The Indian subcontinent has had a painful
history of partition that had traumatized an entire generation of people, both
from the eastern and the western side of the newly formed State of Pakistan.
The tragic episode of the 1971 war and its fallout were no different from 1947-48. Millions
of people especially the Hindus, Buddhists, Shiks and Jains poured into Indian
borders, millions were displaced and millions were killed. However, the irony
is, we still do not have the official data of the exact number of refugees who
came into India, and millions of people are living “Stateless” existence in inhuman
conditions within the refugee camps. Ignorance of the Government, polarizing politics
by the political parties, civil society groups and NGO’s who deliberately act oblivious
to the dreadful conditions of the refugees living in India has furthermore
aggravated the problem. Therefore it becomes very important to analyze the
gravity of this crisis, to deliver justice to the refugees and
stateless people who are sustaining their array of hope for several decades.
Historical background and the developments in the refugee issue
In the year 1947 when India attained its political freedom, it was
partitioned and Pakistan was carved out on its eastern(present Bangladesh) and
western front. The seeds of religious persecution were sown during those times
leading to an outbreak of a series of communal riots across the borders and
also had its footprints in the refugee camps. Especially in east and west
Pakistan, wherein the State religion was Islam, as a brutal and atrocious
unstated policy practice, all the religious minorities were persecuted. Rape,
murder, robbery, dacoity and gruesome oppression of civil, political and
economic rights were casual affairs. As this situation became worse the INC
(Indian National Congress) passed a resolution on 25th November 1947which read
as " The INC is bound to protect all non-Muslims, who have come over,
crossing the borders or may do so, to save their lives and honour in the future;
these people will be protected and given full citizenship in
future". Moving ahead the Nehru-Liaquat Pact ( officially known as
'Agreement between Government of India and Pakistan Regarding Security and
rights of Minorities' ) was signed between the Prime Ministers of Pakistan and
India, Liaquat Ali Khan and Jawaharlal Nehru subsequently on 8th April 1950 and
was an outcome of six days of talks which were sought guarantee the rights of
minorities in both the countries after the partition of India and the advent of
the war that took place in between. According to which Refugees were
allowed to return to dispose of their property, the abducted women and looted
property were to be returned, the forced conversions were unrecognized, and
minority rights were fully confirmed, by this time close to 1.5 crore refugees
had moved into India and among them, the majority were Hindus ( 99% Hindus from
west Pakistan and 93% Hindus were from East Pakistan). Years later In
1971 in East Pakistan, as a result of the Bengali persecution on a linguistic
basis, a civil war out broke between Muktibahini (A Bangla militant
outfit) and the State of Pakistan, India intervened in the war which led
to full-scale conventional warfare, this led to the creation of Bangladesh.
It's important to know this, as the huge influx of refugees, most of whom
entered illegally, took place this year and continued steadily in the next few
years. In 1981 it was estimated that around 80 lakh migrants were staying in
India, mostly in Assam, West Bengal and Tripura. In the year 1985 Assam Accord
was signed between the Assam students Union and the Rajiv Gandhi Government
with the main intention, to protect, promote preserve and promote the cultural,
social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people. Assam accord
promised to deport the illegal immigrants who had become an economic burden and
were posing a challenge to the social fabric of the Assamese society and the
cut off date was decided ( ie the date on or after which people would be declared
as foreigners) was 25th March 1971. This accord was a result of the Assam
agitation which was being fought from 1979, for the protection of Indigenous
rights and Identity of the Assamese people. After years of delays and byzantine
bureaucratism, under the monitoring of the Supreme court, the NRC exercise was
carried out in Assam, Tripura and Westbengal mainly, and still remains an
incomplete process. In Assam, the NRC process concluded that 19 lakh people are
foreigners and out of them over 5 lakh happen to be Hindus.
The beneficiaries of the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 identified so
far;
The Intelligence Bureau (IB) had
submitted a report to the Home Ministry by identifying and calculating the
number of beneficiaries, of the erstwhile bill in 2016, which is enacted now. A
total of 31,313 persons belonging to minority communities including
25,447 Hindus, 5807 Shiks, 55 Christians, 2 Buddhists and 2 Parsis.
The IB had also said that " for others (other than the minorities in these
countries) to apply for the citizenship under this category, they will have to
prove that they came to India due to religious persecution. If they had not
declared so at the time of their arrival in India, it would be difficult for
them to make such a claim now. Any future claim will be enquired into,
including even the R&AW before a decision is taken.
(The abovementioned facts were revealed by the government, during a hearing by
a parliamentary committee in the year 2016)
A few important provisions of International law and the need for a
comprehensive Refugee policy in India
Throughout the ages, wars, internal armed conflicts and large
scale persecution has forced people to flee to places offering them safety.
Historical accounts relate many instances where survivors of war, religious
persecution, natural disasters and other misfortunes were welcomed by other
communities, given necessities such as food, shelter and clothing and were
subsequently allowed to settle down in the new place. The UN General Assembly
set up a Convention on 28 July 1951 to remedy agonies such as vast destruction
of property, the pogrom against Jewish civilians and widespread homelessness
that the civilian populations of Europe had suffered during World War II.
Humanitarian considerations, therefore, lay at the heart of the 1951
Convention. Although it was the intention of the international community to
prevent such displacements in future, they continued to occur in other
continents. This was why the UN General Assembly decided to expand the scope of
the 1951 Refugee Convention by adopting the 1967 Protocol, to cover other parts
of the world as well. The Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951 is the
foundation of international refugee law. It defines the term
"refugee" as follows:
A refugee is someone who has a well-founded fear of persecution
because of his/her
· Race, Religion, Nationality, Membership
of a particular social group or political opinion;
· Residence
outside his/her country of origin; and, Inability
or unwillingness to receive any protection from his/her country, or unable
to return home for fear of persecution.
It is important to understand the crucial
difference between a refugee and a migrant. A refugee flees his /her home
country to escape persecution or other tolerable conditions. A migrant shifts
residence to another country to avail himself/herself of better earning
capacity-an economically driven compulsion -as opposed to what effectively
amounts to expulsion, in the case of a refugee. Persons who are yet to be
formally accorded refugee status are generally described as asylum seekers.
They are people who have fled their home country to seek shelter and protection
in another country, but whose applications for grant of refugee status (being
normally subject to a careful and often prolonged, case-by-case analysis) are
still pending the approval of the authorities.
As India is not a signatory to the 1951 convention nor its
1967 protocol, it lacks a national refugee protection framework. This becomes
an obstacle in providing proper and effective protection to the refugees.
Moreover, a lack of understanding of refugee and statelessness issues among the
local populations would pose a challenge to the vulnerable refugee communities. On humanitarian
grounds, India has signed a few treaties for the protection of refugees and
asylum-seekers. Article 14, 21, 22, 25-28, 32 and 226 of the Constitution
guarantees protection to citizens and non-citizens through some of the rights that cannot be made into reality such as the right to self-employment and access to
work if permissible. Such real practices are arbitrary in nature in all the
matters concerning refugees. India needs to
adopt a comprehensive national policy for the refugees to provide safety
and protection, legal safeguards, aid and funding from the state, welfare programmes
for the refugees, education to the women and children, vocational training for
their sustenance so on and so forth. This would enable India to develop a
proper institutional mechanism for its refugee population.
The
case for India being a natural homeland for the vulnerable Hindus
The Indic civilization which is a cultural base for the Santana
Dharma, known as Hinduism in modern times, has a recorded historical legacy
of around 7000 years at least. The venerable heritage of our civilization and
the cultural ethos that surrounded it had an intrinsic value of inclusivity, accommodation,
mutual respect and acceptance of all the faiths and belief systems. Over the
ages, the persecuted communities in the world, such as Jews and Iranians came to
India to take refuge and the Indians accepted them with open arms showing
benevolence to their apathy. Several travellers and religious saints have also
echoed the sentiments of respect and acceptance Indians have always possessed
because of their glorious civilizational legacy. As the circumstances in the
contemporary Indian subcontinent as changed giving rise to two Islamic nations in
India’s neighbourhood and the troubled historical baggage that confronts us
today, Hindus across the world should be considered as natural inheritors of
our civilizational ethos. Both in Pakistan and in Bangladesh the Hindu
population has come down radically, making the minuscule minority over there
exposed to petrifying vulnerability. With 52 Islamic nations and 74, Christian/Christian
dominated nations exist today. But the only country with a Hindu majority
happens to be India. So, every persecuted Hindu and member of Indic
religions such as Jainism Buddhism and Sikhism must be given a right to take
refuge in India and become its citizen in the due course of time. Israel follows a similar model which considers
all the Jews living across the world as its extended community who can take
refuge in Israel at any given point in time. However there have been several arguments
against this proposition, and one of the central “Concerns” is India
becoming a regressive theocratic state which would trample against even the
basic human rights of the religious minority. But it’s a well-known fact that
except for a set of lunatic fringe elements, India’s minorities are safe and
protected with equal constitutional status, and are given the fullest of rights and
liberties as every other citizen enjoys. Not just political or legal rights,
the Indian minorities have enjoyed equal social and economic rights and have
lived here with peace and tranquillity for generations together. When the UK can
be an Anglican Christian State with a Monarch as its head of state and possess
the finest of liberal and democratic virtues, and when the USA can associate itself
as a biblical promised land grounded upon the protestant Christian ethic and
can accommodate plural ethnicities, why can’t India defend its illustrious
civilizational legacy, by safeguarding its people who have no other option
except taking refuge in India?
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