Perspective: High-Level Committee on Demographic Change | 27 May, 2026

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[00:00:14]Namaskar viewers. Hello and welcome to Sunset TV. I'm Tina Ja. You're watching Perspective. On the show today, we will be discussing the high level committee constituted by the government to study demographic changes in the country. You would recall that the formation of this committee was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his independence day address in 2025. The union cabinet later approved the uh proposal on the 11th of September the same year. The committee will be chaired by Justice Prakash Prabhakar Navka retired. Apart from the census commissioner, the panel includes former IS officer Durashankar Mishra, former IPS officer Balaji Shivasta and economist Dr. Shamika Ravi who is also a member of the prime minister's economic advisory council. The joint secretary handling foreigners in the ministry of uh home affairs will serve as the member secretary of this committee. As per the details available, the committee has been asked to submit its report within one year. The MHA may extend its tenure by up to 6 months if needed. The terms of reference of the committee include examining the challenges arising from demographic changes which include illegal immigration. The panel will study possible causes such as crossber activities, economic opportunities, migration trends and also the social environmental factors. Besides, it will also look into abnormal settlement patterns and structural population changes among religious and social communities where they differ from the broader demographic trends. The committee has been tasked with recommending mechanisms for the legal, fair and timebound identification, detention and deportation of illegal immigrants already residing in the country. The committee will suggest measures to strengthen border management, population stabilization and identification systems besides proposing a policy framework for better coordination between the center and the states on the issues linked to illegal immigration and demographic imbalance.

[00:02:15]The committee may also recommend any additional measures it considers necessary to address the challenges that arise from the demographic changes.

[00:02:23]Announcing the constitution of the committee, Union Home Minister Amit Sha said illegal infiltration and other factors leading to what he described as unnatural demographic change pose a major challenge for the present and future of the country. He added that under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, the government is committed to building an infiltrator free India. to understand more about the objective scope also the significance of this high level committee we are joined by two distinguished experts on the program today pleased to welcome on this edition of perspective senior journalist Mr. KB Prasad and Dr. Professor SK Singh former head department of survey research and data analytics IIPS thank you gentlemen for joining us for this very important and timely conversation uh Mr. Dr. Prasad, let me begin the conversation with you first uh trying to understand the government's larger approach here.

[00:03:15]This was announced by the prime minister in his independence day address. Then it got the cabinet approval in September the same year. And now a few months down the line, we are seeing that the constitution of the committee has been announced. A retired judge will be chairing the committee and there are significant members in this high level committee. Give us and our viewers a sense of uh uh what is the vision and the objective behind this move of the government.

[00:03:39]Well, I think ta what you did mention in your opening remarks giving the comment as to why the government of India of course the prime minister had mentioned about this from the ramparts of red for last year when addressing the nation on the independence day. So the intent of the government was very clear because the government and the prime minister had mentioned it very clearly that uh the genuine citizens of this country should not feel deprived of the many measures the government of the day takes for the welfare of the people and those welfare measures and every other resource that this country brings forward for its citizens is not taken away by those who don't belong to this country or those who have entered this country through illegal or some other way and have managed to remain under uh under underground. ground or manage to remain you know in the society try to assimilate themselves. Uh so I think this is a more or less a scientific uh approach to the entire uh problem. This problem is something if you look at the the government has been talking about for the last many years and the prime minister made the intent very clear at the from Redford. Now I think over the period of time they have put in together if you look at the the the spread of the panel. It's a very very distinguished in the sense they have people drawn from different spheres of experience. You have a a judge, you have a civil top civil servant, you have a top police officer, you have a census commissioner and you have an economist. So together they'll pull in their expertise of having worked within the system and do realize what the issues are and then come out with some kind of and of course the terms of reference I just read are very clear. I think it makes uh some kind of a community analysis. It talks of interstate coordination. It talks of putting in a mechanism where deportation becomes permanent or say a proper mechanism. It's not left to state A or state B coming up with a system that could be questioned and so on and so forth. So it'll be more of a rigorous process in place and of course last and not the least is put an important system to monitor and manage the Indian borders uh which spread across both east and west. Of course we know on the west side we have uh bought a fencing for a very long time more than three decades ago but eastern areas are vulnerable still and I think that also has been talked about. So I think this looks as a more holistic approach to the entire problem uh that the country has been looking at.

[00:06:06]Nina >> that's right in fact on several occasions uh Mr. Seeing we've heard uh the prime minister also the home minister reiterating that they're working towards an infiltrator free India that's a problem that India has been dealing with uh because of its porous borders as Mr. Prasad already explained uh but now we have a road map uh how do we move forward is something that of course uh the committee will decide after due assessment. Uh the uh in fact the committee is mandated to study demographic changes linked to illeg illegal immigration along with multiple other reasons. Uh if you could explain to our viewers from a demographic research uh perspective how challenging is that assessment going to be?

[00:06:50]Thank you Dr. Tina G. You have raised a very important issue and honorable home minister has also name termed it unnatural demographic growth. In fact India is passing through a demographic transition and with increasing number of districts in the country definitely we are getting a state level demographic transition, district level demographic transition. There are evidence that around 20% districts in our country demographic transition or change population imbalances let me call let me not call it demographic population imbalances or demographic imbalances of those 20% districts are because of interstate migration and around 9 to 10% districts in our country are facing this problem based on contemporary data sources unless until census 2027 data is not in public domain. We cannot exactly find the number but approximately 50 districts in our country are adversely getting affected because of this undocumented migration and you have already coined the right term poorest border. India is having four different ways from where we are getting. Most prominent of that is Bangladesh India border having around 2,200 kilometer porous border and now 11 districts of West Bengal we are getting a change demography 11 districts similarly shaken is coming Assam they are also around five to six districts people are raising this concern if you are looking at Tripura four tribal districts entire demography has been changed. They are seven districts of Simanchal.

[00:08:46]There also this problem is taking place and now demography has you can call change in demography and five districts of Jan which is tribal tribal yeah like pakura and others districts there also we are getting which is bordering pulia there also we are getting change demography evidence of that I mean to say that exact number we will be knowing only after 2027 districts but the four poorest borders like Bangladesh India border where people are infiltrating primarily through Assam, Tripura, West Bengal and one more bordering bordering state.

[00:09:32]There are four Hasam Assam, Megal, Triura and West Bengal. These are the four from where we are getting people infiltrating into India. So, professor Singh because because the the terms of reference of this committee uh does talk about the crossborder uh migration which is happening uh the the migration patterns also the settlement patterns.

[00:09:55]I'm curious to know before we proceed into the conversation I'm curious to know how is such uh analysis done? How are these changes usually measured and analyzed?

[00:10:06]Yeah, basically uh our international international migration data is not having record of that because these people are undocumented undocumented migration. Even I conducted one study around a decade back that's crossber mobility and HIV vulnerability Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Bhutan. I visited those countries and talked to the people in their place of origin and adopted origin transit and destination approach.

[00:10:38]From there we are getting that people who have already arrived in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata that is no no longer an episodic process. Now it has become a natural phenomena which is nondversable in nature. We will have to adopt some stringent measures and we will have to involve some legal structures to tackle that issue.

[00:11:01]>> That's right. When you speak of challenges, I think uh uh the first question that came to mind is and Mr. Prasad, let me take that across to you.

[00:11:08]It it talks about uh the committee having the powers uh uh to recommend mechanisms for identification, for detention, for deportation of illegal immigrants. uh the kind of uh uh uh you know uh administrative structure that India has uh uh we we are a federal country. There are some uh there there is a union list, there is a concurrent list, there is a state list and there are uh uh various subjects which are which are distributed among these lists uh going forth. What do you see will be some of the most uh uh you know some of some of the biggest administrative and political challenges?

[00:11:46]You know as I put it out at the beginning we have a committee which is has a fair understanding of how the government works. The government as a center works and what kind of interstate issues do crop up because as you mentioned every state has its own law and order being essentially a state subject. There are issues that came and one of the biggest thing we all know in this country is the the problems in the early 80s the country face in terms of what happened in Assam beca it became a began an entire movement of the people because of the illegal immigration was a major issue. The Assam movement took place eventually linked to the Assam accord. Then we had set up the IMD what is known as illegal migrants determination by a tribunal which was again gone into there were several issues that came up and fast forward you look at it again we had some issues when we had creation of it was the NRC attempted trying to look at these issues. So I guess uh there are certain issues that are available for these people whether the from the police from the IAS and the also the economists on board and also the census commissioners and mind you while by talking with the the census of the country is underway.

[00:12:58]So by the time these people kind of do their study there will be some more solid data available with the government uh in terms of the census uh figures even if it's provisional but you start then correlating with what you have because the larger issue is the you know as my fellow panelists mentioned about the inter the mobility issue. Now the question is there are issues of mobility also happening because of economic reasons. We we I mean there are issues.

[00:13:27]Uh India and Nepal have an agreement. So it's an open border because it's a landlord country. But with Bangladesh it's a different situation because of uh economic issues. We have seen people coming here trying to work and you know and then there said over a period of time they get uh dissolve themselves in the society in which they are. So these are issues but leading to a lot of other issues cropping up. I said the biggest thing is when the country puts his limited resources for the welfare of the people is it possible that some of these it's quite possible in states we've seen these being taken away or being people who don't belong to this country so I think these are issues that create local issues because that are societal issues then with the migration uh whether is indigenous population they their own demographic uh changes do affect them for which I think the the person on the panel is more competent to look into it.

[00:14:24]Tina, >> absolutely. As you mentioned there are there are a list of uh uh different measures that this committee has been asked to look into it which include the economic opportunities as you said also some of the environmental issues perhaps which will also be taken into account and on on the coordination aspect we've seen how uh it's been a difficult uh uh area in terms of uh the coordination between center and states how this goes forward is something that we'll have to wait and see uh moving forward uh professor Singh if I may come back to you The committee has also been asked to recommend population stabilization measures. Uh if you could uh explain to us what does population stabilization in the current demographic uh uh context in the current demographic stage of India means.

[00:15:12]>> Currently since last 5 to 7 years India is not suffering with the problem.

[00:15:18]Population stabilization is no more a problem. Reason is that we have all control our fertility and today is Wednesday as per my knowledge day after tomorrow country will have a new data sets of national family health services even learn from that that only one state is having TFR above 2.1 remaining all states are having that is your population if your population is growing population will be growing primarily only because of population momentum because young population young people where more than 25% people are above below age 25 and around 50% population sorry more than 40% people are below age 25 and median age of population is 28.5 it means 50% population is by 28 28.6 6 50% population we cannot stop them from marrying and entering into childbearing.

[00:16:23]That is why linking this illegal undocumented migration in a country of 146 cr if the conservative estimates of around 50 million undocumented migration 5 cr it is coming around 3% population those 3% people our political class our politicians I have seen by visiting those people talking to those people and visiting Bangladesh Nepal and Bhutan also that we we oursself are culprit in providing them Russian card providing them Aadhaar card and providing them all legal document. Few weeks back entire problem in West Bengal was because of that only that fake documentation resulted into legal citizenship of the people here voting right of the people. That is why these two things are quite different. If you were to looking at implications which my co-panelist also highlighted uh we are having six major implications. Six major implications of such a migration pattern in our country. most difficult to me is the population imbalances demographic envision and when I'm calling demographic invasion out of 50 districts where demography has changed around 20 districts people has become politically so strong that it is termed as demographic invasion local people are worried because of those who have come from outside and now they have taken all power getting support of local politic volatility you have not seen I have analyzed 2024 parliamentary results around 10 seats are there where because of skewed voting pattern result got affected now please don't ask me ad here and third important is the policy polarization policy polarization when government came up with new parliament passed wakan parliament government pass CA there were opposition across the country in certain pockets but intensity of those opposition were quite different and wherever those people has been made settled made settled I'm saying >> that by local that's something that we've already seen and given that uh given the significance of this move Mr. Prasad, we may expect the opposition to also take it up in in a more aggressive manner um perhaps in the next session of parliament whenever the parliament convenes or whenever they have that kind of uh space in the political landscape.

[00:19:17]But uh as as the committee begins its work over the next year and as we wrap up also this conversation, one question on uh uh what is the most significant outcome that we must expect coming out of this exercise? It's going to be a very challenging assessment. It's a tremendous task for the committee members because the length and the breadth of the terms of reference is huge and in a country as populous and as diverse as India, it's going to be extremely challenging. But in terms of the outcomes that the government expects it to be which will shape the future policy decisions, what is it that we can look forward to?

[00:19:54]Well, I think one thing is sure it'll all depend on how uh inclusive the committee's approach would be because uh when you mention opposition is also from within the country. They are elected to members uh by the same population which elects the government of the day. So government comes parliament consists both of government and the opposition that's what comprises parliament right now why they oppose what they oppose is a political policy that they will going to artic they will articulate that I'm not getting it but the fact remains it'll all depend the transparent mechanism through which this committee goes about to start because the transparency builds trust and that's what people say oh this is a very fair process that has been adopted where everybody to all the stakeholders holders majority stakeholders whatever the mayor is have had their say and as I said this is supposed to be this is an exercise which is scientific this because when you come up with empirical data that's what going to convince people that look this is what the government is saying it's based on actual studies from the ground voices from the ground data from the ground and the the the sanctity of the data that is what is going to prove the work the interpretation of the data has to be done very very carefully and scientifically uh so as to convince the population that why this exercise matters and and there's evidence to uh you know shape the future policy decisions time allows us to take up only that much on the program gentlemen thank you once again professor Singh Mr. Prasad for joining us and sharing your thoughts with us and our viewers to your viewers thank you very much for your time as well Heat. Heat.