reassessing climate change-migration-conflict

8/8/2019 Reassessing Climate Change-Migration-Conflict

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Reassessing the Climate Change-

Migration-Conflict Link

An analysis of immigrant-related conflict in Assam, India


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Abstract

There is a general consensus in the arenas of public perception and policy that climate

change has definite implications related to human security. The fairly large and influential

body of literature that supports this draws from a neo-Malthusian notion of a monotonically

dwindling resource pool, which depletes faster as a result of climate change. As natural

resources become increasingly degraded due to overexploitation and global warming, it is

argued, rising human populations will be forced to migrate internally or cross borders and

distributional conflicts will arise as populations compete for pieces of an ever-dwindling pie.

This essay argues that such a conception of the Climate Change-Migration-Conflict pathway

is simplistic, and discounts several context-specific factors that might have greater

explanatory powers than the broad, general framework of resource-scarcity-related drivers of

migration and conflict. The argument is established through an analysis of the ongoing

conflict between the host community and Bangladeshi immigrants in Indias northeastern

Assam state.


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Introduction

The centrality of issues related to Climate Change is one of the most defining features of

development policy and practice today. Physical scientists have presented overwhelming

evidence that climate change is indeed happening at a global level, that human activities are

a major source of Green House Gases emission and that these emissions are likely to have

far-reaching negative effects on the ecology which, in turn, has direct implications for health

and livelihoods (IPCC,2007). This has led to governments, Non-Government Organisations,

businesses and academicians entering into serious consultations, and investing

considerable focus and resources in investigating future scenarios and solutions (Salehyan,

2008).

An issue of widespread concern is the relationship between Climate Change and violent

conflict. A dominant perspective among policymakers is one that draws from the neo-

Malthusian school of thought, viewing climate change as a result of demographic pressure

that leads to environmental degradation, which results in scarcity of natural resources.

Combined with unstinted exponential population growth, this would precipitate a struggle for

control over natural resources that is likely to take the form of violent conflict (Urdal,

2005:418). Resource depletion could lead to conflict through several different pathways; one

that is discussed with great concern goes through environmental migration (Reuveny,2005).

Environmental migrants are loosely defined as those who are forced to relocate themselves

willingly/unwillingly due to progressive degradation of their resource base (El-Hinnawi, 1985;

Jacobson, 1988). At any given site of in-migration, sustained influx of environmental

migration is, then, expected to put stress on the resource base there and lead to conflict as

the host community and migrants compete over their control. The crux of the neo-Malthusian

thought, thus, is a singular focus on resource scarcity as a driver of migration at the site of

out-migration and of conflict at the site of in-migration.

Much belief is placed in this hypothesis by policy makers and popular public discourse alike.

Since the appointment of Ban ki-Moon as Secretary general in 2007, United Nations has

given clear indications of adopting a policy informed by the neo-Malthusian paradigm (ki

Moon, 2007).The Norwegian Nobel Committee affirmed its belief in Climate Change as a

security issue as it awarded the 2007 Peace Prize to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental

Panel on Climate Change. Describing Darfur conflict as an ecological crisis, Moon attributes

its origin to the failure of rainfall in the region that began in the 1980s, leading to food/water

shortages and a clashes between nomadic herders and host communities of farmers. The

chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee called the Darfur conflict the first climate war


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brought about by climate change-induced desertification, in his speech awarding the 2007

prize (Njs, 2007). Upon accepting the award, the IPCC chair acknowledged the threats to

stability and human security inherent in the impacts of a changing climate from ...dramatic

population migration, conflict, war over water and other resources... (Pachauri, 2007).

Recent research in the areas of Climate Change, Migration and Conflict, however, takes a

critical view of neo-Malthusian perspectives. While there is broad agreement over Climate

science, projected changes and future resource scarcity, it has been found to be problematic

to draw linear causal pathwaysbetween Climate Change and migration, between

immigration and conflict--- and place singular emphasis on resource scarcity in general. That

kind of logic now appears to be overly structural (Salehyan, 2008) and discounts the role of

human ingenuity, social structures and political institutions. In terms of empirical evidence,

existing studies have found no direct link between ecological shifts and rise in long distance

migration (DRC on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty, 2008). A study by Salehyan &

Gleditsch (2006) indicates that most countries with an influx of refugees since the 1950s

remain peaceful. Thus, there is reason to believe that in the hypothesised causal pathway

between Climate Change-Migration-Conflict, there are weaknesses in both the Climate

Change-Migration and Migration-Conflict links. While supporting arguments are several and

variegated, two basic ideas recur throughout:

The multidimensional nature of migration: There are several drivers that influence the

decision to migrate, acting at once and making it difficult to attribute a given decision to

Climate Change or resultant resource depletion in particular. Existing studies have found no

direct link between ecological shifts and a rise in long-distance migration (Migration DRC,

2008). Decision-making at the individual/household level is affected greatly by several meso

and micro-level factors that either pre-date environmental factors or act independently of

them.

The role of social, political institutions in managing conflict. Statistical studies have

revealed that a large number of countries facing resource scarcity and/or in-migration have

remained peaceful (Salehyan and Gleditsch,2006; Salehyan, 2008). This suggests that

these factors are not necessarily ultimate triggers of conflict, and that there must be

intervening factors at play. Even instances of conflict associated strongly with resource

scarcity are related to socio-political factors such as ethnicity, inequality etc. and the role

that social and political institutions play in a given episode of violent conflict is crucial.


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2.1. Bangladesh: Profile

Bangladesh, in its current political form, came into being in 1972 as it seceded from Pakistan

following a nine-month war, during which the Indian armed forces supported rebel groups

against the Pakistani Army. Its southern deltaic regions open into the Bay of Bengal, and the

rest of the country is surrounded almost entirely by India, except a small border with

Myanmar in the South-East. Together with Indias eastern West Bengal state, it forms the

ethno-linguistic region of Bengal, which formed the province called Bengal Presidency

under unified British India. (Chakravarti, 1986)

Bangladesh has a land area of 147,570 kilometres and a population of over 140 million,

making it one of the most densely populated nations in the world at 1,045 inhabitants per

square kilometre. The population is mostly Muslim (88%) and Bangla-speaking (Government

of Bangladesh, n.d.).

The economy is primarily agrarian, with jute, rice and tea grown and exported the most.

Agriculture employs two-third of the labour force. Of late, however, about three-quarters of

export earnings come from the Ready Made Garments sector which has been attracting

foreign investment and growing since 1980, largely due to low labour and conversion costs.

The Gross Domestic Product grew by about 6 per cent per annum between 2003-04 and2007-08 (Government of Bangladesh, 2008). In 2008-09, the GDP was 67.69 billion USD

and 484 USD per capita in absolute terms, placing it 150 th among all countries on the latter

count. (Government of Bangladesh, 2008; World Bank, n.d.).

Bangladesh ranks low in terms of most other development indicators as well with a Human

Development Index of 0.524 (147th rank), Human Poverty Index of 36.9 (110th rank), a life

expectancy of 63.5 years (130th rank), a literacy rate of 52.5% (134th rank) and 48% of the

children underweight for age (135th rank) [UNDP, 2008]. Statistics such as these only

illustrate the image of Bangladesh a development basket-case (White, 1999), engrained in

the psyche of the development community as one of stagnant development and perennial

poverty reinforced by floods, drought and cyclones.


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2.2. Bangladesh: Natural Disasters, Climate and Migration

2.2.1. A history of Natural Disasters

A large part of Bangladeshs underdevelopment is attributed to its exposure to natural

hazards, given its geographical location and land characteristics. The country has a long

history of exposure to cyclones, floods, droughts, tornadoes and river bank erosion, that

have consistently dealt serious blows to the economy already made precarious by a bloody

war of independence and political instability thereafter (Zaman, 1993).

Bangladesh is currently ranked as the most climate vulnerable country in the world (World

Bank, 2005). A big factor in that is its topography. That it is located on the delta of the

Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna river systems and is barely 5-6 metres above the sea-level

on an average makes it especially susceptible to floods, cyclones and tidal surges. The

alluvial nature of the soil also makes it susceptible to riverbank erosin (Zaman, 1989).

Between 1974 and 2003, an average of 12,388 people per 100,000 were killed or affected

by natural disasters every year, less than only Botswana and Dijibouti. During the period, the

disasters also inflicted damages worth 17.85 billion USD (2003 prices) upon the Bangladeshi

economy. Flood-related damages themselves represent an annual loss of 5% of the GDP

(Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, 2004).

2.2.2. Climate Change as an exacerbator

It is for this reason that Climate Change is tied so closely to the countrys development

context. A rise in global temperatures is projected to aggravate Bangladeshs vulnerability to

natural disasters. According to projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change (IPCC, 2007), higher temperatures are likely to increase further the frequency and

intensity of cyclones in the Bay of Bengal. Additionally, faster melting snow caps of the

Himalayas and resultant increase in discharge is likely to increase the depth and spatial

extent of floods in the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna river basin. Additionally, consequences

of sea-level rise are likely to cause heavy economic losses as most of the country is low-

lying (IPCC,2007).

It is worth noting that at this point in history, climate change and its effects described above

are not mere future projections but phenomena that are already underway. Due to factors

anthropogenic and natural, there has been a definite, constant increase in global


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temperatures, the rate of which has increased significantly since the 1960s (IPCC, 2008;

Brohan et al, 2006) Thus, levels of today have been reached over a period of increase and

future projections will be a result of unmitigated continuation of trends already underway.

[Treut et al, 2007 (IPCC)]

2.2.3. Migration

Bangladesh experiences one of the largest volumes of outmigration of all countries in the

world. According to government figures, around 6.25 million Bangladeshis were employed

abroad, between 1976 and 2008. The net emigration (difference between emigration and

immigration figures) is 0.5 per 1,000 of the population (International Organisation for

Migration, n.d.), and migrants form 3.4 per cent of the population (United Nations Population


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Division, 2005; World Bank, 2008). In 2006, workers remittances amounted to around 5.5

billion USD which was 8.8 per cent of the GDP that year (World Bank, 2008).

The great prevalence of migration is associated closely with reliance on natural resources,

population pressures and insufficient livelihood opportunities provided to the surplus labourby the weak economy. Recent focus on ongoing Climate Change as a phenomenon with

socio-economic and demographic repercussions has evoked much discussion on how it

affects migration. There is a debate as to how strong a factor it is in precipitating population

movement, and the emerging arguments can be classified into two broad strands:

The Maximalist View: Thiscorresponds to work by scholars who tend to isolate the

environmental degradation variable from a cluster of other factors that have a bearing the

decision to migrate, and proclaim it as the direct cause (Suhrke, 1993:4). Climate Change is

located within the framework as a force multiplier acting the normal course of environmental

degradation. Drawing from his study in sub-Saharan Africa, Jacobson infers that migration is

the signal that land degradation has reached its sorry end (Jacobson, 1988:6). She goes on

to claim that the rising number of refugees is the best available measure of land and water

degradation, thus suggesting a near-causal relationship between the two. While drawing the

relationship between environmental degradation and population movement, Dixon (1994:25)

emphasises on the causal nature of the former and suggests that resource scarcity could

even undermine social institutions such as the state. Myers (1993:1) identifies environmentaldegradation as frequently being the root cause of the economic impoverishment that induces

people to migrate.

Maximalist scholars are associated with the emergence of the idea of environmental

refugees, described by El-Hinnawi (1985:4) as all displaced people... having been forced to

leave their original habitat (or having left voluntarily) to protect themselves from harm and/or

seek a better quality life (Underlines mine). This is a widely accepted definition across

Maximalist literature, and was considered seminal when it first came out (Suhrke, 1993:6).

As evident through the underlined parts of the above definition, it categorises together (1)

forced and voluntary migration and (2) the objective of fleeing harsh environmental

conditions and that of seeking better economic opportunities. While it could be argued that

environmental factors do have a bearing on decisions to migrate voluntarily, for

considerations economic or otherwise, clubbing these categories together makes the

Maximalist conceptual framework unsophisticated and leaves any inferences/projections

prone to considerable degree of error.

That the conceptual framework is prone to error is a crucial point in the context of Maximalist

literature, for another feature of it is an emphasis on the estimations and projections


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regarding the number of climate refugees. Jacobson (1988) estimated that there were about

10 million environmental refugees across the world at that time. In 1997, Myers (1997:2)

claimed there were at least 25 million environmental refugees in the world, considerably

more than the traditional kind that numbered 22 million. Myers is also quoted in The Stern

Review of the Economics of Climate Change (2007:77) as estimating that Climate Change

could lead to 150-200 million environmental refugees by 2050. The estimates run the risk of

being highly inflated, however, as they are based on broad categories and definitions of

environmental refugees like El-Hinnawis. Jacobson, for example, defines environmental

refugees as people fleeing from environmental decline (1988:6). Myers describes

environmental refugees as people who can no longer gain a secure livelihood in their

homelands because of drought, soil erosion, desertification, deforestation and other

environmental problems...(they) feel they have no alternative but to seek sanctuary

elsewhere, however hazardous the attempt (Myers, 1997:1). Apart from being possibly

inflated, estimates based on such definitions are also show large variance across studies.

Current forecasts of the number of people who could be on the move due to environmental

reasons varies by a factor of 40 (between 25 million and 1 billion) (IOM,2009:1).

The Minimalist View: This is a body of literature that treats migration as a multi-dimensional

phenomenon, and environmental degradation as one of the several factors that couldinfluence the decision to migrate (Suhrke, 1993:4). As compared to the Maximalists, there is

a greater emphasis on micro-level analysis, and ascertaining in what exact manner a

particular factor (like environmental degradation) affects migration, as opposed to just

establishing a correlation. Haug (2008), suggests a broadening of the rational choice theory

to include social capitalthe utility of living with family and being part of a community-- in the

cost-benefit analysis that migration decision-making is likened to. Apart from micro-level

individual concerns and macro-level structural factors related to the society, polity, economy

and the environment, she proposes the concept of meso-level factors which include socialnetworks in the countries of origin and destination.

Across Minimalist conceptual frameworks, a central point of emphasis is context-specificity.

This is in contrast to Maximalist views that tend to attribute a number of instances of

migration to such universal factors as Climate Change and resource scarcity. It is

problematic to classify all migrants from a climate vulnerable area as environmental

refugees. Etymologically examined, the term attributes the act of migration to environmental


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degradation, a push-factor1, discounting the possibility of pull-factors driving migration from

such areas at all. This is a big assumption. In establishing correlations between resource

scarcity and migration without demonstrating the linkages (Black, 2001) Maximalist literature

demonstrates another implicit assumptionthat there is one direct pathway leading from the

former to the latter, which is sufficiently uniform across contexts. This is a definite point of

departure for the Minimalists, who place emphasis on the multidimensional and context-

specific nature of migration. Through a case-study analysis, Kritz (1991:1) concludes that

climate is generally seen as an additional, stimulating impetus for migration, not the prime

determinant mover, and acts alongside social organization, natural resource base, levels of

technology, and wealth of the population under consideration.

Bilsborrow (1991) suggests treating climate and environment variables, in the decision

making of a potential migrant, as a contextual factor affecting others. For example, land

degradation could mean reduced income; frequent flooding could increase health hazards

etc. Haq and Zaman (1993) highlight a range of adaptive practices other than migration

employed by the Bangladeshi population affected by frequent flooding. Another perspective

on the issue is provided by case-studies revealing migration decisions influenced mostly due

to pull-factorslike better economic opportunities at the destination, a socially constructed

prestige associated with living abroad (Rashid, 2008)--- from areas under considerable

environmental stress.

An important point that recurs across the Minimalist literature is the role of social and political

institutions in managing resource scarcity. While talking not about migration but resource

scarcity in general, Sen (1999) elucidates the importance of political democracy and free

press in managing famines. He points out how famines, common in India right uptill the time

of independence, disappeared almost suddenly with the establishment of multi-party

democracy and a free press. Contrasting the case with that of China, which experienced a

great famine in 1958-61with the failure of the Great Leap Forward, Sen attributes the

difference to the fact that public distribution policies in India were subject to public debate

and scrutiny, and goes on to claim that no substantial famine has ever occurred in any

independent and democratic country with a relatively free press. Through their analysis of

global-level Geospatial data, Raleigh and Urdal (2007) draw inferences in line with Sens.

they conclude that ...despite the attention given to environmental factors as potential

1

Push-factors operate in the site of out-migration, forcing people to flee their native places . Resource scarcityis an example. Pull-factors are the ones that operate at the destination of migration; they are incentives for

migrating to that place. An example would be higher standard of living as compared to the native place.


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security threats, there appears to be a consensus that economic, political and social factors

determine how countries handle resource scarcity.

Thus, the broad, cross-context conclusions that can be drawn from this literature are that:

(1) the decision to migrate is affected by a multitude of factors at once

(2) it is difficult to separate the effect of individual factors like Climate Change

(3) there is evidence to believe that while Climate Change is definitely a factor, it is

seldom the prime determinant of migration.

2.3. Out-migration from Bangladesh to India: A Minimalist view

The above discussion highlights the gaps in the Maximalist approach to linking Climate

Change and Migration, and suggests that the Minimalist conceptual framework is more

nuanced and sophisticated. This position calls for a closer scrutiny of current Maximalist

estimates of migration figures attributed to environmental change, for they are huge (Homer-

Dixon, 1994:22; Reuveny, 2007:658; IPCC 2001a)--suggesting a near-causal relation

between Climate Change and migrationand influence greatly migration-related policies of

Bangladesh, foreign governments and development organisations2.

A Minimalist analysis of out-migration from Bangladesh to India would require a structuredcollation of its various drivers. The following section analyses how the decision to migrate is

affected by factors operating at the micro, meso and macro levels. The framework has been

borrowed from Haug (2008).

2.3.1. Macro-level Factors: Following are some of the factors operating at the macro-level

that encourage migration:

a) State Capacity: Migration is an affirmative action to reverse the status quo of

continuing to live in the place of origin. While pull factors from the destination of

migration are strong determinants of migration by themselves, they have to compete

against a natural affinity of the potential migrant towards his native place---

comprising of family, social ties, cultural factors, language etc. When people migrate,

they do so despite this primal Power of the (Native) Place (Ma and Xiang, 1998);

when non-primal factorseconomic, political or security-related--- outweigh it.

2An oft-quoted estimated is Homer-Dixons (1994), who, after piecing together information from various

estimates concludes that12-17 million people from Bangladesh have migrated to India thus far.


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State capacity is a crucial determinant of the economic and political components of

an overall configuration that is conducive to staying and not migrating. Bangladesh

does not score high on that account. In the Failed States Index of 2009, Bangladesh

ranks 19 among 177 countries (Foreign Policy, 2009). The composite index

evaluates countries on 12 social, economic and political indicators including

Progressive Deterioration of Public Services, Criminalization and/or Delegitimization

of the State, Uneven Economic Development along Group Lines and Sharp and/or

Severe Economic Decline.

Some important Indicators of state capacity in terms of relation between the State

and its society are Fiscal Resources, Autonomy, Reach and Responsiveness and

Legitimacy (University of Toronto, n.d.). In terms of Fiscal Resources, Bangladesh

suffers from the legacy of a weak economy inherited through a bloody war of

independence in 1971 that jolted it further. The per capita income at the time of

independence was 450 Taka, or less than 20 USD (1975 dollar). The growth rate of

the economy under Pakistan (between 1950-73) had been -0.7 per cent (Jahan,

1973). As elucidated in Section 2.1, it has found it very hard to take off ever since.

This has eroded greatly the countrys autonomy, for it has had to rely heavily on

foreign aid to augment its own lack of resources and capacity. Its image as a

development basket case (White,1999) does not augur well for its responsiveness

to the needs of the society, either. Near-perennial political instability have greatly

diminished the moral legitimacy of the state, with Bangladesh having been through a

spate of coups, military dictatorships and a three-year Emergency rule in its 36 years

as a democratic nation (Alamgir, 2009).

In the Bangladeshi context, of which environmental hazards are a big part, weak

state capacity has catalysed out-migration from Bangladesh in at least two distinct

ways:

Inadequate social protection: Despite making considerable headway

recently, (30 public safety net programmes, an increase in social protection

spending from 0.4% in 2002 to 1.6% of GDP in 2007 (World Bank, n.d.))

social protection offered by the Bangladeshi state to its poor is has insufficient

reach and suffers from bad implementation. The various safety net

programmes are duplicative, administered currently by 13 different ministries.

They suffer from high administration costs, leakages and are under a

constant pressure from an ever-growing population and a high poverty level


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(World Bank, n.d.). Thus, migration serves as an way of accessing an

informal mode of social protection against shocks and risks for the poorer

households (Migration DRC, 2007). These risks are especially high for a large

part of the Bangladeshi population that lives in areas especially susceptible to

extreme climate events which, then, chooses to migrate in order to manage

them better.

Low adaptive capacity: with respect to resource scarcity in general and

Climate Change in particular. National Income is crucial determinant of

adaptive capacity. It is common research practice to accept GDP scores as

proxies for state capacity or state adaptability (Raleigh and Urdal,

2007:685). The significance of this point in the context of Bangladesh is best

illustrated by the following comparison with the Netherlands:

Both are vulnerable to rises in sea levels, with large parts of their

territory near or under the level of the waves. But the wealthy

Dutch are building state-of-the-art flood-control systems and

experimenting with floating houses. All the impoverished

Bangladeshis can do is prepare to head for higher ground.

(Foreign Policy, 2009)

As mentioned in section 2.2.3, Nobel-laureate Amaratya Sen (1999)

established that democracies manage resource scarcity better. While

technically a democracy, Bangladeshs frequent departures into periods of

military dictatorships and political instability in general act as further stressors

on its already limited fiscal resources for managing scarcity.

b) Bangladesh Migration Policy: Due to a large population-small economy mismatch,Bangladesh experiences large unemployment and underemployment among its

workforce. According to government figures (BBS, 2008), around 2.4% of the active

population is unemployed and 24.7% of it underemployed. In 2005-06, although over

95% of the active population was involved in the labour force, over 20% were unpaid

family members (BBS,2008). On the other hand, 779,080 Bangladeshis officially

employed abroad contributed 5978.47 billion USD as remittances in 2006-07

(MEWOE, 2007), making for 29.2% of the GDP in that year.


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Given the large surplus labour in the domestic sectors and the increasing importance

of remittances to the economy, the Bangaldeshi government has evidently adopted a

policy to encourage, facilitate and formalise labour migration. To this end, it has set

up several institutionsthe Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET),

Bangladesh Overseas Employment Services Limited (BOESL) and the Ministry of

Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment (MEWOE) to name a few. BMET is

the chief executive agency for labour migration. It regulates recruiting agents, collects

and analyses labour market information, registers job seekers, designs and conducts

training programmes for them and organises legal disputes (Rashid, 2008). BOESL

is a limited recruitment company, a public sector organisation. The Ministry was set

up in 2001 with the objective to ...ensure welfare ofthe expatriate workers and

increase of the overseas employment.... enhancing the flow of remittance and to

provide equal opportunity for the people of all areas of the country for overseas

employment... (MEWOE, n.d.). The Ministry works in collaboration with Bangladeshi

foreign missions abroad whose main purpose is to search for new labour markets to

Bangladeshi workers and provide consular services. The whole setup is in line with

Bangladeshs labour migration policy (Government of Bangladesh, 2004) and

Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (Government of Bangladesh, 2005a).

The evidently strong, meticulously designed support by the state is an obvious factor

encouraging out-migration from Bangladesh. The first of the supporting institutions,

the BMET, was set up in 1976, predating the time when Climate Change first

emerged as a policy consideration. This demonstrates that migration had a strong

relevance and presence in the Bangladeshi economic policy independent of

environmental pressures as well.

c) The Farakka Barrage: Constructed in 1975, the Farakka Barrage is a dam

constructed by India on its part of the Ganges river that it shares with Bangladesh. Itwas built in order to divert river waters upstream from Bangladesh to flush away silt

that accumulates at the Kolkata port. Bangladesh opposes the functioning of the dam

on grounds that it cuts off water supply to large areas in its territory here agriculture is

dependent on river-fed irrigation. (Swain, 1996).

According to the Indo-Bangladesh Joint River Commission (1996), the dam has

adversely affected livelihood in the Khulna region of Bangladesh, negatively affecting

the meagre sources of sustenance of a large proportion of the population. There has

been loss to agriculture, closure of industries and navigation facilities, a drop in fish


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yields, loss of valuable forest resources and disappearance of land due to river-bank

erosion and floods (Swain, 1996). Around 50% of the farmers have been rendered

landless. Between 1976 and 1993, the Farakka is estimated to have brought about

losses to the tune USD 3 billion to Khulnas economy.


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A Map of Khulna (Source: UNICEF, n.d.)

That the Farakka barrage and its adverse effects have effected substantial levels

migration is evident from the available demographic data from the region. Historically,

Khulna had registered population growth rates much higher than the national

average. Around the time the Farakka barrage became operational, there was a

sudden drop in population in the region, and the growth rate has been declining

consistently ever since (Statistical Yearbook of Bangladesh- 1992, 1993). Till date,

population growth rate in Khulna has been lower than the national average.

Source: Statistical Yearbook of Bangladesh (1992, 1993) Bangladesh Bureau of

Statistics, Dhaka.

It is a widely held view that most of the Bangladeshi migration to India originates in

the south-western part of the country, where Khulna is. However, the number of

passports issued is lower than many other divisions, which suggests that a large part

of the migration is unauthorised (Swain,1996). Nevertheless, the prominence of

Khulna as a major source of outmigration is well-recognised in India, and the region

has been mentioned frequently in the political discourse around Bangladeshi

immigrants3.

3

An example of this is an article in Indian daily The Hindu, that quotes Former Chief Minister of Indias north-eastern Assam as stating that a large part of illegal immigration from Bangladesh to his state was originating

from Khulna. (The Hindu (Indo-Bangla River Politics II- Jobs dry up with the river) April 30,1997.)


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2.3.2. Meso-level factors

In the context of the migratory decision-making process, the meso-level of factors is formed

by households, kinship networks and social networks that link the social structure to the

individual decision maker (Faist,1997; Haug,2000). Such networks could be made up of

relatives, friends and neighbours at the origin, as well as settled migrants from the origin in

the host country. By conducting the flow of information, patronage or other forms of

assistance, such transnational networks facilitate migration by reducing the costs and risks

of moving (Faist, 1997; Pries, 2004). Viewed from the Sustainable Livelihoods lens, this form

of social capital assumes all the more importance:

in the case of the poor, who do not have much by way of physical or financial capital

to cover those costs and risks.

in the case of a low-income country like Bangladesh, where the state offers little

social protection, least of all to migrants (Migration DRC, 2007:2).

Migration research has established that being embedded in social networks is a crucial

factor in the decision to migrate (Banerjee 1983; Bocker 1994; Boyd 1989; Fawcett 1989;

Toney 1978; Wilpert 1992).

The discussion on the importance of social networks is relevant to Bangladesh-India

migration outflows, as one reason for its large volume is social networks connecting people

on either side of the border, covering costs and risks for those who decide to migrate. The

networks were formed as a result of historical factors, as is evident in the following analysis.

Till 1947, Bangladesh, Indias eastern West Bengal state and northeastern Assam state

formed one province called Bengal presidency in undivided British India. Areas

encompassing Bangladesh and West Bengal of today formed one ethno-lingual region called

Bengal. Despite distinct Hindu and Muslim-dominated areas, the Bangla language, culture

and literary tradition was a great unifier and, demographically, the two communities were

spread quite evenly. (van Schendel, 2005). During the Indo-Pakistan partition in 1947,

Bangladesh became East Pakistan and there was a major movement of population with a

large number of Muslims moving from West Bengal/Assam to Bangladesh and a large

number of Hindus moving in the opposite direction. There was another major population

movement before and after the civil war in 1971 that culminated in the creation of

Bangladesh, comprising largely of Hindus fleeing communal violence (Datta, 2004:338).


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Due to centuries of common nationality, residents of undivided Bengal inculcated social

capital throughout across the region which could be utilised post-partition to facilitate

migration. As people moved during the two major population movements around 1947 and

1971, they later served as facilitators in the migration of the relatives and family members

they left behind on the other side of the border. Existence of social networks across the

border is reinforced by a common language and culture (especially across West Bengal and

Bangladesh of today) that inculcates a tendency in Bengalis across the border to view the

entire region as Greater Bengal, (Reuveny, 2005:11), and undermine the relevance of the

international border.

2.3.3. Micro-level factors

Micro-level factors are the ones that emerge through an appraisal of the migration-decision

from the point of view of the individual or the household. For all the influence of the macro

and meso-level factors, it is at this level that the decision to migrate is ultimately made. It is

difficult to arrive at a definitive framework individual/household level analysis, as there is

much scope for idiosyncratic factors and subjective preferences to come into play. The

approach of this section will be to analyse micro-level factors operating in the Bangla-India

migration, through the lens of some widely accepted theoretical frameworks.

The rational choice theory is one of the leading approaches to studying migration decisions

taken at the household/individual level (Haug, 2008:586). The act of decision-making is seen

as that of making a choice, and an actor chooses a place of residence from a set of

alternative places by maximising the sum of utilities (De Jong and Gardner,1981). Thus, the

actor would choose a place settling where would maximise his net utility. Apart from his/her

choice of place, there is also the issue of his ability to migrate to that place. Haug (2008)

suggests that this would comprise of the economic, social and cultural capital at the actors

disposal. A third aspect of the decision making would be subjective factors that could bespecific to an individual, household or the community and would be difficult to accommodate

within a general frame of analysis.

In terms of utilities, a move to India is essentially a move to a more developed countryone

with a higher Human Development Index, higher income levels (UNDP,2008), a bigger,

faster growing economy with better developed industry and services sectors (IMF, 2009:94;

IMF,2009). For the migrant, this translates into higher wage levels, more jobs, higher

demand for specialised skills and a higher standard of living in general. In terms of

capabilities required, migrating to India is not very demanding for a Bangladesh resident. It is


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not very demanding in terms of the economic capital required. Migrating to India is much

less expensive than migrating to other favoured destinations like US and Europe owing to its

proximity. For the same reason, unauthorised migration to India is much less perilous. Also,

human capital is much more convertible between Bangladesh and India in any given sector,

due to similarity of contexts and practices. As discussed in detail Section 2.3.4. above,

social capital isconsiderably transferrable between the two countries, too. Due to cultural

similarities, the cultural capital one possesses as a Bangaldeshi is easily transferrable to

India as well.

Thus, a considerably bigger, faster growing economy, a higher standard of living, cultural

and geographical proximity make migrating to India a likely decision for a Bangladeshi

considering that course of action. In particular, low migration costs and transferability of

various forms of capital makes this a particularly viable option for the poor. In the context of

the central thesis of this essay, the point emerging here is that there are considerations of

utility expected and capabilities required at the individual/household level of decision

making that favour the option to migrate, and that these considerations are strong enough to

act independent of Climate Change-related factors.

Conclusion 1: Bangla-India Migration

The discussion in this chapter brings out the multi-dimensionality of the Bangla-India

migration, and that it is tied enough to economic, social and cultural factors that drive it

considerably. This serves to dilute the assumed causal primacy of climate-induced

environmental degradation as a factor. While degradation and scarcity of resources definitely

affect migration to some extent, individual migration decisions are taken amid a plethora of

considerations each of which is likely to vary in significance across social contexts,

households and individuals.


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3.1. Introduction

The previous chapter was a discussion on the widely made link between Climate Change

and migration. This chapter takes the discussion forward and dwells upon the relationship

between in-migration and conflict between immigrants and the host community. In terms ofthis dissertations case study, this chapter examines the aspect of violent conflict in Indias

Assam state between Bangladeshi immigrants and the host community. With climate change

regarded as one of the primary drivers of out-migration from Bangladesh, the

aforementioned ethnic violence in Assam is considered by many to be a case of

environment-induced conflict (Buhaug et al, 2008:26; Reuveny, 2007:663; Homer-Dixon,

1994:8) catalysed by Climate Change. The previous chapter discussed the multiplicity of

drivers of out-migration from Bangladesh, diluting the primacy accorded to environment-

induced resource scarcity as a factor. This chapter lays out the argument that resource

scarcity and sharing issues between immigrants and the host community form one of the

many drivers of violent conflict, and certainly not a primary one.

3.2. Assam: Profile, Migration and Conflict


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Map of Assam: Source Maps of India

Assam is a north-eastern state of India, located south of the Eastern Himalayas with an area

of 78,438 kilometres. It borders Bhutan on the north-west and Bangladesh on the south-

west. Its border with Bangladesh is broken into two stretches, and about 430 kilometres in

length (CIA World Factbook, n.d.). Between 1838 and 1874, Assam was part of the Bengal

Presidency province in British India, along with what constitutes present-day West Bengal

state and Bangladesh. In 1874, Assam was separated from Bengal and placed under the

Chief Commissioner as a special province. In 1905, when the British divided Bengal

Presidency along communal lines, it was merged with present-day Bangladesh into a

Muslim-majority province called Assam and Eastern Bengal. The partition was annulled in

1912 and Assam was reconstituted as a separate province. It stayed with India through the

1947 partition, and is currently the largest of the countrys seven north-eastern states

(Weiner, 1983:282).

For most part of the twentieth century, Assams population has grown at twice the rate of the

rest of India, a phenomenon attributed largely to a long history of migration (Dass, 1980).

The first major influx of migration occurred around mid-nineteenth century, when the British

set up tea plantations and brought in labour force from tribal areas of neighbouring states,

and Bengali Hindus as administrators. The second big wave of migration was in the early

1900s when Bengali Muslims from Eastern Bengal moved into its Brahmaputra valley. The

flooded lowlands were much more sparsely populated than East Bengal. The Muslim

immigrants cleared vast tracts of jungles and settled down there (Weiner, 1983:284). Further

gushes of in-migration coincided with Eastern Bengals secession from India as East

Pakistan, and the civil leading up to the creation of Bangladesh. A large number of people,

mostly Bangladeshi Hindus, crossed the border and to look for refuge in West Bengal and

Assam (Datta, 2004).

While in-migration has been a long-time demographic characteristic of Assam, friction

between the Assamese and Bangladeshi immigrants first became evident in 1979 when a

revision of electoral rolls revealed an unnatural jump in the number of voters since 1972

(Sarin,1980:36). This sparked off the beginning of a massive anti-foreigners movement led

by ethnic Assamese interest groups, who took the stand that Bangladeshis had been

infiltrating unchecked into Assam all along, and that they were out to change the

demography of the state and marginalise the ethnic Assamese. Much interest was also

raised around the numbers of immigrants. Detailed data, however, was scarce as a bulk of

the population movement was undocumented. According to Homer-Dixons oft-quoted


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estimate (1994:22), 22 million had migrated from Bangladesh to Assam since independence

(1947) of which only 1-2 million was said to be induced by the 1971 civil war in Bangladesh.

Of this, around 7 million were estimated to have moved into Assam.

While the anti-foreigners movement died out by 1985, it was a watershed in the regionshistory, and changed the face of the states polity, society and economy. Ethnic issues have,

ever since, been of singular significance in shaping the electoral agenda and have

precipitated considerable violence between groups. Through a period of highly frequent

clashes between 1979 and 1985, and relatively sporadic violence thereafter, there have

been 11,670 deaths till date (IISS, n.d.).

3.3. Theoretical Framework

The case of Assam seems to fit perfectly the dominant narrative around environment-

induced conflict--- that resource scarcity interacts with social processes to give rise to

triggers of violence (Goldstone, 2001; Baechler,1999). A large number of analyses of the

Assam situation consider population pressure on land resources to be the primary trigger.

Accounts are presented of ethnic Assamese groups accusing Bengali Muslim migrants of

squatting illegally on farmland (Homer-Dixon, 1993:22) and of them leveraging their numbers

to get vote-seeking politicians to recognise their rights on such lands (Hazarika, 2004:777).

Thus, premium is placed on physical factors like population and resource scarcity.

However, recent research in the area has raised doubts about the explanatory power of such

theories, and if there is scope within them to accommodate the inherent complexity of such

phenomenon as violent conflict. Salehyan (2008:317) calls the logic linking climate change

directly to armed conflict overly structural for ignoring factors like human agency, ingenuity,

the potential for technological innovation, and the vital role of political institutions in

managing conflict (or failing to do so). Stressing especially on the role of governments in

managing resource scarcity and conflict, he warns that ignoring it will provide policy makers

scope to shift blame and shrug off their responsibilities. Raleigh and Urdal (2007:689)provide statistical triangulation of Salehyans view. Theiranalysis of global geo-referenced

data concludes that demographic and environmental variables have a very moderate effect

on the risk of civil conflict, and their role is contingent on the economic and social aspects of

the state.

Kahl (2006) picks up this aspect as he examines in detail the ways through which

demographic and environmental stress lead to violence. He comes up with a state-centred

theory elucidating two causal pathways to conflictstate failureand state exploitation. The


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state failurehypothesis comes into play when DES leads to weakening of the state,

increasing incentives for anti-state or intergroup violence (2006:44). Incentives here would

emerge out a cost-benefit analysis, in the form of lower costs involved in taking on a

weakened state. The state, in this case, is a force in opposition to the ones causing conflict.

This is line with neo-Malthusian views on the issue. Another pathway DES-led conflict could

take is one of state exploitation, when the state views DES as an opportunity to instigate

conflict between different societal groups. It is a top-down process, a strategy that could be

employed by states threatened by diminishing support, but far short of total collapse. They

could take to this pathway in order to stabilise their base, mobilise new supporters and co-

opt/crush political opponents (Kahl,2006:50).

Two intervening variables, however play a decisive role in determining whether a country

experiences DES-induced conflict: groupnessand institutional inclusivity.Groupness

refers to depth of cleavage between ethnic, cultural religious and economic groups in the

country and increases the probability of conflict. Institutional inclusivityrefers to the degree

to which a large number of these groups have the ability to influence the government, or how

participatory the government is. Kahl (2006:27) contends that inclusive governments check

violence while exclusive governments give the state elite a free hand to instigate it should

they choose to.

The above discussion is relevant in the context of the central thesis of this dissertation as itestablishes the primacy of factors related scarcity-management over that of scarcity itself.

The following sections establish this point further in the context of Assam, and serve to dilute

further the criticality of environment-related factors in the larger issue of violent conflict

between Bangladeshi migrants and natives in the state.

3.4. A state-centred analysis of the conflict in Assam

This section analyses the Assam conflict by placing it within Karls state-centred framework

of causal pathways. It discusses to what extent the conflict was a result of state failure and

state exploitation. It then examines the nature of the intervening variablesgroupness and

institutional inclusivity--- and the roles they played in this context.

3.4.1. State Failure or State Exploitation?

3.4.1.1. State Failure


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Examining whether the Assam conflict was a case of state failure could be done by

estimating the State Strength in the region, which is a function of functional capacity of the

state and cohesion of elites. Functional capacity, in turn, comprises of three basic

aspectscoercive power, administrative capacity and legitimacy of authority (Kahl,

2006:39). Sub-national, state-level indicators of administrative capacity in India are scant.

However, given that the centre-state power sharing in India makes state governments

accountable to and dependant on the federal government (especially in matters of internal

security), an assessment of the administrative capacity of federal state of India would be

reasonably representative of Assam as well. While not at the top of the charts, India fares

quite well on most counts. According to the World Banks Worldwide Governance Indicators,

India has consistently been in the 60th percentile or above, among all countries surveyed, in

terms of Government Effectiveness and Rule of Law (World Bank, 2009)4. Legitimacy of

authority could be reflected by measures of democracy; the extent to which the state holds

the mandate of its people across groups and classes. In The Economist Intelligence Units

Index of Democracy (2008), India ranks 35th among the 170 countries surveyed and scores

9.58/10.00 on the in terms of Electoral Process and Pluralism. An insight into the coercive

power of the Indian state could be gained by strength of its military and paramilitary forces.

With around 4 million troops (military, paramilitary and reserved), India has one of the

biggest military and civil defence outlays in the world (CSIS, 2006) and is definitely not weak

on that front.

Apart from functional capacity, another factor of which state failure is a function is cohesion

of elites. Cohesion denotes the extent to which state elites are unified or divided in their

interests and in their strategies for advancing them. On the Failed State Index 2009, India

scores a moderate 6.0 in terms of the variable Rise of Factionalized Elites, which suggests

a fairly high degree of cohesion among the ruling elite (Foreign Policy,2009). Thus, evidence

regarding both factors of state strength suggests a low possibility of state failure being a

reason behind ethnic conflict in Assam.

3.4.1.2. State Exploitation

As compared to the state failure hypothesis, the state exploitation hypothesis rests on

stronger evidence in this case, drawn from a historical analysis of the conflict.

4Government Effectiveness, are defined by the rankings as the quality of public services, the quality of the

civil service and the degree of its independence from political pressures, the quality of policy formulation and

implementation, and the credibility of the governments commitment to such policies.

Rule of Law is defined as the extent to which agents have confidence in and abide by the rules ofsociety, and

in particular the quality of contract enforcement, the police, and the courts, as well as the likelihood .


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Background

The British first conquered Assam and annexed it to rest of India in 1826, ending over 400

years of independence. Unlike the rest of India, Assam, under its indigenous rulers, had

successfully resisted the Muslim Mughal rulers who ruled pretty much the rest of the Indiansubcontinent between 1526 and the early 1800s (Nehru,1946). The British made Assam a

part of the Bengal Presidency province, made Bengali the official language and brought in

Bengali Hindus to fill in administrative positions (Weiner,1983:284). Thus, the Assamese

started relating the Bengali-speakers with the administrative system imposed upon them by

the British, the conquerors.

The Assamese finally won power in their state after the Indian partition in 1947. In 1978, a

bye-election had to be scheduled in the Magaldoi constituency due to the death of the

elected Member of Parliament. During the course of routine revision of the electoral rolls, it

was found that over 70,000 voters of Bangladeshi origin had found their way to voting list

since 1977. This was a rather abrupt jump in numbers, and raised considerable concern

among the ethnic Assamese who demanded a revision of the electoral rolls and expulsion of

all Bangladeshis found to have entered Assam after 1951 (Swain,1996:198). The demand

was being articulated by a host of Assamese regional outfits, most notably the All Assam

Students Union (AASU). The state government, a coalition of several political parties, was

divided over the issue. The federal government led by the Congress Party, however, took aclear stance against the demands and insisted that the cut-off date be set as 1971. Several

rounds of negotiations were held between AASU and the federal government in 1980, but no

consensus could be reached on the issue of the cut-off date. (Kimura,2003:227). The federal

government then went ahead and organised state elections in 1982 without revising the

electoral rolls, a move that prompted multiple incidents of violence against Bangladeshi

immigrants including the infamous Nellie massacre in which members of the Assamese-

speaking Lalung tribe killed over 1700 Bangladeshis in one five-hour rampage (Homer-

Dixon,1994:22). Though less frequent now, incidents of inter-ethnic-group violence havecontinued to take place ever since.

State Complicity?

While there is hardly any evidence of either the Assam government of the federal

government engineering the violence, this dissertation argues that Assams was a case of

state complicity, in that the political party that formed the federal government intervened in a

way as to gain political base in the state, exacerbating the situation in the process.


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It is a widely expressed view in the media and Political Science literature that the federal

ruling Congress Party chose to empathise with the immigrants rather than the native

Assamese with for political reasons rather than administrative/ideological insights into the

issue (Weiner, 1983; Baruah, 1986; Srikanth, 1999). Congress had been weakened

considerably across India even as it came back to federal power after imposing a state of

emergency between 1977-79 and ouster from power in the elections that followed. In the

steadily increasing numbers of Bangladeshi immigrants it saw a potential vote bank with

which regain lost political ground in the state. Although it did offer to screen and deport all

Bangladeshis who had entered the state after 1971, its refusal to move the cut-off date any

earlier was a clear expression of support to immigrants who had fled during the East

Pakistan civil war in that year.

The Congress governments decision to support to the immigrants could be amply justified

on humanitarian or strategic grounds, and that it was a political was not significant from the

point of view of conflict. However, in an effort to convey their support to the immigrants, they

expressed it strongly through the media and their policies. This led the native Assamese to

believe that it was acting against their interests and was out to change the demography of

the state. For one, after failing to arrive at a middle ground in their negotiations with AASU,

the Congress government decided to go ahead with state elections in 1983 without revising

the electoral rolls (Kimura, 2003:227). The decision was taken with conspicuously vehement

single-mindedness, despite protests by opposition parties and against the advice of the

federal Election Commission to adjourn the elections and address the issues of violence and

public opposition (Rao,1983:1142). Even through its election campaign, the Congress

expressed in none-too-subtle ways its support to the immigrants, as is clear from the

following account of campaigning by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi:

After throwing this direct challenge to the Assamese she spoke a few words in

Bengali which must have done the trick, as it was intended to, of collecting all

the votes from the Bengali speaking Muslims. If a little egging on was neededthat also she did by reminding the voters that "only her party could look after

the interest of the Muslims." After this green signal nothing more was required

to light the fire which is still raging...

(Rao, June 1983:1142)

The clearest expression by the Congress government of their stand against the local

Assamese on the issue of immigrants was the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals)


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Act of 1983. This was an Assam-specific legislation enacted by the federal government in

response demands of screening and expulsion of unauthorised immigrants. It defines as

foreigners those who settled in Assam after 1971, and puts the onus on the accuser to prove

that a resident of Assam is a foreigner. This is unlike the Foreigners Act of 1946 applicable

in the rest of India, that puts the onus on the accused (Fernandes, 2005:3238). The strong

pro-immigrant nature of the Act is illustrated by the fact that during its lifetime, the five

tribunals set under it heard 65,000 cases, disposed 23,420, declared 12,424 persons

unauthorised migrants and deported 1,538 (The Sentinel, 2005). In 2005, The Supreme

Court of India struck down the Act as unconstitutional. While acknowledging the need to

protect the rights of refugees, the Court criticised the legislation for acting as a mechanism of

naturalisation.

(the conviction rate under the IMDT act) comes to less than half per cent of the

cases initiated...(the IMDT Act) is coming to the advantage of such illegal

migrants as any proceedings initiated against them almost entirely ends in their

favour, enables them to have a document having official sanctity to the effect

that they are not illegal migrants...

(The Hindu, July 14,2005)

3.4.1.3.Intervening Variables: How they played out

Social divisions in Assam run along several dimensionstribe, religion, caste, class with

the Assamese Hindu middle class forming the elite group that has been in greatest control

over the government since Indias independence in 1947 (Weiner,1983:285). However, since

the emergence of the immigration issue, Assamese-speaking groups have fused together to

challenge the Bangladeshi immigrant. Thus, the effect of Karls proposed intervening

variables Groupness and Institutional Inclusivity in the case ofAssam have to be analysed

with the insight that in the context of the conflict, the two groups under consideration would

be the Assamese and the non-Assamese. It is easy to see that there was a high degree ofGroupness between the two groups, i.e. deep cleavages, right from the time the British

brought in Bengali Hindus to administer Assam and the Assamese started associating the

Bengali culture with the idea of the non-Assamese. Post-independence, the Assamese

were much more empowered to participate in and influence decision-making by the state

elites, as compared to non-Assamese, including the immigrants. As the immigrant population

grew and started leveraging its numbers to gain political clout, the Assamese retaliated with

violence. However, with the immigrants gaining political representation over the years

(Srikanth,1999:3412; Swain,1996:198), the number of incidents of violence against them has

decreased considerably. Thus, Groupness and Institutional Inclusivity did affect the


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possibility of violent conflict positively and negatively respectively in the case of Assam, as

hypothesised by Karl.

Conclusion 2: The native-immigrant conflict in Assam.

One can conclude through the above discussion in this section that State Exploitation had a

greater role to play in the Assam conflict than State Weakness. An out-of-power Congress

Party used its position in the federal government to make definite offers to immigrants, a

politically marginalised yet numerous group, in order to mobilise them as their supporters

and boost their fledgling base. Conflict, interestingly, was triggered not by the group

supported by the state by the dominant group, the societys elitesthe ethnic Assamese---

who felt threatened by the states patronizing of the marginalised. Kahl (2006:50) states that

states cannot create intergroup violence by fiat, and can only act upon and accentuate

existing fault lines. In the Assam case, this would be the actual, physical environmental

scarcity and its exacerbation due to immigration-pressures, minus the amplified discourses

that develop under the influence of political forces.


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Conclusion

An overview of this dissertation elucidates that physical factors like Climate Change require

sociological, economic and political enabling factors, to be able to precipitate sociological,

economic and political phenomena like migration or conflict. While the importance of suchfactors does find mention across theoretical positions, there is a general tendency among

some academicians, many policy makers and most of mass media to conceive of

environmental degradation, migration and conflict in simplistic terms and drawing linear

causal pathways between them. What this could lead to, in effect, is a misplaced focus of

efforts to address these issues.

In the case of Bangladesh-India out-migration, neo-Malthusian theory is likely to inform

policy and public discourse in a way that that the migrants are viewed as refugees running

away from depleting resources towards places of relative abundance, and a threat to the

host community. An understanding of the phenomenon in its multidimensional complexity

would help identify better the right issues to address and the right views of them to take. For

example, an acknowledgement of the Farakka barrage as having a negative impact on the

livelihood options for people of Khulna could make case for rights-based solutions to the

problem like Indian investment in that region, or technological measures having to do with

the working of the dam. Thus, if India views this in-migration as a problem, it cold think in

terms of helping create pull-factors at the origin of migration that could bring it down or eveninduce reverse-migration.

With a better understanding of the processes that create friction between immigrants and the

host community, attempts could be made to address the problem in Assam through means

other than military coercion or land-rights related legislation, which has been the strategy of

successive governments. Since violence first precipitated in reaction to the federal

government taking an overtly hostile stance against the native Assamese, the solution could

lie in an approach that involves their participation in efforts to integrate the immigrants in the

society better. Efforts could be made to promote dialogues between the state, the native

Assamese and the immigrants. Talks thus far have only involved the first two.

In sum, redressing the issues environment-induced migration and conflict should involve a

greater addressing their soci0-poliitical drivers, along with the currently sufficient emphasis

on managing physical resource scarcity through mitigation and adaptation.


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