The UN General Assembly on December 4, 2000, adopted a resolution agreeing to celebrate June 20 every year as World Refugee Day. On this day, we should renew our commitment to extend our helping hand to these unfortunate people who have been forced to flee their homeland due to insecurity and persecution.
Refugees are ordinary people in extra-ordinary circumstances. As the refugee poet Benjamin Zephaniah has written: “We can all be refugees, nobody is safe, all it takes is a mad leader, or no rains to bring forth food, we can all be refugees, we can also be told to go, we can be hated by someone for being someone.”
The number of refugees, internally displaced and stateless people has reached alarming proportions. According to Mid-Year Trends 2014, published by the UNHCR, refugees number 26.0 million; internally displaced number 26.0 million and stateless people 10 million. The major refugee-producing countries are Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Congo, Myanmar, Iraq, Columbia and the Central African Republic. Syria today is a country being left to self-destruction as it empties itself of its people. As Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for refugees, has pointed out, the needs of the refugees are “overwhelming, their anguish is unbearable”. Every day, “thousands flee; seeking places to stay, sustenance, someone who will listen and help them heal”. These desperate, desolate and unfortunate people are illustrations of man’s inhumanity to man.
India’s record of receiving and sheltering refugees is commendable. From early times, tolerance and goodwill have made India a haven for immigrants and shelter seekers. It is worth mentioning that St Thomas brought Christianity to Kerala long before Vatican was Christianised. St. Thomas came to Kodungallur in 52 AD and established seven churches along the Kerala coast. The Jews fleeing from Roman persecution found refuge in Kerala in 69 AD and from there they migrated to different parts of the country.
Indian tolerance is illustrated by an incident relating to the arrival of the Parsees in the west coast of India. The Parsees came with their sacred fire, fearing persecution in their homeland. They went to the kingdom of Navsari and requested the king to give them asylum. The king told them about the flourishing Muslim community in his kingdom and that they would not like the presence of Parsees in their midst. The Parsee religious leader requested the king to get a glass of milk and some sugar. When milk and sugar were brought, he put the sugar in the milk and gently stirred it. The milk did not overflow, but became sweet. The Parsee religious leader informed the king that their presence would be like sugar in milk; it would only sweeten it, not spoil it. And it must be stated to the credit of the Parsees that they have contributed immensely to the all-round advancement of India. And what is more, they are proud to be regarded as an integral part of the Indian nation.
The refugees who have come to India since the dawn of Independence have undergone enormous suffering in their original home, but after coming to India, with sheer hard work and perseverance, they have come up and are a role model for their kinfolk. The Organisation for Eelam Refugee Rehabilitation (OfERR) has cited the following success story of a Sri Lankan refugee. Rosariamma came to India in 1990. She has one son, but she also takes care of five children, who have lost their parents. The financial dole that she gets from the government, supplemented by the income generated through her physical work, is very meagre, but she is passionate about educating her children. With financial assistance from OfERR, her son Newton has become a qualified doctor. Her other children are studying in a good school in Tiruchi. Rosariamma is grateful to India for providing educational opportunities to the refugees.
India is neither a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees nor the 1967 protocol. India also does not have a comprehensive refugee law, which spells out the rights and entitlements of the refugees. In the absence of a refugee law, very often adhocism prevails in the treatment of the refugees. Do the refugees have the right to education and employment? Can they form associations to safeguard their rights and ventilate their grievances? There’s no definite answer. In the absence of a refugee law, the refugees are treated as aliens and are governed by the foreigners act and the passport act. It is high time the government of India enacts a comprehensive refugee law, which combines the humanitarian needs of the refugees and the security interests of the state.
On the eve of the refugee day, the government of India has taken a welcome decision to confer Indian citizenship on Hindus and Sikhs who have been discriminated against in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. According to media reports, the government of India has already granted citizenship to 4,300 Hindu and Sikh refugees who have come from Pakistan and Afghanistan, in one year of being in power. In this connection, it will be in the fitness of things if the government also confers Indian citizenship on 29,500 hill country Tamils of Indian origin from Sri Lanka who live in the refugee camps in Tamil Nadu. Unlike Sri Lankan Tamils, who do not consider themselves as part of the Indian diaspora, the hill country Tamils are of Indian origin. They have sold all their belongings in Sri Lanka, inter-married with the local people; what is more, there had been a certain amount of upward mobility among them due to education. When the refugee camps in Tamil Nadu were closed down following the India-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987, they refused to go back to Sri Lanka. As a result, the Mandapam camp and the Kottapattu camp continued to function. They have been living in the refugee camps for more than 30 years.
My encounter with hill country Tamil refugees has led me to the conclusion that they live between fear and hope, fear that they will be sent back to Sri Lanka and hope that they will become proud citizens of their motherland. The famous lines from the poem, State of Siege, written by Palestinian poet Mohamoud Darwish, comes to my mind: “There on the hill side, gazing into the dusk and canon of time, near the shadow crossed gardens, we do what the prisoners and the powerless do, we try to conjure up hope.”
The writer is senior professor (retd.), Centre for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Madras. suryageeth@gmail.com