From the Sundarban delta to Deccan ‘Aurangabad’: climatic refugees’ resilience for livelihood

ABSTRACT

Climatic disasters and ecological threats lead to migrations of people with transitions in livelihood as displaced communities. Climatic changes and demographic pressures are harshly hampering the ecological balance of the Sundarbans delta region. Western Indian Ocean region's industrial spaces and town economies are alternatives of livelihood for migrants from Sundarbans delta. Historically, the two littorals and hinterland of Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal of the Indian Ocean remain connected through trade networks. The Colonial State connected these two hinterlands of South Asia through railway networks. Since the late nineteenth century migrations within the regions for livelihood increased. With the twenty-first century the severity of the migration increased because of climatic change. In this research, I investigated the patterns of migration from the Sundarbans delta to the Western Indian Ocean region hinterland city of `Aurangabad.' This empirical study situates the transitions and impacts on livelihood fragility of the communities displaced.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• displacement
• migration
• Sundarban

Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges the valuable comments and suggestions on improving the paper received from the two anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Livelihood is an integral focus of research in this paper. Respondents interviewed are asked detailed narratives about how they are engaging in their livelihood practices especially in light of climate change and migration.

2 Ms. Snehali Kulkarni, Mr. Pravin Chintore, and Mr. Ojas Borse were active contributors for the research as PhD and M.Phil research scholars working under my supervision and contributed partially to this research.

3 Based on the economic standards of living and cost of living different cities in India are categorized likewise. Aurangabad remains a tier two city as the cost of living in the city is lower than a metropolis such as Mumbai, Pune, and Nagpur in Maharashtra.

4 In this research paper the artisans are referred as migrants rather climatic refugees.

5 For the safety and privacy of some of the respondents we avoided sharing their original names and details.

Additional information

Funding

This publication was made possible by support from the Social Science Research Council’s Transregional Collaboratory on the Indian Ocean, with funds provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Bina Sengar

Bina Sengar is an associate professor, Department of History and Ancient Indian Culture, School of Social Sciences, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad-Maharashtra, India.