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.

- SHUBHAM THAKUR

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 laborer 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.