An Analysis of Climate Change Related Vulnerability Among the Forced Migrants in India

Abstract

Large numbers of population in India primarily depend on climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture, water, and forestry etc. for their livelihood. Therefore, the performance of the economy is directly related to the environment and fluctuate with any climate disasters like drought, flood, severe weather etc. Moreover, other than economic performance, one response to sudden climate change or natural disasters on a human is migration. Vulnerable people prefer to settle in a relatively safer place where the effect of climate change is less likely so that they get more stable living conditions and as a result, climate-induced migration is a consequence of the natural disaster. Primarily, both permanent and temporary migrations are the survival strategy of people dealing with the opportunity. However, they can also migrate due to the impact or consequences of natural disasters. While the climate-induced migration has an impact on human wellbeing and political status, research on this issue is limited and often fragmented. This present paper deals with this issue and tries to find out the facets of the changing patterns of the forced migration, especially, in reference to the climate-induced migration in the context of India. Secondary data on migration in India provides both permanent and temporary migration details, in which a considerable number of forced migrants have been reported due to different environmental conditions. The present study focuses on the characteristics of climate-induced forced migrants in India and attempts to understand their social and economic impacts on the overall development of the country. Moreover, the paper also draws attention to the probable vulnerability of environment-induced migration in the context of natural disaster to identify the vulnerable classes associated with these migrations. For this, the paper has used unit level data from NSS 55th (1999-2000) and 64th (2007-2008) rounds and compares the forced migration in India over time. Therefore, this paper tries to give an analytical perspective on the overall picture of the forced migration, with special reference to the climate change and migration nexus in India. Findings suggest that upper caste Hindus and Muslims, women, aged and poor people are more vulnerable to the effect of climate hazard and migrated more in response to environment disasters. Moreover, natural disasters become one of the growing causes of migration in some of the Indian states along with the reasons noted as social and political problems.