Session 16.1

The northeastern state of Assam in India is home to some of the country’s most climate-vulnerable populations, particularly those living on the chars. The chars are riverine islands formed by the shifting currents of the Brahmaputra River and are highly prone to erosion and seasonal flooding. For decades, communities have been uprooted, with no time to gather possessions and documents. Families here have moved from one sandbank to another, rebuilding what the river erodes. And now, they face an added kind of erasure, i.e., being excluded from official citizenship in their own country.

This panel will explore how climate displacement, citizenship verification, and systemic marginalization collide in Assam, especially in light of India’s National Register of Citizens (NRC) process to strip people of their land and citizenship. Using the findings from interviews we have conducted in the char region, centering the voices of the forcibly displaced, the theme and key points of the panel will offer firsthand insights into how communities are surviving not only climate challenges, but also systemic legal erasure. Additionally, it will highlight the socio-economic and psychological vulnerabilities arising from climate displacement, the local resilience strategies adapted by the community, and have a dialogue on policy reforms that address their unique challenges posed by a double threat of climate displacement and citizenship erasure.

Until June 2, 2025, more than 515,039 people across 22 of Assam’s 35 districts had been affected by severe flooding. Over 12,610 hectares of cropland were destroyed, and at least 793 livestock lost.  This environmental instability becomes even more dangerous when layered with the citizenship verification process in Assam. The NRC, a project aimed at identifying “genuine” Indian citizens, was born out of the Assam Accord of 1985, which followed six years of anti-migrant protests in the state. One of the key clauses of the Accord was that anyone who entered Assam after March 25, 1971, would be considered an illegal migrant, and would be detected, disenfranchised, and expelled. In practice, this meant that to be included in the NRC, individuals had to prove that they or their ancestors were living in Assam before this cut-off date, using legacy documents. But for those living in the chars, these requirements are almost impossible to meet. Years of flooding and forced migration have left many families without land deeds, birth certificates, or other crucial documents. In our fieldwork, particularly in the districts of Bongaigaon and Barpeta, Assam, we met many people whose homes and identity records had been lost to the river as they struggled in courts or foreigner’s tribunals to prove their citizenship.

Those inhabiting the chars, already economically marginalized, belong to a religious minority (Muslim) and are of Bengal origin. They face layered and compounding vulnerabilities. Most are landless or live on informally held land, often in precarious housing conditions. As one of them told us: “Every year, we lose everything in the floods- our lands, homes, documents.”

In September 2019, the final National Register of Citizens list was released after examining the records of over 33 million residents of Assam. Of these, 1.9 million were excluded for lack of “valid” documentation. Many of those excluded came from climate-affected areas such as the Chars. Those who were excluded are now fighting in the Foreigners’ Tribunals, quasi-judicial bodies that decide on the validity of a person’s citizenship based on paperwork, while some have been detained and others already deported across India’s borders to countries they don’t know.

Our theme for this panel is informed by our interviews with climate displaced families, local activists, lawyers in Assam, public data sets on NRC outcomes and review of secondary literature. The panel will host field practitioners and experts with lived experiences along with a lawyer who works directly with those at risk of losing their citizenship. Together the panel will discuss the dual vulnerability of communities in chars, who have also seen a rise in evictions, with state authorities citing “illegal encroachment on government land.” These actions not only ignore the long-standing presence of these communities but also fail to acknowledge the history of climate displacement and marginalization that brought them to these lands in the first place.

In addition, the panel will highlight the broader socio-economic struggles faced by these communities. The chars lack basic infrastructure; their access to education, healthcare, electricity, transportation, and employment opportunities is severely limited. With little state support and few safety nets, the psychological burden on families is enormous. Constant movement, fear of eviction, and the stigma of being labelled “Bangladeshi” or “illegal” contribute to chronic tension, trauma, and social alienation.