Not a sound in the classroom except the fervent scribbling of pens. Little heads have bent over their answer scripts, writing intently. 14-year-old Pooja was well-prepared; confident that she’d score well. But 30 minutes into the test, the ink in her pen is going dry. Anxious, she thinks she’ll borrow a pen from her classmates. Sheepishly, she whispers to a girl sitting adjacent to her. “Rashmi, do you have an extra pen.” Rashmi looks at her for a while; her otherwise gentle face contorting in some inexplicable disgust. “Yeh le, Pakistani (Here, Pakistani).”
Pooja is not surprised. She quietly accepts the pen and returns to her test paper. Racial slurs didn’t sting anymore; they were mundane, like hunger, the cold, or the stench crawling across her colony. “Many of my classmates taunted me, called me a ‘Pakistani’. Now, I ignore them, it doesn’t affect me anymore. Now I can proudly say that I am an Indian,” Pooja, who lives in a settlement of Hindu refugees from Pakistan at Majnu Ka Tila in central Delhi, told us.
Pooja was just a toddler when her family migrated to India from Hyderabad in Pakistan’s Sindh province. She says she does not have any memory of Pakistan. “India has always been my home,” she asserts.
The refugee camp at Majnu Ka Tila is home to roughly 900 refugees, many of whom have been awaiting citizenship for over a decade now. With the issue of refugees once again on the headlines after the Government of India notified the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, announcing the rules of implementation, those living in these colonies are once again hopeful.
The Ministry of Home Affairs on March 5 notified the rules for implementation of the CAA which provides accelerated citizenship for immigrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Parsi, Buddhist, or Christian communities who entered India before 2014, following religious persecutions.
‘Years of misery, ray of hope’
Slurs and neglect, zero civic amenities; a ‘refugee’ endures. And when they belong to a nation with whom India never shared ‘friendly’ relations, the social stigma itself makes the refugee life manifold agonising.
Dharmveer Solanki, considered a leader among Pakistani Hindu refugee families in Delhi said the community has been waiting for thirteen years for citizenship. “Our joy knows no bounds,” he exclaims. “After years of pain and oppression we have finally received justice.”
Solanki says the 160 refugee families living in the Majnu ka Tila settlement have been enduring abject poverty. The community has no access to clean water or electricity with most families earning a living by selling trinkets here and there at roadside stalls. “We are forced to live in unhygienic conditions. The municipal corporation (MCD) does not pick up garbage from these areas. Access to healthcare is scant as most are not eligible for government health schemes,” said Solanki. “We will now be able to access various government schemes and benefits; like citizens.” His lips flutter in enthusiasm every time he mentions ‘citizen’. Hailing from an agrarian community, Solanki hopes that the government will provide them with a piece of agricultural land to settle down and cultivate.
Among the jubilant refugees in the Majnu ka Tila camp, their numbers over 500, is Kamal, living in a slum without legal sanction for decades. “This moment is like a second birth, not just for me and my family but for my entire community and for those who were living here without any authority for decades,” he said. Brij Lal, another afflicted, likened the occasion to Holi and Diwali. Lal attributed this milestone to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, describing him as no less than an ‘avatar’ (divine incarnation) for their community.
The implementation of the CAA has been a subject to much debate since its inception. However, for refugees like Solanki, Kamal, and Lal, it represents a long-awaited opportunity for a better life in their new-found homeland.
When bulldozers loomed
And who is a refugee? They are people who have fled their countries to escape conflict, violence, or persecution and have sought safety in another country. As per the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, refugees are unable to return to their native countries because of feared persecution as a result of their identity, beliefs, or due to armed conflict, violence or grave public disorder. Many have been forced to flee with little more than the clothes on their back, leaving behind their homes, possessions, jobs and loved ones. They may have suffered human rights violations, injured in conflict, or endured loss of life and property. Arriving in a foreign land, these people are without the rights of a citizen; a constant threat of eviction looms over their heads.
Another refugee named Dayalu Kumar, selling mobile covers at Tis Hazari to earn a meager livelihood, narrates the precarious nature of the refugee life. “We used to live under a constant threat that our houses would be bulldozed and we would be evicted from here. Now, we are being showered with flowers. We have been assured that we can stay here,” he said.
On March 4, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) had issued notices to ‘illegal’ settlements in the area, asking residents to vacate. The officials had notified a demolition drive on March 7 and 8 to remove the ‘encroachments’ on the Yamuna floodplains. The DDA, in a statement, said they were only adhering to a National Green Tribunal (NGT) order that declared the area to be a part of the Yamuna flood lands. The NGT in its October 2019 order, directed that the floodlands cannot be allowed to be encroached upon as it may have detrimental effects on the ecology of the river.
However, on March 13, the Delhi High Court instructed the DDA for an interim halt on the demolition of the camp. The decision came in response to a plea filed by Ravi Ranjan Singh, a refugee, who sought protection for the camp until they were allocated alternative habilitation. Singh’s plea, invoking the CAA, underscored the government’s pledge to provide shelter to persecuted non-Muslim minorities from neighbouring nations.
But are refugees only Hindus and Sikhs? While politics peaks over granting citizenship to persecuted minorities under the CAA, the situation on the ground shows that a ‘life of dignity’ is as much desired by the Rohingya refugees as it is by the Hindus and Sikhs at Majnu Ka Tila.
The elusive ‘life of dignity’
Notably, the Rohingya refugees, their total numbers in the millions, have populated various parts of the country, living in slums, particularly in Assam, and West Bengal. In the national capital, a cluster of Rohingyas live in the Kalindi Kunj area. They continue to endure reduced rights, without access to basic amenities like water, food, education and medical assistance. A Rohingya settlement on Jaitpur Road in Kalindi Kunj has about 54 families of over 300 individuals. Those living in these dwellings say they have been staying here for more than 10 years. Yet, they struggle everyday for drinking water. However, for electricity, they have been provided metres, a minor relief.
Salimullah, resident at the Rohingya camp in Kanchankunj near Kalindi Kunj area says their lives have remained miserable. Apart from a lack of basic facilities, they are subject to “demonization” in the media. A strong social stigma percolates against the Rohingyas, Salimullah says, leaving them vulnerable to humiliation, and reduced opportunities. “There is hardly any access to drinking water. We are deprived of the most basic of facilities. A water tanker comes once a day, that too stations nearly half a kilometre from our JJ (jhuggi jhopdi) cluster,” Salimullah tells us. Notably, on Sunday, March 17, the water tanker did not arrive at the refugee camp.
Salimullah says that the most distressing part is the way they are projected on the media. “We are called names; ‘ghuspetiya’ (infiltrators). The media marks us as criminals, and terrorists. People avoid employing us for anything, even as labourers,” he said. Some NGOs, working for the upliftment of refugee communities, sometimes provide aid to the Rohingya encampments at the Kanchankunj area. However, off-late, Salimullah says the frequency of these visits have drastically reduced. Asked about the implementation of the CAA, Salimullah sighs, then looks away without offering any response.
Hopes among Afghan Sikhs
The members of the Sikh community who were evacuated by the Indian government from Afghanistan in 2021 after the Taliban captured the government, have their hopes up after the government notified the implementation of the CAA. Though, their lives are not as miserable as the Hindu and Sikh refugees from Pakistan and the Rohingyas, yet, not being a citizen makes them ineligible for several fundamental rights.
A large number of these Sikh refugees settled at Tilak Nagar area. Guljeet Singh, president of Gurdwara Guru Nanak Sahib Ji, Manohar Nagar told us that several local Gurudwaras offered aid to them. “We gave them shelter, paid their rent and gradually most of them got employment. We bought rickshaws for them so they could earn a living. Yet providing citizenship to them is an issue the government needs to address.”
One among them, expresses the harsh duality of the refugee-condition. “In Afghanistan, they used to say we are Indians. Here, they say we are Afghans. Where do we belong? We don’t know where to go, what to do. We have no future. Citizenship is important for us.”
