Policy Brief No. 210 — October 2025
The Governance of Migration: The Indian Experience Sanjay Bhattacharyya
Key Points → The Indian diaspora is large and influential. India’s development, demography and democracy can sustain high emigration through the twenty-first century. Migration governance is now integrated in India’s national development priorities and the use of digital platforms and e-governance are transforming the migration landscape. → India’s priority is to empower potential migrants, develop capacity for higher productivity and wages and negotiate new pathways for safe and orderly migration and mobility. → India’s positioning as a preferred partner in destination countries can help balance global labour markets, demographic shifts and demand for new competencies. → The problem of illegal migration in India needs attention in both source and destination countries. Multilateral mechanisms, such as the UN Global Compact for Migration (GCM), are the way ahead for win-win migration solutions.
Introduction In the twenty-first century, migration and mobility impacts people, power and politics. It is relevant for economies introducing new technology, for societies experiencing fewer people in the workforce and politics in source and destination countries as opportunities increase for migration. The impact of migration drivers, push and pull factors, networks that fuel migration and global cooperation deserve close attention. Indians constitute the largest diaspora globally, with more than 35 million residing overseas (Ministry of External Affairs [MEA] 2024). Many are influential change makers; many others are migrant workers. The governance of migration in India prioritizes the integration of migration policy with national development objectives and provides citizen-centric responses that empower migrants for safe and orderly migration and mobility. India has differentiated policies for vulnerable migrant workers, whose remittances sustain their families, and highly qualified professionals, whose leadership contributes to national development.