Millions Uprooted: Inside India’s Alarming Rise in Climate and Conflict Displacement

By Jyoti Jangra

July 6, 2025

Newsreel Asia producer Jyoti Jangra takes us across India – from ghost villages in Uttarakhand to flood-ravaged coasts of Odisha, conflict zones in Manipur and submerged hamlets in Himachal Pradesh – to uncover a silent, growing crisis: distress migration.

In this special video report, Jyoti brings together stories of people uprooted by climate disasters, conflict, economic collapse and unkept promises of development. These stories reflect a larger, systemic failure, captured in staggering numbers.

Since Independence, development projects in India have displaced an estimated 21 to 50 million people. The lower end of this range accounts for officially recorded displacements, while higher estimates include those affected by large dams, mining operations, industrial zones, wildlife sanctuaries and urban infrastructure projects. For instance, dams alone are believed to have displaced over 16 million people.

However, the majority of those uprooted have not been adequately resettled or rehabilitated. Numerous studies and government audits have found that compensation, when offered, has often been delayed, insufficient, or inaccessible due to bureaucratic hurdles. Many displaced families remain without land, livelihoods or basic services decades after being forced to move, reflecting a long-standing failure in India’s rehabilitation policies.

Across the Himalayan belt, many continue to lose their homes in the name of progress – some still living in limbo decades after being uprooted.

In 2024 alone, climate disasters displaced more than 5.4 million people in India. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), India had the fourth-highest number of new disaster-related displacements globally in 2024, after China, the Philippines and Bangladesh. Most of these were triggered by floods, cyclones and extreme heat.

Manipur accounted for 97% of all conflict-related displacements in South Asia last year. The ethnic violence that began in May 2023 led to the internal displacement of over 60,000 people, many of whom still remain in relief camps. Reports from civil society groups have documented the destruction of over 300 villages and neighbourhoods, cutting across communities.

This video connects the dots between migration and the collapse of rural economies, rising inequality, overstretched urban infrastructure and widening social fault lines. At a time when one in every three Indians is a migrant, this story asks the most urgent question of all, can India afford to ignore the cost of forced migration any longer?

Watch to understand what’s being lost, who’s being left behind and why this crisis affects us all.