Why India Won’t Ease the Afghan Refugee Crisis

New Delhi once rolled out the welcome mat for those fleeing its neighbors. What happened?

Afghan refugees rest in tents at a makeshift shelter camp in Chaman, Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan, on Aug. 31. -/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

 

OCTOBER 1, 2021, 4:00 PM

In 1947, when the British partitioned their Indian empire into two dominions, about 14 million people felt compelled to migrate across the newly formed borders of India and Pakistan. Amid intense interreligious violence, Muslims fled to Pakistan, while Hindus and Sikhs escaped to India. Despite limited resources, the fledgling government of then-Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru acted quickly to resettle this vast uprooted population, deeming it essential to provide assistance to those who had lost their homes and livelihoods.

The welcome mat Nehru extended to refugees in the wake of the Partition served as a template for subsequent governments in the second half of the 20th century. But in recent years, this tradition of helping those seeking shelter has been cast aside with the ascendance of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). From the Rohingya fleeing genocidal violence in Myanmar to the current plight of Afghans seeking to escape the Taliban regime, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government now appears not to care about the plight of refugees in its neighborhood.

For decades, India welcomed waves of refugees with open arms. After the 1959 Tibetan uprising against communist rule, New Delhi not only granted the Dalai Lama asylum but also took in thousands of Tibetans fleeing Chinese repression, leading to a significant diaspora community in India. The Dalai Lama remains in the north Indian town of Dharamshala with his loyal entourage. Apart from limiting Tibetan political activism out of fear of provoking China, successive Indian governments have allowed the community to thrive.

All that said, India did not sign the 1951 Refugee Convention because it said it would threaten its sovereignty, and it did not endorse a 1967 amendment to the convention on similar grounds. Meanwhile, Nehru’s India was less welcoming to immigration when it came to members of the Indian diaspora requesting to return, especially from the Caribbean. As they were not refugees facing persecution, Nehru’s government encouraged them to remain in the West Indies while they sought citizenship instead.

India’s most generous moment came in the wake of the East Pakistan crisis of 1971, when close to 10 million Bengalis fled into India to escape the brutal repression of the Pakistan Army. With limited international humanitarian assistance, India provided for these victims of military brutality for more than six months, regardless of their religion. (Many of those who fled the violence were Bengali Muslims.) India intervened in the Bangladesh Liberation War in December 1971, leading to Pakistan’s surrender. The majority of the refugees who fled to India ultimately returned to the new state of Bangladesh.

Although Pakistan absorbed the bulk of the refugees in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, India also accommodated a smaller number. Later, as a civil war racked Sri Lanka in the mid-1980s, India took around 30,000 Tamil refugees, and members of the group have continued coming in the years since. There have been allegations of mistreatment of Tamil refugees in camps in southern India. Those issues aside, New Delhi’s stance toward refugees from the region had long reflected a generous capacity for humanitarian action.

So then what explains the shift in New Delhi’s stance toward refugees? One can find the answer in the politics of the ruling BJP and the changing domestic political climate. To varying degrees, past Indian governments committed to a vision of a pluralist and civic state and felt compelled to provide a safe haven to refugees—regardless of their ethnicity or religion—to live up to these principles. The Hindu nationalist BJP, especially under Modi’s leadership, no longer appears to believe in adhering to those norms.

Far from welcoming refugees, Modi’s India has sought to slam the door shut. The BJP government displayed stunning callousness when members of the Rohingya Muslim minority sought refuge in India from the Myanmar military’s campaign of terror in 2017. India refused to grant refugee status to the Rohingyas and even deported seven Rohingya men in October 2018, threatening to kick out thousands more. The government’s justification for this inhospitable policy was that supposed terrorists would enter India under the guise of seeking asylum. The Modi government’s policy toward refugees has frustrated other South Asian states, particularly Bangladesh, which hosts over 1 million Rohingya refugees.