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MIZZIMA : Does India treat refugees



REFUGEE/ INDIA

Does India treat its refugees well?
By: MIZZIMA News Group 
22nd March 1999

"Does India treat its refugees well" - the title of a report released in
January this year by a Delhi-based public interest law firm, namely
"Public Interest Legal Support and Research Centre (PILSARC) - recounts
how the two Iraqis refugees were maltreated by the police and neglected by
the authorities concerned. The two brothers fled from Iraq, where their
family was persecuted, to Iran and there they were put behind the bar for
no reason. After escaping from Iran, they came to India as stowaways on a
ship. Immediately arrested when they landed in Goa with the charge of
illegal entry under Foreigners Act, they were released and given
permission to stay in India till 1999. The Ministry of External Affairs of
India initially took the stance that time be given to obtain "third
country asylum" for them. The United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) in Delhi formally recognized them as refugees. However,
when the two arrived in Delhi in September 1998, their permission to stay
August 1999 were "confiscated", they were detained at Lampur Detention
Centre where refugees are detained pending a decision as to their fate.
The two were allegedly badly beaten up by the police in guard of the
detention center, which is otherwise used as Beggars Home. Moreover, a FIR
was registered by the police force in Lampur against the two refugees
being accused of "assault" to the police on duty. 

This is one of the many unfortunate cases of refugees in India, who are
mostly forgotten people, whose stories are unnoticed by media and
untouched by others and history. India is a refugee prone area in a world
that is increasingly generating more refugees in each succeeding year.
Since 1947, it is estimated that between 35 to 40 million people have
moved across the national boundaries in South Asia region. UNHCR sources
indicate that the number of refugees that fall within the mandate of its
concern globally at the end of 1996 and 1997 were in the region of 26.1
and 22.7 millions, respectively. As per the data available in 1992, India
was host to nearly 400,000 refugees from Sri Lanka, Tibet, Bangladesh,
Afghanistan, Somalia, Burma and other countries.  "This country has been
noted in its historic culture for receiving people in distress, coming
here to seek some kind of protection, some shelter somewhere. It is
contra-Gandhian, contra-Nehruvian, contra-Indian ancient culture to say:
"we will not give you asylum", said Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer, a
well-known former Supreme Court Judge in India.

The question is : Are the refugees in India treated fair? 
"India is like a jail for the refugees", answered Mr. Abul Raof Yosufzai,
an Afghan refugee living in Delhi for eight years. "Even jail provides
food and shelter but India does not", he added. Although the refugees are
legally not permitted to work, many of them do take up odd jobs for their
living. But, again they are venerable to numerous problems. "I have to
give Rs. 50 to the police so that I can sell the things", said one Afghan
refugee who sells Russian-made cameras and watches at Sunday Bazar behind
the historic Red Fort in Delhi. If he doesn't give money to the police, he
is beaten up and arrested. He gets Rs. 100 or 200 from a Sunday work at
Bazar, the amount on which he has to live for the whole week. 

India has been a refugee receiving state since centuries without a
specific law. All foreigners, whether refugees or otherwise are dealt with
under the provisions of the Foreigners Act 1946. According to the act, the
authorities have the power to refuse admission to foreigners at any point
of entry if valid documents are not held. 

"It is a British heritage. And it does not deal with the new world
thinking on refugees at all. It deals with just foreigners who somehow
manage to get into this country, by smuggling into this country not
exactly as a refugee but as a person with other objectives, illicit
occupation", Justice krishna Iyer commented.

Moreover, India is not a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Convention
on Refugees as well as the 1967 Protocol. 132 states, which is more than
two thirds of the United Nations membership including all permanent
members of the Security Council, are parties to the instruments.  "The two
instruments stress on the rights of refugees only. They call for national
treatment to be given to refugees in respect of housing, education, etc.
This impose a largely one-sided obligation on the refugee receiving
states," said, Dr. Najma Heptulla, Deputy Chairperson, Rajya Sabha (Upper
Parliament of India).

UNHCR in India is currently assisting more than 25,000 refugees in Delhi,
including 500 Burmese refugees who left their country after the massacre
in 1988 by the military junta there. Refugees are provided a monthly
subsistence allowance of Rs. 1,200 per month per person apart from health
care service and occasionally organized vocational training by the UNHCR.
But, it started cutting down the financial allowance to many of its
refugees from 1995 onwards. UNHCR says that it wants the refugees to be
self-reliant in long-term. The refugees say that self-reliance programmes
of the UNHCR are unrealistic, as the financial support for the programme
is insufficient and difficult to work in India. Some of the refugee groups
have over the years held hunger strikes in front of UNHCR office in Delhi
in protest of maltreatment of the office to them. 

There are many cases these refugees pointed out. An Ogoni (Nigeria)
national, who cannot go back to his country for fear of persecution, has
been waiting for nearly two years to get an answer to his application for
refugee status from UNHCR. 

The worse is the situation of the refugees who are outside the "hand" of
the UNHCR in Delhi. Hundreds of Arakanese refugees who escaped from forced
labour and arbitrary arrest of the military regime in Burma are trapped in
a remote area of Indo-Burma border for five years. No governmental or
international humanitarian efforts have yet reached to save them from the
danger of starvation. 

"The refugees prone situation in the sub-continent will always yield a
large number of refugees. Indian can no longer continue to deal with the
problems of refugees on archaic nineteenth century principles enshrined in
the outdated Foreigners Act 1946 and the no less dated Extradition Act
1962", a PILSARC's report in 1998 noted. 

The constitution of India makes a distinction in regards to fundamental
rights. Article 14 of equal treatment, equal protection of the law and
article 21 of right to life and liberty are available for any person who
finds himself or herself in the territory of India. Human rights lawyers
have used these constitutional values in defending some of the refugee
cases. However, the lack of a specific law encourages inconsistent or
discriminatory treatment of the refugees in the country. 

Senior Advocate Rajeev Dhavan from Supreme Court of India believes that
India needs specific law for refugees. He said, "India needs a law for
foreigners. World is not what it was 50 years ago. Today people are moving
throughout the world. They are not just moving, they are migrating. They
are trapped minority. You can't go forward because of immigration laws;
you can't go back because of economic differentials. Where you are you are
badly treated". 

A former Chief of Mission of UNHCR in India said: "one of the main
objectives of refuge law is to ensure that the basic human rights of
refugees are protected, and that they are not returned to a territory
where their life and liberty would be threatened". 

For many years India has not applied its mind to the world of refugees,
their problems and discontents. It is the time now that India should
recognize the constitutional values in the shape of a national refugee
policy.

MIZZIMA News Group
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