countries in the Top Five list are far below India and China. In third place, the Philippines diaspora sent $36 billion back home, less than half of India's.