Last year, South Indian actor Prakash Raj found himself in hot water for jokingly tweeting a picture of a tea-seller, claiming that it was the first image sent by Vikram Lander upon its touch-down on the moon.
Prakash Raj, who had to take pains to explain that he was not taking a dig at the Indian prime minister, explained that he was referring to the old joke about how you can find a Malayali in any corner of the world.
The latest passport data from the Union Ministry of External Affairs seems to bear out this trope.
According to the numbers, Kerala has beaten much-bigger states like Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra to emerge as home to the largest number of Indian passport holders.
The South Indian state, with a population of just around 4 crore, has close to 1 crore (99 lakh) passport holders.
In comparison, India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh – with a population of around 24 cr – has just 88 lakh passport holders.
In fact, UP is not even at No.2, which slot has been taken by Maharashtra, which has 98 lakh passport holders among 13 crore population.
Punjab, a state known for its overseas migrants, has only 70.14 lakh passport holders.
Sex Ratio
Kerala also leads in terms of the number of women passport holders, with 42 lakh out of the 99 lakh passports issued in the state belonging to women.
Maharashtra is a close second with 40.8 lakh female passport holders.
In contrast, more than 80% of the passport holders in UP are men, resulting in only 17.3 lakh women passport holders from the state.
On a pan-India basis, the share of women passport holders is 35%, with 3.1 crore out of the total 8.8 crore passports issued to females.
Recent Changes
The latest trends also indicate that the ratio of passport holders among the different states remains largely unchanged in recent years.
For example, in 2023, Kerala saw more than 15.5 lakh new passports being issued, while Maharashtra was at No.2 with 15.1 lakh and UP saw 13.7 lakh new passports issued.
In that year, the number of total passports issued in India rose 17% compared to the previous year.
The number of passports being issued has risen significantly since COVID. For example, while 1.38 crore new passports were issued in India last year, the pre-COVID year of 2019 saw only 1.11 crore such documents issued.
Meanwhile, the COVID pandemic saw a sharp decline in the number of passports issued. The figure fell to 54.13 lakh for 2020, before bouncing back to 73.63 lakh in 2021.
Kerala is home to one of the largest diasporas in the world, and emigration – which started in the 1970s – has been the most important factor that made the state the second richest in India by living standards.
Starting with the Persian Gulf in the early years, Malayalis have struck gold in various parts of the world, including the US, Canada, the UK, Israel and Europe. In recent years, even relatively unknown countries such as Moldova have caught the ‘Mallu’ fancy.