New Delhi, Feb. 17 -- Looking back on 2025, migration emerged as a defining political flashpoint across the West. Even in countries such as Australia and Canada-nations built on successive waves of immigration, economically reliant on skilled migrants and publicly committed to multiculturalism-the latter half of the year exposed deep anxieties and social fractures.

In Australia, nationwide "March for Australia" rallies drew thousands into the streets of Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide under the banner of opposing "mass migration." Organisers and fringe groups portrayed newcomers as a threat to housing and public services, rhetoric that quickly spilled into racist targeting of Indian and other South Asian communities.

In Canada, anti-immi...