Mumbai’s coast stands at the intersection of environmental neglect and profit-driven development. For decades, the effects of climate change on India’s rural areas have driven waves of migration to the city. In Maharashtra’s Marathwada region, repeated droughts over the past twenty years have left wells dry and crops failing. Meanwhile, Bihar has experienced increasingly erratic monsoons and frequent floods, submerging vast stretches of farmland and forcing many families to abandon their homes. These rural migrants arrive in Mumbai seeking survival, but instead face exclusion from urban planning and basic services. They are trapped in overcrowded settlements, exposed to mounting pollution, and cut off from clean water and sanitation. Plastic pollution, often sidelined in favor of infrastructure and economic growth, compounds these burdens by contaminating water sources and increasing health risks for already vulnerable communities.

Despite criticism from human rights advocates, India’s modernization agenda, championed by nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi—continues to treat both displacement and pollution as acceptable costs of progress. Held in Motion will expand its focus to include the migrants places of origin, tracing the arc of displacement from rural farmlands to urban coastlines.

By mapping this wider ecosystem of loss and adaptation—from compromised agricultural regions to sinking coastal settlements—it seeks to expose the interconnected impacts of climate change, neoliberalism, pollution, and migration. India currently does not recognize the term climate migrants in any legal or policy framework, leaving those displaced by environmental factors without formal protections or targeted support. This legal void makes the documentation of their lives and conditions all the more urgent. While Modi has promoted anti-plastic campaigns and bans on single-use plastics, enforcement remains uneven, especially in ecologically fragile zones like Mumbai’s coastline.

This is not a story of spectacle or sudden disaster. It is one of quiet collapse, a gradual erosion of the basic conditions for life, and a stark reminder of who gets forgotten in the name of growth.