The international conference aimed to bring together academics, practitioners and policy experts to deliberate on various emerging perspectives and policies on migration and Diaspora. It brought together about 250 participants from more than 60 countries. Their research presentations on a broad range of issues related to “Migration, Diasporas and Sustainable Development” were conducted in as many as ten different thematic areas in a span of four days, from 2nd to 5th of November 2020. There were three plenary sessions scheduled covering three major areas – Global Compact on Migration, Diaspora Engagement and Climate Migration as well as special addresses by eminent personalities from academia, international organisations, and civil society. With an objective to adequately represent the individual migrant experiences, the conference hosted diaspora achievers, including musicians, poets, and entrepreneurs.
The conference was jointly organised by Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism (GRFDT), New Delhi, Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA), Manila, Philippines, and Center for Research on North America (CISAN), UNAM, Mexico.
Paper 1. Indenture Migration and Bidesia Folk Songs: Recounting Experiences of left Behind Women: Dr. Neha Singh, IL & FS Education and Technology, Noida, India
This paper intended to convey that folk songs constitute a reliable and rich primary source for the study of cultural, institutional, and social aspects of Indian village life. These Bidesia folk songs were recorded during the researcher’s field trip to Bhojpuri speaking parts of Indian villages. These songs encapsulated the whole picture of indenture migration and captured the unheard voices, sentiments, emotions, pain and trauma of the rural women which they felt during the departure of their loved ones. The lyrics of these Bidesia songs constituted contexts and contents of memoirs which included feelings of separation in forms of songs. The left-out women tried to create songs to bridge their own reality from the imaginary. This paper documented the experiences and ethical values of the left behind women who suffered separation from their husbands.
Paper 2. An Overview of Contemporary Trends and Patterns of Migration from Nepal to India: Issues and Challenges, Dr. Arpita Giri, Jamia Millia Islamia (India)
This paper looked into contemporary trends and patterns of migration from Nepal to India in a broader political and economic context. In Nepal, migration has been a major livelihood strategy for a large section of the population. India and Nepal are historically connected and most of the migration from Nepal was towards India. Migration from Nepal has grown post 1990s and has also diversified on the lines of destination countries, place of origin and gender. Despite this India remains a major destination for socially and economically disadvantaged groups and women. The researcher mentioned several reasons for migration like neo-classical, political, social and networks. There has been work on contemporary trends of migration from Nepal but that is mostly focused on migration to the Middle East or countries of Southeast Asia. The vulnerabilities of cross border migrants, the human security concerns, the rights, the social justice mechanism have not been given adequate space. In this background, this paper looked into contemporary trends and patterns of migration from Nepal to India in a broader political and economic context.
Paper 3: Climate Poverty: Refugees and Forced Migration, Ms. Arushi Massey & Ms. Simran Massey, Economics Honours, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi and Masters in Public Policy (MPP 2018- 2020), St. Xavier’s College, Bombay
This research paper offered a unifying conceptual framework for understanding the relationship between climate change and forced migration, especially among the poor and vulnerable population. Climate change increases world inequality as it disproportionately impacts regions and diasporas, with the poorest and most vulnerable groups likely to be the least capable of adapting to it. This paper tried to analyse the impact of climate change on human mobility in the 21st century, by estimating the long-term welfare and mobility responses to climate induced migration. The methodology of the paper involved qualitative and quantitative research since a disaggregated approach is required in order to shed light on the levels of climate vulnerability and coping mechanisms of different social groups.
The paper had a well envisioned blueprint for Climate Policy for Agrarian Economies using three parameters like- environment, equity and economics and also strong institutional framework. To mitigate the devastating effects of a climate-induced migration, which could evolve into a global crisis, this paper proposed a number of policy priorities and actions.
Paper 4. Climate induced migration and displacement in South Asia, Ms. Sabah Khan, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India
This paper attempted to study human mobility in the context of climate change. It aimed to discuss the climate induced migration and displacement in South Asia. The paper discussed how natural calamities such as floods, tsunamis and earthquakes have increased the susceptibility of the region’s already vulnerable population. In this scenario, migration becomes inevitable. The discussion followed how climate induced migration acquires newer characteristics with migration corridors in South Asia such as between Bangladesh–India, Afghanistan–Pakistan, India–Pakistan and Nepal–India. This paper discussed the different cases of climate induced migration and displacement in South Asia as well as the biopolitics of mobility.
Paper 5. Drought and seasonal migration in rural India: A comparative study among different income and social groups with a cross- sectional nationally representative dataset, Mr. Badsha Sarkar, TERI School of Advanced Studies, New Delhi, India
The study tried to quantify the varied migration responses in the instances of drought situation among the different income and social groups at national level in rural India. The paper argued that in recent times, India is witnessing a significant growth in terms of both vulnerability to climate change and the volume of seasonal migrants simultaneously. A volume of field investigations has shown a variety of migration behaviours among the different population groups, distinguished by their respective social and economic characteristics, under a given form of natural hazard. But there is hardly any study which quantifies the varied association between drought and migration among the different income and social groups at national level in India. For the study, objective survey based meteorological data on drought from India Meteorological Department (IMD) was merged with a nationally representative cross-sectional dataset of seasonal migration collected by National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO).
The study recommended that the policies designed for creating migration related interventions and drought management strategies should be made sensitive for the socio-economically marginalised sections of the society in India.
Paper 6: In Search of a ‘Refuge’: Internal Migrants and Neoliberal Responses, Ms. Srinita Bhattacharjee, University of Hyderabad, India
This paper asserted that the challenging complexities of seeking shelter from inflicted calamities could also occur within the perimeters of the home nation-state. The recent instances of India’s internal migrant labor compelled to become ‘homeless’ despite being citizens seem to be exposing an inherent structural contradiction deeply formative of the neoliberal totalitarian systems and economic ambitions. These internally displaced migrants became victims of forced migration and are meted out with atrocious adversities within their own homeland.
The paper documented human-rights abuses and violations affronted by these migrants. The aim was to foreground intellectual endeavours eliciting an ethical and empathetic response for the destitute migrants thereby, advocating the idea of cosmopolitan citizenship with more realistic representations. It explored avenues that would be strongly suggestive of policy measures for ameliorating this humanitarian crisis.
Paper 7: Climate Mobilities: Why do we need a gender perspective? Ms. Ayushi Rai, Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, India
The paper discussed the importance of addressing climate-induced mobilities. It aimed to highlight the need to understand such mobilities from a gender perspective, particularly in developing countries. It also introduced some of the important debates around the climate crisis.
Humans have always been on the move, and climate has always played an important role in human settlement and mobility patterns. However, it is for the first time that human-induced global climate change is beginning to cause population movements. Mobilities in the context of climate change are diverse, including migration, planned relocation/rehabilitation, displacement, immobility, and trapped. As climate change interacts with social inequalities and factors responsible for marginalisation, planned and safe migration does not remain an option for the marginalised making them extremely vulnerable and trapped in certain circumstances. Therefore, the poor and the marginalised are especially vulnerable to climate change. Climate-related mobility is also a gendered process, varying in terms of women’s and men’s different roles, vulnerabilities, experiences, needs, and priorities. If left unaddressed, the impacts of climate change have the potential to cause devastating consequences for the human population, particularly for the vulnerable, indigenous, and marginalised communities lacking resources to cope; while also resulting in the undermining of many human-rights.
Paper 8: Liminal journeys, liminal lives: Sindhi women refugees’ narratives of Partition and displacement Radhika Mathrani Chakraborty, National University of Singapore, Singapore
This paper explored the life narratives of six Hindu Sindhi women, with a focus on the refugee journey and the liminality engendered by displacement. The researcher tried to complement this literature by exploring the spatio- temporal dimensions of these journeys through the lens of liminality. The paper built upon and extended the notion of liminality through highlighting the indeterminacy they experienced even after arrival and settlement in India.
The ‘Partition journeys’ narrated by these women were fragmented and fractured – not discrete in beginning and end (from Sindh to India), but stretching across and structuring their life narratives, entangled with a series of movements from place to place within India. The concept of journey frames the refugee life narrative itself and is operationalized as a series of claims to a succession of potentially transient spaces as ‘home’ spaces.
Observations by the Chair (Prof. Margaret Wilson):
In paper presented by Dr. Neha Singh, the chair, commented that it was really interesting talking about Bidesia folk songs and she was very interested in the notion of folk songs as a rich primary source of data and think it’s fascinating to explore these kinds of everyday social repositories. She was quite interested to know whether there are songs of more issues of resistance. It struck her that the songs were traditional narratives of loss and pain and she wondered about if there was any issue of norms and expectations.
In the second paper by Arpita Giri, chair commented that it was a fascinating example of thinking about categories again. There is an interesting agreement between India and Nepal. Nepalese labourers are kind of informal but in some places their categorisation is difficult because of their free mobility across the border and yet there is stereotyping of Nepalese labour. So paper was important to bring labour migrant policy prepared for this population.
In the third paper by Arushi and Simran Massey, it was an interesting question, imagining what world would look like if it included climate induced poverty. The chair was very interested to see an index of vulnerability and important stress on things like decreasing green fields and it aligned in some ways with our response with pandemic and was thinking how we are going to bring the world back better.
In the fourth paper by Saba Khan, again Climate induced migration and displacement, and here issues data. First of all, lack of data and the whole issue around categories and the fact that the terminologies have different meanings. There are all kinds of legal agreements, but categories are no longer able to manage the immense disruptions that we are experiencing.
In the next paper by Badsha Sarkar, it was a very interesting quantitative analysis using data from 2008 NSSO data and clearly, we do need more data. It was very apparent during the pandemic, India’s ability to understand the immense magnitude of internal migration has been shunned lacking in this case.
In the paper by Srinita Bhattacharjee, it was very interesting for its innovative application of the categories typically persevered for migrants who are crossing an international border. Refugee laws have to be applied to internal domestic workers whose experiences of disruptions are immense and profound in the light of pandemic. The chair thought that it was very interesting and critical interrogations to point.
In the paper by Ayushi Rai, the chair was absolutely supportive of the importance of recognising the multiple ways in which gender dimensions are significant of what is going on and again this challenge of thinking about those categories of movements, do we need more categories of movements. The chair contested how we can get engaged with more vocabularies as it fails to address problems sometimes and especially different kinds of mobilities.
In the last paper by Radhika Mathrani Chakraborty, again it was really utilisation of historical migrants’ journeys in terms of new sources of data. We visit these historical moments and utilising these personal narratives as new sources of data, it is a very creative approach.
Wajda Tabassum is a PhD research scholar with the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration. She is an Economics Graduate with Masters in Labour and Development.