Rethinking Climate, Migration, and Rural India

On June 23, Columbia Global Center Mumbai in partnership with the Center for Integrated Earth System Information (CIESIN) at Columbia University and National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru, convened an Expert Dialogue on Climate Change, Agrarian Livelihoods, and Labor Migration in India. This day-long gathering brought researchers, practitioners, and policy voices working at the intersection of environmental change and human mobility.

The discussion centered around the concept of “displaced livelihoods.” Rather than asking only where people go, the term asks what happens to the agricultural livelihoods they leave behind, as climate stress, market pressures, and social change combine to erode farming as a viable path — pushing young people and working-age household members toward circular labor migration in search of alternatives.

Much of the global conversation on climate and migration treats movement as a one-way, permanent event — people leaving a place for good because the land can no longer sustain them. The Bangalore dialogue set out to challenge that framing. It highlighted that migration research in the Global South needs to reckon more seriously with temporary, circular, and seasonal mobility that has long characterized agrarian labor in India.

Inaugurating the dialogue, Shailesh Nayak, director of NIAS and geologist and former government advisor reminded participants that understanding today's environment-migration nexus requires a firm grounding in history. The keynote was followed by four thematic sessions:

• Environmental Mobility in India: Insights from Diverse Contexts examined circular labor migration amid ecological distress in rural Jharkhand, the shifting deltaic landscapes of Bengal, and immobility among fisherfolk in coastal Tamil Nadu and southern Odisha. (Presenters: Kunal Keshri International Institute for Population Sciences, Adrija Sengupta Birla Institute of Technology and Science - Pilani (Hyderabad Campus), Manjusha A., National Institute of Advanced Studies, Navin Jaiswal, DASRA, Kalandi C Pradhan, Indian Institute of Technology Indore)
• Migrant Labor, Economic Change, and Destination Economies turned to the urban side of the story, looking at rural-to-urban migration as a possible climate adaptation strategy in Bengaluru, shifting labor regimes in India's construction industry, and the intersection of climate migration with the just energy transition in Odisha. (Presenters: K Aysha Jennath, Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Carol Upadhya, NIAS, Reshmi Vasudevan, Population Council India, Varsha Singh, National Institute of Urban Affairs)
• Gender, Mobility, and Changing Identities explored how migration is reshaping gender roles and masculinities among migrant men, the experiences of an all-women farmer producer organization navigating climate and mobility pressures and adaptive strategies among downstream communities in Northeast India. (Presenters: Aditi Apparaju, IIHS, Chandni Singh, IIHS, Debarchana Biswas, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Sheetal Patil, IIHS)
• Policy Roundtable: From Evidence to Action brought together voices from civil society and academia to confront the policy blind spots in India's current approach to climate-linked labor mobility — including the often-overlooked question of who stays behind, and what support "stayers" need to adapt in place.

The dialogue was supported by a Presidential Global Innovation Fund (PGIF) grant from Columbia Global, which enabled the collaboration between CGC Mumbai and NIAS as well as a week of preparatory field research in Bangalore.

Field-work in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Bengaluru

The dialogue built on fieldwork in Lucknow and Bangalore, where a joint Columbia–NIAS team interviewed rural-to-urban migrants directly about their experiences with agriculture, climate stress, and life in the city. The team was led by Alex de Sherbinin (CIESIN),  Fabien Cottier (University of Geneva), and Robbin Jan van Duijne (University of Amsterdam). They were assisted by Columbia graduate students Siddhi Vora (MS in Climate), Emilio Leguízamo (PhD in Sust Dev), and Manini Menon and Benjamin Miyakawa (MA in Development Practice), alongside several students from NIAS. 

The survey found that the vast majority of migrants interviewed had experienced climate stress affecting their crop yields, and that many anticipate more young people leaving agriculture altogether in the years ahead. These findings carry particular urgency this year, with India facing the risk of a severely disrupted monsoon linked to a record-setting El Niño, which serve as a reminder that the pressures pushing households toward migration are not abstract or distant, but immediate and intensifying.

Read student reflections