New Delhi, May 22: Kerala’s “Great Gulf Dream” had put many on Flight IX 812, returning from the land of treasure and toil to the home they left in search of jobs.

The dream breathes life to the otherwise stagnant economy of Kerala, the state from where 60 of the crash victims hailed.

Every 16th Malayali is in the Gulf — a piece of statistic that has enriched the local parlance with the term “Gulf Malayali”.

Another linguistic invention is “Gulf wives” — a million married women in Kerala who live away from their husbands who cannot afford to take their wives with them.

The over-dependence of Kerala on Gulf Malayalis has become such that those who stayed behind joke that the small state with a backbreaking number of educated unemployed would have sunk into the Arabian Sea had its young not set sail for the Gulf.

Kerala’s ties with the Gulf are at least 15 centuries old, dating back to Malik Dinar who landed in Kasargod to spread the tenets of Islam.

He established a mosque in Thalankara in Kasargod, one of the first 10 mosques built in India. In a tragic coincidence, the secretary of the Malik Dinar mosque was one of the 45 Malayalis who was killed today.

Migration from Kerala to the Gulf had started around 18 century with moppilas (Muslims) leaving the coast in search of a better life and, mostly, never to return. Then started the inflow of rich Arabs in search of brides and business, reinforcing the relationship of Malabar (the northern region of Kerala) with the Gulf.

Even now, the Malabar region, especially Kasargod and Malappuram districts, send the maximum number of migrants to the Gulf coast.

There are some panchayats in Kerala that have at least one Gulf Malayali in every family. But unlike the typical image of an NRI, most of the Gulf migrants are unskilled labourers who land there hoping to ensure a better life for the family back home.

The Gulf money did change the face of large swathes, dotted with opulent houses. In some cases, such extravaganza has served only to lock funds without any returns.

Most of the expatriates live a miserable life, some even look after camels, just because the oil-rich Gulf offers them more money. Most of them can afford a trip back home only once in five years. “There are around 22 lakh Gulf Malayalis and of them 90 per cent earn a pittance. An average Gulf Malayali will defy the typical image of an NRI,’’ said V.R. Prakash who has carried out studies on the migration pattern.

Even a small tremor in the Gulf — political or economical — would send ripples in Kerala. According to one study, remittances from the Gulf amount to 1.74 times the total revenue receipts of the state government.