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Biman Mukherji

When the alert arrives on his phone, Yashwant Deshmukh knows exactly what to do.
The Dubai-based political analyst moves away from the windows, waits for the second message confirming the missile has been intercepted, and then goes back to work.
“It has become a drill,” he said.
For the roughly 9 million Indians living and working across the Gulf, the war on Iran has shattered one of the region’s most durable illusions: that cities like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha and Manama would remain apart from the conflicts flickering at the region’s edges.

“This is not just another Gulf war, akin to those in 1991 or 2003,” said Uday Chandra, a professor at Ashoka University in India’s Haryana state who was recently based in Qatar.
“It is the collapse of the long-standing assumption that the GCC states would remain insulated from crises in the Persian Gulf.”
The GCC, or Gulf Cooperation Council, is a political and economic union of six Middle Eastern countries – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – formed in 1981.
Fear takes hold
The collapse in confidence is evident on Indian expatriates’ social media feeds.
On March 6, videos showed a building in Dubai’s Creek Harbour neighbourhood, an affluent stretch of residential towers and luxury hotels, on fire after a drone strike. No casualties were reported following a timely evacuation.
In Bahrain, the interior ministry released footage of a massive blaze at a fuel facility in Muharraq following Iranian attacks.
Iran’s intent appeared to be the deliberate sowing of widespread fear, Deshmukh said.
“There is anxiety when drones and missiles are flying over your head,” he said. “But there is a clear line between anxiety and panic.”


For many, that line has not yet been crossed, according to Deshmukh. The local authorities are still in control.
But that could all change in an instant. Iranian strikes targeting commercial hubs, airports and civilian infrastructure across the GCC were “a new shock”, Chandra said – one that was dismantling the assumptions on which millions had built their future plans.
The southern Indian state of Kerala alone has an estimated 3 million of its citizens working in the Gulf – or roughly 10 per cent of its entire population.
Remittances from the Middle East are estimated to account for around one-fifth of Kerala’s gross regional domestic product, making the Gulf not merely an economic opportunity for Keralites but an economic lifeline for the state itself.

“This could disrupt Gulf remittances to Kerala,” said Harsh Ramaswamy, an independent political commentator based in India. “The impact will also be felt by many workers in small jobs, such as hotels, if the conflict prolongs.”
The risk is not distributed evenly. While Indian expatriates in the Gulf include corporate executives and white-collar professionals, it is the blue-collar workers – the hotel employees, labourers and drivers – who analysts say have the least cushion against disruption.
“For lower-income migrants, this is not just an inconvenience,” Chandra said. “They tend to have limited savings, depend on scheduled leave and cannot simply pay for higher ticket prices, extra hotel nights, lost workdays and uncertainty over their future visa and employment status.”
Ramaswamy put it more starkly. “Once they leave, they won’t know where to go. Ultimately, it is the ordinary Indians who would suffer in an exodus.”
A new insecurity
For those who have tried to leave, flight cancellations and airspace closures have left tens of thousands stranded across Gulf airline hubs.
Diversions and fare spikes have made the journey home vastly more difficult and expensive for those who can least afford it.
The crisis has also ignited a political backlash. Opposition leaders and activists have demanded that New Delhi launch urgent repatriation operations for workers stranded in the region.
India’s Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar told the upper house of parliament on Monday that more than 67,000 Indians had returned via contingency flights – a significant figure, though one that represents a fraction of the total Indian population in the Gulf.

Analysts largely expect those departures to be temporary. Once flights normalise and a semblance of stability returns, so will many of the workers.
Few would relocate to India permanently, Ramaswamy predicted. “Only migrants who go for a short period will come back [for good],” he said. “They have their own lives there.”
A deeper concern is how long all this will last. US President Donald Trump has estimated the conflict will last four to five weeks, but has yet to spell out a clear plan for ending it.
If the war drags on for months, it would fundamentally change the calculations of millions of Indian workers and those who depend on their earnings.

The ripple effects extend well beyond India. The Gulf has long served as a major labour destination for workers from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, with foreign nationals making up more than half the population of many GCC countries – most of them without any path to long-term residency.
Remittances from the Gulf are equivalent to around 1 per cent of India’s gross domestic product, 3 to 5 per cent in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and nearly 10 per cent in Nepal, according to Capital Economics.
A prolonged conflict would weigh on demand for migrant labour and throttle those remittance flows, the London-based macroeconomic research firm warned.
“A collapse in remittances seems unlikely,” said Shilan Shah, Capital Economics’ deputy chief emerging markets economist. But any meaningful drop would widen external deficits across much of South Asia at a time when high energy prices are already straining economies.
“There is a growing sense that the petrodollar economy in the GCC may no longer be safe to live and work in,” Chandra said.
“Undoubtedly, this is a new kind of Gulf insecurity. War has moved close to the urban nodes around which Indian expat life, mobility and labour are organised.”
For years, the Gulf was where ordinary people went to build extraordinary lives.
Whether it can still be that place is the question millions of families are now asking.


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Iran war fallout puts 9 million Indian workers in the line of fire

A worker assesses the damage after a drone strike on a building in Dubai’s Creek Harbour neighbourhood on Thursday. Photo: Getty Images/AFP 

A policeman inspects the wreckage of a drone in downtown Dubai on Thursday. Photo: AFP

Stranded Indian travellers settle into a tent at a farmhouse owned by an Indian businessman, now converted into a shelter in Ajman, near Dubai, on March 7. Photo: AP

An Indian family who were stranded in Dubai arrives at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi on March 3. Photo: Reuters

Smoke billows from Jebel Ali port near Dubai after an Iranian attack on March 1. Photo: Reuters

War on Iran threatens Asia’s food supply as fertiliser prices surge

Farmers sow paddy saplings in a field on the outskirts of Guwahati, India, last month. Photo: AP

Workers harvest rice at a paddy field in Kishoreganj, Bangladesh. Photo: AFP

QatarEnergy’s liquefied natural gas facility in Ras Laffan Industrial City suspended production on March 2. Photo: AFP

Urea fertiliser at plant in Ukraine. Around one-third of global fertiliser supply passes through the Strait of Hormuz. Photo: Dreamstime/TNS

Why Iran and North Korea are ‘highly likely’ to revive missile and nuclear cooperation

Damaged buildings following air strikes at the Khorgu missile base on Monday in Khorgu, Iran. Photo: Vantor via AP

North Korea has expressed support for the election of Mojtaba Khamenei as Iran’s supreme leader. Photo: WANA via Reuters

The Choe Hyon naval destroyer conducts a missile test launch observed by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at an unknown location in North Korea on Tuesday. Photo: KCNA via Reuters

South Korean tanks on standby at a training ground in the border city of Paju on Monday, as South Korea and the US begin their annual “Freedom Shield” military exercise. Photo: EPA/Yonhap

A view of the Natanz Nuclear Facility with new building damage, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, near Natanz, Iran, on March 2. Photo: Vantor/Handout via Reuters

How far could the war with Iran spread beyond the Middle East?

The sun sets behind a plume of smoke from a US-Israeli military strike in Tehran, Iran, on Tuesday. Photo: AP

Azeri security personnel guard the debris of what is believed to be an Iranian drone near a school in Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic on Thursday. Photo: Azerbaijan State News Agency/Xinhua

A Turkish soldier checks a fragment from a Nato air defence system that intercepted a missile on Wednesday. Photo: Demiroren News Agency/AFP

Iraqi Kurds inspect the damage to their homes after a drone attack in Arbil on Wednesday. Photo: AP

Pakistanis walk across the Pakistan-Iran border at Taftan in Balochistan province on Thursday. Photo: AFP

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As missiles fly, drone strikes from Dubai to Doha are shattering the illusion of safety for millions of Indian expats living in the Gulf


As missiles fly, drone strikes from Dubai to Doha are shattering the illusion of safety for millions of Indian expats living in the Gulf.


Iran war fallout puts 9 million Indian workers in the line of fire

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}As missiles fly, drone strikes from Dubai to Doha are shattering the illusion of safety for millions of Indian expats living in the Gulf

As missiles fly, drone strikes from Dubai to Doha are shattering the illusion of safety for millions of Indian expats living in the Gulf