Clear and present need to address climate migration
Thakni Devi, a 39-year-old resident of Belagoth village in Bihar’s Supaul district, lost everything to the ravaging waters of the Kosi in September 2024. With teary eyes and a choked voice, she recounted the ordeal of how her family of four was forced to migrate to another village, Siswa, after the floodwaters had washed away their house. The family had lost their ancestral home, including all household items and clothes. Later, her husband Shankar Mandal, a farmer, was forced to migrate to Punjab’s Patiala, where he works as a labourer at a lantern factory. Thakni Devi is left alone to take care of her two daughters at her father’s home until she finds a stretch of safe land to resettle and start life afresh.
Thakni Devi’s family is one of the many that fall victim to climate change-induced displacement every year in Bihar, one of the most vulnerable states in India. Most of them get little help from the government. The cycle of tragedies keeps repeating because India lacks a concrete climate migration policy.
Kosi Navnirman, a local activist and also a victim of climate-induced migration, claims that more than 80 percent of the farmers in Khagaria, Supaul, Saharsa and Madhepura districts migrate to states like Punjab and Delhi as the floods keep changing land patterns and soil fertility. Such activists complain of the lack of climate adaptation training, which would’ve stemmed the migration.
Climate change-induced migration is posing a growing problem to India, as it is doing to many other countries. Although the world has noted the forced relocation of a large number of people due to extreme climate events, the international community still has no established legal definition for ‘climate migrants’. Even while it talks of the growing problem, the UN does not officially recognise the term.
It seems the world has been sitting on a dormant volcano for about three decades since the first report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1990, which warned that “the gravest effects of climate change may be those on human migration as millions are displaced by shoreline erosion, coastal flooding and severe drought”.
The main concern is how countries like India can deal with the growing number of climate migrants without an effective, targeted policy. The Institute for Economics & Peace highlighted that low-lying coastal areas in China, Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Pakistan would bear a significant burden of climate migration by 2050. It estimated that over 376 million people have been forcibly displaced around the world because of similar reasons since 2008.
While global climate action remains incomplete without a concerted effort, the world’s most populous country has a large role to play. About two-fifths of India’s districts have been deemed highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. More than two-thirds of the population are dependent on climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture, fisheries, and forestry. In 2020, around 14 million people migrated internally due to climate change and extreme weather incidents, as per the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.
A report by ActionAid and Climate Action Network South Asia in 2021 estimated that out of the 62.9 million likely to be displaced by 2050 in the five South Asian countries, India will see 45 million displacements. If it’s rising water that’s forcing people to leave the Sundarbans in West Bengal, erratic rains are forcing migration from Uttarakhand’s hills, and drought is pushing lakhs from Karnataka’s hinterlands to Bengaluru.
And yet, the country still lacks a comprehensive policy framework. So far, only two attempts have been made to raise the matter in parliament, both in 2022. Pradyut Bordoloi, a Congress MP from Assam, introduced the Climate Migrants (Protection and Rehabilitation ) Bill as a private member’s bill; and Heena Gavit of the BJP from Maharashtra introduced the Rehabilitation and Relocation of Persons Displaced due to Climate Change Bill.
Introducing his bill, Bordoloi said it was to “establish an appropriate policy framework for the protection and rehabilitation of internally displaced climate migrants and for all matters connected therewith”. On the other hand, Gavit proposed to set up a national committee on internally displaced persons. Both the bills defined climate migrants simply as those who have been, permanently or temporarily, forcibly displaced due to climate-induced factors. Neither did these bills pass, nor has any national policy been proposed to deal with the issue.
Although India has the National Action Plan for Climate Change (NAPCC), it does not put enough emphasis on aspects related to climate-driven migration. Under the NAPCC umbrella, strategies can be developed, including localised migration adaptation plans either to stop displacement or for those who have no option except relocating. Climate migration adaptation strategies, nurturing an ecosystem that supports sustainable living, and creating climate-friendly livelihood opportunities are some ways to help address the challenge.
What India needs is a climate migration policy that ensures adequate compensation for the losses, adaptation facilities for resettlement, and rehabilitation for the increasing number of migrants.
Shubham Thakur
Climate policy and sustainability analyst
(Views are personal)