Third, the first and second points do not mean that if an Indian professional in a foreign hotspot is in serious danger there’s nothing for the Indian state to do but get the joint secretary, external publicity, MEA, read out two para statements expressing concern or grief or bromides about “we are in touch with relevant authorities”.

The state can and must help create a market for risk management for Indian professionals working in dangerous countries. The first step in this, as we have already argued, is dissemination of information. When postwar Iraq opened up the market for skilled and semi-skilled labour in that country, and some Indians who joined the rush landed in trouble, the media had discovered that the labour ministry, so ready to overregulate domestically, had practically no policy on advising citizens of the risks. There are two kinds of risk. Systemic risks are about the general state of the country where employment is offered. Specific risks are about employers, particular locations and particular jobs. Developing a credible database on these parameters will represent a managerial marvel for the Indian bureaucracy. But since it champions and in part instrumentalises larger Indian footprints in the world, this is something it is practically and morally required to do.

The state must also encourage supply of risk insurance for hotspot jobs. Such insurance is commonly available in the West, where its preponderance owes much to government-sponsored discussions of citizens’ vulnerabilities in inhospitable foreign locations. India’s insurance sector now has enough players and enough innovation to warrant the optimism that the government can nudge the industry this way. There’s no need for state subsidy. But the government can explore the idea of making such insurance cover mandatory for every employer recruiting in India and offering jobs in a designated and publicly circulated list of dangerous countries. This is in fact a market solution to finding out responsible employers – such insurance cover, as has been discovered in Iraq, can push up cost of business by 10 per cent to 30 per cent; shady employers would be unwilling to bear the burden.

... contd.