Datta breaks from the traditional narrative of migration studies, which often focuses on economic factors and policy frameworks. Instead, she centres the human stories at the heart of the discussion. Through the experiences of students, Information technology (IT) professionals, activists, and women escaping gendered violence, the book explores the diverse reasons pushing individuals to leave India and choose Germany as a new home. An interesting array of stories depicts multifaceted sides of emigration in the current times. 

----review in Doing Sociology, Aruna Bhattacharya 

Datta believes this “exit trend since 2015 is distinct, with immigration across status groups, gender and religion”. She points out that despite India being a democracy, more than 7,000 Indians applied for “protection” in Germany in recent years. Since getting political refuge is almost impossible, they apply as skilled workers or students. Datta calls this “shadow migration” to escape “political targeting” which masks the true motivation behind why these people are leaving. 

----review in The Wire, Dr. Amrita Cheema 

This monograph investigates the migratory pathways and motivations of Indian immigrants in Germany, focusing on students and European Union (EU) Blue Card holders (‘highly skilled’ migrants), in the context of increasing white-collar migration from India to Germany. Datta’s latest work builds on her decade-long engagement with this field. It offers a nuanced multi-perspectival approach to what migration scholarship has variously identified as ‘motivations’, ‘drivers’, ‘push-pull factors’, and ‘aspirations’ – the complex questions of why, and where, people move. It does so by highlighting ‘shadow pathways’ of migration which are often invisibilized by state categories like ‘education’ and ‘employment’, and by unraveling the multiplicities of migratory motivations through personal narratives.

----review in International Sociology, Radhika Mathrani Chakravarty 

Why Move? is a powerful book that forces us to introspect on the growing scope of migration studies—its evolving relevance to ever-changing, different, and new political locales—not just traditional neoliberal bastions like the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, China, and South East Asia—Malaysia and Singapore. Why Move? is also a book that leaves many of us—especially if we are Indian migrants in Germany—feeling helpless and frustrated. While Datta’s qualitative interviews describe elite, liberal, and white collar migrant subjectivities that experience shock at their new subaltern status, both in their home country and abroad, this burgeoning spate of elite migration does indeed pose a challenge to German society. 

----review in Nidān: International Journal for Indian Studies, Deepa Dandekar

What sets Datta’s work apart is its novelty: as one of the first scholars to study the Indian diaspora in Germany. The author uses reflexivity as analytical research tool to explore the motivations behind Indian immigration in a deeply personal way, where she positioned herself as a ‘cultural insider’ (p.xii). Through the method of ‘storification’, the author weaves her participants’ narratives into a reflexive analysis of cross-border mobility and transnational migration between India and Germany.

----review in Society and Culture in South Asia, Debangana Baruah