Keywords

1 Introduction

This chapter addresses internal migration and forced migration and the relationship between migration and economic development of a geographical region of the world, namely, South Asia (alternatively called the Indian Subcontinent, or the Subcontinent, this name is often applied to three countries in particular, these are, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, these countries obtained independence from the Great Britain, in August 14 and 15, 1947, as two independent countries, namely, India and Pakistan, whereas Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, obtained her independence in 1971). However, as considered now, the South Asia comprises of eight independent neighbouring countries of Asia, namely, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Within these South Asian countries, India is the largest in terms of geographical area (3.287 million square kilometres) (CIA Factbook (2021) and population size (1.4 billion at mid-year of 2020) (IOM (2021)). The next three large countries in terms of geographical areas are Pakistan (796,095 square kilometres), Afghanistan (652,230 square kilometres) and Bangladesh (148,460 square kilometres), whereas the remaining four are comparatively smaller in terms of geographical areas (CIA Factbook (2021)).

To contextualise the coverage of this chapter, it will be useful to provide a discussion on the issues of human migration. The word “migration’ implies “movement”. Human migration has always been part of human history, since the beginning of human history. Humans have always demonstrated to have a moving instinct, and it is quite fundamental in human nature. People have moved on from one place to another, over short distance or long distance, for short period of time, or a long period of time, have settled in new locations, for many reasons, such as food, shelter, freedom from persecution, escape from famine or war, natural disasters, and so on, or in search of higher income opportunities, better life, better education for children, and so on (see Ravenstein, 1885, 1889; King, 2012).

Though migration is of many types, the economic studies of it mainly has two branches: (1) internal (or domestic) migration and (2) international (or overseas) migration. Migration is also classified as, (1) voluntary migration and (2) forced migration. Refugees and asylum seekers fall into the category of forced migration, whereas other categories, involving presence of willingness of the migrants themselves, such as labor migration, family unification, high skilled migration, these can be classified as voluntary migration. There are some overlapping in these categories, such as a case of forced migration can be a case of internal migration (this case is of the IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons)) or this can be a case of international migration (this case is of the refugees and asylum seekers). Among the causes of migration, the wage differential argument is most influential since Ravenstein (1885, 1889). There are other causes of migration such as family reunion or childcare requirements, marriage migration, student migration, retirement migration, high-skilled migration and brain drain, environmental and climate change-induced migration, as well as the issue of human trafficking and the sex industry, and also the cases of undocumented migration (op. cit.). Migration has been regarded as an investment in human capital (Sjaastad, 1962; Becker, 1962). Migration can also take place as a result of implicit contracts within households (Stark & Bloom, 1985).

The above discussion shows that migration theory is a complex phenomenon by itself. Not only the determinants but the consequences of migration also have been extensively covered in the literature. Migration has been treated as a vehicle of economic development in the 1960s and the 1970s through movement of labour (Lewis, 1954; Ranis & Fei, 1961; Harris & Todaro, 1970) from agriculture to industry, via brain drain or brain gain in the 1970s and lately around year 2000 (Docquier & Rapoport, 2012), through the remittances (Rapoport & Docquier, 2006; Yang, 2008). A recent review covering some of these above-mentioned theoretical issues is available in Chowdhury and Telli (2016).

This short discussion shows that an analysis of migration can be multi-faceted and the South Asian countries are not exceptions. The analysis of this chapter is constrained in three main themes. These are: Internal Migration, Migration and Development, and Forced Migration. Though there are other important issues which can be well addressed and has been addressed elsewhere (see Bastia & Ronald, 2020), we believe that the reader will find this chapter useful, specifically those who are looking for relevant macro level statistics of above. Keeping this in mind the chapter keeps the discussion of theory at minimum and focuses on the empirical aspects. There are many excellent reviews on theory that are available, such as King (2012), Chowdhury and Telli (2016) and the reader may consult them if required.

The organization of the chapter is as follows. Section 2.1 introduces South Asia and has a brief note on the migration theory. Section 2.2 discusses internal migration of South Asia. Section 2.3 sheds light on some links between migration and development in South Asia. Section 2.4 discusses forced migration. Section 2.5 concludes with some policy observations.

With regards to methodology and data analysis, this chapter is based on secondary literature review and summarization of the findings. As there are three topics to deal with, such as internal migration, economic development and forced migration, three different searches of literature needed to be undertaken. Online searches using the key words such as of “internal migration within South Asia”, “internal migration of India”, “internal migration of Bangladesh”, “forced/refugee migration within South Asia”, etc. were done and this turned out to be quite successful. In the case of general theoretical background of international migration literature and internal migration of South Asia, recent handbook and edited volumes were consulted and commonality among each South Asian country’s experiences were sorted out and examined. Regarding time frame, the time period after 1947, and in particular, last 23 years in the twenty-first Century were given additional emphasis since the British Raj ended its rule in 1947 and form then onward, modern nation states evolved in South Asia, whereas the reader would be more interested to know the latest situation with regards to conflicts within South Asia. In the case of forced migration, the UNHCR documents were quite useful for within country comparisons and data analysis. The aim of reading and compiling for this chapter was to make the ideas reader-friendly while keeping in background the vast literature that is there on these topics.

2 Internal Migration Within Countries of South Asia

Unlike the case with international migration, internal migration is difficult to follow through because of the lack of registration and documentation at the point of origin as well as at the point of destination. Since internal migration does not involve crossing an international border and submitting documents in the borders at least in the South Asian countries, this remains a serious problem to have internal migration data and examine them. Whereas the international migration stock is recorded to be 280.6 million worldwide by the middle of 2020 (see Global Migration Data Portal, IOM (2021)), no precise assessment is there for internal migration figure at the same time, or for that matter, any other time. One specific note was the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report of 2009 (UNDP, 2009, pp. 21), and this mentioned that the number of internal migrants was almost four times larger than the number of international migrants, it was estimated to be about 740 million internal migrants in the world at that time (a conservative estimate), whereas the corresponding figure for international migrants was 214 million (3.1% of the world’s population at that time). Therefore, most people actually move internally within the boundaries of their own countries. World Bank (2009) explains that this much higher number of internal migrants principally comes from the point of view of geographical economic growth differences, such that as economies expand, some geographical locations within a country achieves higher economic growth, on the other hand, some geographical locations within the same country lags behind. People have incentives to move from the lagging behind regions to the more economically dynamic regions, in search of better jobs, education, health care facilities and better infrastructure. Rather than being a one-off movement, this can be seasonal or cyclical movement as well. Migration theory also predicts such movements from lagging behind areas to more advanced areas, as we can see in Bodvarrson et al. (2015, pp. 8), which presents migration as human capital investment, and mentions: “the notion of migration as human capital investment as a unifying theme that serves as the most fundamental idea underlying most current economic theories of migration.” This migration decision considers the net present value of migrating to a new location as net present value of [wages minus cost of living at the new location] minus [wages minus cost of living at the origin location] and minus [the cost of migration] in Sjaastad’s model (Sjaastad, 1962). Simply put, this neoclassical model of migration a la Sjaastad implies people would tend to migrate to locations offering higher wages for his/her labor effort, net of cost of migration.

With regards to the case of internal migration in South Asia, there are two recent publications which are quite useful for reading, both of them are edited volumes, one is Rajan and Sumeetha (2020) and the other one is Bell et al. (2020). The first one addresses internal migration of India in over fifty-six chapters, and the second addresses internal migration of several Asian countries in over nineteen chapters (including chapters on internal migration of India, Bhutan, Nepal and Sri Lanka) [India: Bhagat & Keshri, 2020, Bhutan: Gosai & Sulewski, 2020, Nepal: Samir, 2020 and Sri Lanka: Sunethra, 2020]. Other than these two edited volumes which cover four of South Asian countries, we examined some other publications for coverage of the other four countries, e.g., for Bangladesh (UNDP, Bangladesh (2013) and Afroze (2020), Pakistan (Ishfaq et al. (2019) and Naz and Khan (2021)), Afghanistan (Willner-Reid (2017)) and Maldives (IOM, Maldives (2018)). Based on examination of these recent publications, some summary points are presented below.

Internal Migration of South Asia, Some Summary Observations

Firstly, internal migration needs to be explained with reference to the political history, socioeconomic specificities of the nationals, physical and environmental geography of the country in question. Additionally, we note that because of common history, South Asian countries are closely linked with each other, this includes cases of internal migration to some extent. In the case of South Asia, particular reference needs to be mentioned for the case of 1947, when both India and Pakistan achieved independence from the British rule, and the Partition, a massive migration that took place in between India and Pakistan, involving millions from both sides of the border to cross over the new borders, and moving on to the other side. War and political conflicts affected Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and Nepal for decades, and this shaped their respective internal migration cases as well.

Secondly, cases of internal migration are often caused by macro features such as economic growth and regional disparities, and by micro features such as age and education of the household members, ethnicity, gender aspects, religion, caste and so on, and these can be triggered by environmental issues such as climate change features or river erosion.

Thirdly, the total fertility rate (TFR) has gradually reduced for the South Asian countries, from as high as 6 or above some decades earlier to almost the replacement rate of 2.2 for India in recent years, and similar things happened to other countries. In all the countries, the life expectancy at birth has increased by number of years, in recent decades. For example, in India, life expectancy at birth was 50 years between 1970 and 1975 and this has significantly increased to 68 years in between 2011 and 2015 (Bhagat and Keshri (2020), pp. 207). India now has a young population, with almost 60% in 15–59 age and a median age of about 24 years in the 2011 census. India exhibits large diversity between regions and states, and diverse patterns of demographic and socioeconomic changes all through out. Internal migration plays a key role in redistributing population, particularly young population, from economically lagging regions to economically advanced regions within India, and this is cheaper investment and less risky venture compared to the case of international migration.

Fourthly, as already mentioned above, the single most noticeable common feature of internal migration in South Asia is the movement of people from the economically lagging regions within the countries to the economically advanced regions within these same countries, respectively (see Bhagat and Keshri (2020) pp. 216–222, Samir (2020)). This includes rural-to-urban migration, rural-to-rural migration, urban-to-urban migration, as well. Economic growth does not occur over the entire geographical space within a country, and inevitably some regions are there where economic concentration takes place, and these can be considered as economically advanced regions (see World Bank, 2009). On the other hand, other regions tend to lag behind in terms of economic growth, business and employment opportunities, infrastructure facilities. In the case of India, four major economic, industrial, and commercial hubs emerged over time, such as the Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and New Delhi (including their respective surrounding areas). These areas have become positive net migration areas (such as, population in-migrating outnumbers population out-migrating) over the last several decades. On the other hand, some regions have continued to remain as economically lagging regions, and they have become negative net migration areas (such as, population out-migrating outnumbers population in-migrating), e.g., the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Tripura, Nagaland, Meghalaya (op. cit.). Internal migration has occurred as people particularly young people, have searched better opportunities in terms of education, wage earnings, business prospects, better housing and living conditions and so on, and internal migration is one option or instrument for them to take for achieving higher standards of living for themselves and their families. Since internal migration is much easier and arguably less risky venture compared to international migration, internal migration is a more popular option.

Fifthly, colonial history has set the stage for internal migration within countries. In the case of India, during the colonial rule, roads, railways, and port centres were created and plantation, mining and government administration were set in some regions. Regional disparities were intensified this way because of these new economic conditions and population movement was there towards these centres of trade, commerce, and business from surrounding, economically lagging areas. Hill stations and cantonments were also established by the British regime. New cities emerged as transportation hubs along the railways and new market towns appeared as export centres of agricultural produce to economically advanced regions. On the other hand, economically lagging regions continually lost young population. Migration has always been a self-selection process, less for internal migration and more for international migration, and mostly the young self-select themselves for relocation for improvement of their living conditions.

Sixthly, if we consider life-time migration records, we notice that males and females differ markedly in their migration patterns over lifetime. Females exhibit a sharp upward slope in around at the age of early 20 s, and then the graph flattens to a lower level (due to women’s marriage and family formation). Males do not exhibit such a sharp upward turn in their early 20s, rather they exhibit some positive slope in their migration rates in around mid-20s (due to man’s search for job or business opportunities) and after this a flat curve follows.

Seventhly, internal migration is strongly associated with high economic growth, urbanization, and expansion of the cities. Such has been the case with Bangladesh (Dhaka the capital city now contains more than 10% of the entire population of the country, with very high population density, and this continues to attract people from all throughout the country, and internal migration in this case also includes cases of seasonal or temporary migration) (see Afroze, 2020, pp. 18)).

Lastly, internal migration may take place as response to natural disasters, or climate change related phenomenon as well (such has been the case for Bangladesh and Nepal). Samir (2020, pp. 250) mentions that, in Nepal, natural disasters, such as floods and landslides occur regularly during the monsoon and this causes internal migration. UNDP, Bangladesh (2013, pp. 7) reports surveys of slum areas of the Dhaka City, where some respondents were migrants who came from the Coastal area districts and they reported environmental and climate change related issues as principal causes of their migration decision to the Dhaka City.

3 Migration and Economic Development in South Asia

The relationship between migration and economic development is well studied in the economic development literature. In this section we provide an evaluation of the impact of migration to the economic development of the South Asian countries by looking at the data. A review of the literature is available in Chowdhury and Telli (2016) and Chowdhury (2018) which largely inform the proceeding discussions.

The relationship between economic development and migration was first formalized by the dualistic economic development models (Lewis, 1954; Ranis & Fei, 1961). The models state that economic development via industrialization is possible by the employment of rural surplus agricultural labor migrated to urban industries. Through the absorption of surplus labor and gradual reinvestment of accumulated profit, both agricultural and industrial sectors become developed.

This mechanism of economic development seems to have taken place to some extent in the South Asian countries. This section submits statistical evidence of such transformation of the South Asian countries in the last decades. Methodologically, this section (also the subsequent one) adopts descriptive analysis of the data as the focus is to evaluate the structural transformation instead of identifying any causal relations. Accordingly, Table 2.1 has been prepared using the data from the World Development Indicators of the World Bank, which is one of the most used internationally accepted data set. The table presents the statistics of agricultural employment to the total employment, the ratio of the agriculture, forestry and fishing to GDP and the manufacturing exports as the percentage of merchandise export. We look at the statistics from 1970 to 2019. For some countries, the data of 2019 are not available; hence the available statistics of the nearest year have been presented. If the transformation of the economy has taken place and the economies have become industrialized, then it is natural to assume that the ratio of agricultural employment and the contribution of agriculture to GDP would demonstrate a decline over time. It is also natural to assume that the contribution of manufacturing to the export would go up. Table 2.1 aims to provide that snapshot of the transforming economies, if such has taken place.

Table 2.1 Agricultural and manufacturing share in GDP and exports
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Table 2.1 clearly demonstrates that the South Asian countries have gone through significant transformations over the last 5 decades. For almost all countries, the contribution of agriculture to the economy has decreased by a large extent. For example, in Sri Lanka the share of Agriculture to GDP has decreased from 29% to 7%. On the other hand, the share of manufacturing export has increased from 1% to 68%. Only exception is Afghanistan, where the share of manufacturing export to total exports has decreased. The share of agriculture to GDP also seems stagnant. The case of Afghanistan seems quite peculiar and is likely to be due to the prolonged conflict that the country has been suffering from.

Table 2.1 also demonstrates that the industrial sector has overtaken the agricultural sector of the South Asian countries. The Lewis type dualistic economic development model indicates that the process should be accompanied by a substantial degree of urbanization which is to be achieved through rural to urban migration. To what extent this urbanization has taken place also is an important issue to consider and the Table 2.2 evaluates that.

Table 2.2 Urbanization in South Asia
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Table 2.2 shows that Bangladesh, India and Nepal have experienced a rapid growth in urban population in largest cities during 1990 to 2019. However, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have experienced negative growth. All the countries have however, experienced an increase in the overall urban population. Table 2.2 therefore shows that the South Asia in general experienced urbanization, though in some countries the largest cities have experienced negative population growth.

In addition to shaping the growth of economies internally, migration in South Asia also is impacting the countries through remittances. The South Asian nations are the largest suppliers of labor in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries (Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE). About two-third of migrant workers working in those countries are from South Asia (Chowdhury and Rajan, 2018; Rajan, 2017, 2020). The remittances from migrants working in the Gulf are important source of foreign currencies of South Asia. In addition, the South Asian migrants are working in other countries of the rest of the World including other countries within the South Asia. In order to understand the dependence of South Asian countries on the remittances of migrant workers, we constructed Table 2.3.

Table 2.3 Remittances flows within the South Asian Countries. (million US$, Year 2017)
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Table 2.3 presents the bilateral remittances of South Asian countries and compares that with the remittances from the World for year 2017. The column (1) of the Table shows the sending countries. The other columns present the data of receiving countries. For example, Afghanistan remits $119.31 million to Pakistan and $172.24 million to the world. The ratios are presented in parentheses. For example, Pakistan receives 69.3% of all the outward remittances of Afghanistan. The columns of the receiving countries present the remittances received by those countries. Pakistan received $19,761 million from the World in remittances out of which $119.31 million was received from Afghanistan. It was only 0.60% of the total remittances received by Pakistan as shown in the figure of the second parenthesis. The figures under the parenthesis for the World imply the total of the country with respect to the World remittances. For example, Afghanistan sends only 0.03% of the remittances of the World. With respect of receiving from the World the figure for Afghanistan is $430.84 million which is 0.08% of the remittances received by the World. The remittance flow for the world is $573,551.28 million.

Table 2.3 shows that the South Asian countries are in general quite dependent on each other for remittances though it is somehow mixed. For example, India’s receipt from South Asian countries was the highest from Nepal, however was only 4.37% of the remittances received. It implies that India received the largest amount of remittances from outside of South Asia. On the other hand, the ratios for some countries depict substantial dependence. For example, India sent $4059.52 million USD to Bangladesh which was 29.94% of the remittances received by Bangladesh. Interestingly, the remittances remitted by India to Bangladesh were 71.40% of the remittances from India. Similar high ratios are observed between Pakistan-Afghanistan, Bangladesh-India, Bangladesh-Maldives and Bangladesh-Pakistan, Bhutan-Nepal, India-Bhutan, India-Maldives, India-Nepal and India-Sri Lanka. The relationships between other pairs are moderate or low. This pattern is clearly reflective of the historical connectedness and the current patterns of the intra South Asian migration. For example, many Bangladeshi migrants work in the Maldives, resulting in high amounts of remittances moving from Maldives to Bangladesh. However, still the within flow of remittances can be quite low compared to what was received from the rest of the world. Bangladesh received about 34% of remittance from the South Asian countries. Hence the rest of 66% came from other countries of the world, specifically from the Gulf countries. Similar was the case of India. Though both countries ranked highly in receiving international remittances with India and Bangladesh receiving respectively 10.94% and 2.36% of the remittance flow of the world. Pakistan also ranked high by receiving 3.45% of the remittance flow. However, from South Asian countries, Pakistan only received about 3% of the remittances.

The discussion above concentrated on the two issues, there are: (1) the economic changes of South Asia through industrialization and urbanization, and (2) the remittances flow within the South Asian countries. However, there are other issues of migration and development this section has not provided detailed discussion of. One of them is the issue of the Brain Drain and the Brain Gain. These issues are likely to be not so influential in relation to the migration within the South Asia. Though the migration of high skilled people is observed within this region, the main destinations are usually the developed countries of the West. In term of skill development, the South Asian countries also experienced some movement of students within the countries. It is however, still negligible compared to the flow of students to the West. The countries in South Asia also experienced some health-related migration especially India experienced a boom in the health care related tourism (CNN, 2019). These issues require extensive research and as far as known under researched. Our present chapter has not provided any coverage of these issues, on which hopefully, the future researchers will be able to provide further insights.

4 Refugees and Asylum Seekers in South Asia

According to the UNHCR, 79.5 million of people world-wide are forcibly displaced of which 26 million are refugees, 45.7 million are internally displaced and 4.2 million are asylum seekers (UNHCR, 2021a). The South Asian countries are also not free from forced migration, rather has observed one of the largest flows of refugees just after the Second World War which unfortunately is continuing. This section aims to provide a discussion and looks at data on forced migration in the South Asian countries.

4.1 Historical Contexts

Though recently, the South Asia do not feature much in the international media in relation to the refugee crisis issue except for the case of the Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, historically this region observed one of the largest movements of refugees post-Second World War. The Indian Subcontinent which was ruled by the Great Britain for about 200 years became independent in 1947 forming two independent countries India and Pakistan. Pakistan constituted two parts, namely East and West Pakistan. The East Pakistan later became independent from Pakistan in 1971. The partition of the Indian Subcontinent in 1947 in two countries was conducted on the basis of religion. The majority population of the country India were Hindus and in Pakistan the majority were Muslims. This division and other incidents during that period initiated an unprecedented flow of migration, i.e., Muslims from India to Pakistan and Hindus from Pakistan to India. It is estimated that the up to one million people were killed during the violence around 1947 and up to 20 million people suffered forced displacement (Zamindar, 2013; Banerjee, 2014, pp. 613). The migration impacted the socio-economic makeup of the three countries significantly (Banerjee, 2014, pp. 613) though the current statistics of displacement within the South Asia may not reflect that.

Since 1947, India as the largest country and with borders with almost all the South Asian counties continuously and continued to receive displaced people from various South Asian nations as well as other neighbouring countries (Banerjee, 2014). One of the refugee groups is the 13,000 Tibetan refugees who initially arrived in upper Assam and later was settled in Kashmir. During the War of Independence of Bangladesh in 1971 (then East Pakistan), many took refuge in India, who later returned to Bangladesh. It is usually thought that about ten million people took refuge in India during the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971. Similar mass migration was observed during the civil war in Sri Lanka in the 1980s and the 1990s. Since 1983, more than 150,000 Tamils sought asylum in other countries with the majority in India (Banerjee, 2014).

The other countries that have received significant number of refugees are Pakistan and Bangladesh. Pakistan notably was a major destination of the Afghan refugees since the Soviet Occupation of 1980s. The UNHCR estimated that about 1.7 million refugees received shelters in Pakistan (Banerjee, 2014). Though many may have returned or moved to other countries, Pakistan still is one of the largest recipients of the Afghan refugees. Bangladesh on the other hand is the major destination of the persecuted Rohingya minorities of Myanmar. The Rohingyas have been seeking refuge in Bangladesh since the independence of Myanmar, however in 2017 an unprecedented influx resulted in about half a million Rohingyas seeking refuge in Bangladesh just in a month. Currently nearly a million Rohingyas are in Bangladesh and the majority live in a camp site named Kutupalong which is the largest refugee camp in the world (Chowdhury et al., 2022). About 40,000 Rohingyas also received shelters in India.

Interestingly, little is known to the outside world about the Lhotshamps refugees from Bhutan. In 1985, Bhutan passed a citizenship act denying the citizenship of Lhotshamps, which is of similar in nature that denied the citizenship rights of Rohingyas in Myanmar. It resulted in expulsion of about 100,000 Lhotshamps to Nepal from Bhutan. Some also received shelter in India (Banerjee, 2014; Ikram, 2005).

The proceeding analysis shows that the forced migration or refugee crisis is one of the major problems within the South Asian countries. Though it is not generally addressed in the media, this matter requires adequate attention as refugee crisis often impacts on the social political dynamics of countries in a manner that prohibits any economic cooperation and increases cross border tensions.

4.2 Existing Forced Migration Statistics

This sub-section presents some data on refugees and asylum seekers in the South Asian Countries. The data are available from the UNHCR and have been utilised to construct Tables 2.4 and 2.5 Methodologically, the section relies on descriptive analysis to enable obtaining an overview of the forced migration situation. The Tables are constructed by only looking at the data from 2019 to provide a recent picture though data from other years are also available. The discussion on the previous section has established that refugees have originated from South Asian countries. Tables 2.4 and 2.5 allow us to capture the current position of South Asian countries as both senders and receivers of refugees and asylum seekers.

Table 2.4 South Asian countries as origins and destinations of forced migration (2019)
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Table 2.5 Forced Migration within the South Asian Countries (2019)
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The “refugees” under the UN Mandate include individuals recognized under the 1951 Convention relating to the status of refugees and the subsequent protocols and declarations (UNHCR, 2021b). Table 2.4 shows that in 2019, about three million refugees originated from Afghanistan, which is the highest within the South Asian countries. The other countries from which more than one hundred thousand refugees have originated were Pakistan and Sri Lanka. As for the destinations, leading in this unfortunate situation are India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. This status of the South Asia is consistent to the historical development of the forced migration in the South Asian countries as stated previously.

The “asylum seekers” are people who seek for protection and whose claims for refugee status have not yet been determined (UNHCR, 2021b). Table 2.4 shows that Afghanistan is again the leading origin country in South Asia while other countries registered a relatively low number of asylum seekers. As for destination countries, no South Asian country in 2019 registered one hundred thousand asylum seekers. The leading countries are India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, who have nearly seventy thousand asylum seekers each.

The UNHCR also compiles data on conflict-generated “Internally Displaced Persons” (IDPs), defined as people who have been forced to leave or abandon their homes, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized border (UNHCR, 2021b). The Afghan War has caused significant number of IDPs, which is also reflected in Table 2.4. The other country with more than one hundred thousand IDPs is Pakistan.

The “stateless persons” under the UNHCR definition come from two population groups, (a) persons who meet the statelessness definition in the 1954 Convention and (b) persons with undetermined nationality (UNHCR, 2021b). Bangladesh is the leading destination of these stateless refugees, mainly caused by the denial of citizenship of the Rohingya people in Myanmar (Table 2.4).

The UNHCR also present statistics on others of concerns, which implies the groups under UNHCR’s protection but may not fall under any other categories (UNHCR, 2021b). Table 2.4 also shows that Afghanistan is leading unfortunately in this respect, which is understandably due to the prolonged internal war.

Table 2.4 provided a general picture. However, in order to understand the flow of forced migrants inside the South Asian countries, Table 2.5 has been constructed. Table 2.5 shows that within the South Asian countries, the forced migration is relatively low, except for the case of refugees from Afghanistan to Pakistan, from Pakistan to Afghanistan and Sri Lanka to India. Interestingly, from Bhutan to Nepal, only about 7000 have been registered as refugees which implied that the largest number of Lhotshamps, who were forced to migrated have been moved out of the classifications by UNHCR.

In summary, the data show that the forced migration situation in the South Asia is of a nature of serious concern, though often not covered by the international media. It also shows that though since the Second World War, the refugees have moved from one country to another within the South Asian countries. Over time many have settled in the new country and moved out of the UNHCR classification of refugees and asylum seekers. However, it is likely that the socio-political environment of these countries is still getting shaped by the forced migration encountered by them in the past.

4.3 Present Situation and the Future of Forced Migration

Forced migration is an unfortunate reality, and we note that a current political turmoil in one country may result in forced displacement in the future. One such is the possible impact of the National Register of Citizens in Assam, India (BBC, 2019; Rajan, 2022). This act is similar in nature to what happened in Myanmar and Bhutan, based on producing ‘definite’ proof of residence before a time period. It has resulted in the possibility of about two million people becoming stateless. The impact of it is yet to be realised, however this may result in a large inflow of refugees to the neighbouring countries, as observed before in South Asia.

The climate change also may result in internal displacements, though not necessarily cross broader movements (Rajan & Bhagat, 2018). The global climate risk index (Kreft et al., 2017) identified Bangladesh and Pakistan within the top ten most affected countries since 1996–2015 due to the climate related issues. The low land of South Asia, specifically of Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan are regarded as risky and likely cause of millions to be displaced due to the rise of the sea level. The country that is at most risk is however the Maldives, which is projected to lose 77% of the land area by the end of the century. If the sea level rises by 1 m, the country will be completely inundated under water (ADB, 2021; Moosa et al., 2020).

5 Conclusion and Policy Recommendations

In the chapter, we have provided an empirical investigation of the South Asian countries, covering internal migration, migration and development and forced migration (refugees). The data analysis was of descriptive in nature, however was able to provide important insights on the migration situation and should be able to provide guidance to the academics and policy makers.

Though the chapter has not addressed extensively, several issues require further investigations such as the issue of student migration, health/medical tourism and impact of intra South Asian remittances. The issues of labour migration, family unification migration and human trafficking can be addressed. We hope that future research will be able to shed lights on these issues.

There is also a scope for policy coordination and cooperation among the South Asian countries with regards to internal migration, particularly data collection, collaborative research. Further research may identify the obstacles of realising the benefits from both internal as well as international migration, specifically the migration of human capital, and how the countries can work together to realise the full benefit.