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Controversy arises due to India's treatment Rohingya refugees

By Ayyoob Thayyil

NEW DELHI, Nov 24 (KUNA) -- Many Muslim dominated areas in the Indian states of New Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal are hosting majority of the Rohingya who sought refuge after fleeing persecution from neighboring Myanmar.
Though the central government is in favor of forcing the predominantly Muslim refugees, estimated to be around 40,000 including 16,500 UN refugee cardholders, out of the country, sober voices from many civil society organizations, politicians and intellectuals demanded to provide humanitarian assistance.
The Supreme Court of the country has also took a balanced stand observing that national security should be seasoned with humanitarian concerns when dealing with the refugee question.
This came in response to a petition filed against a possible deportation by two Muslim Rohingya refugees.
The right-wing central government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi have often projected the Muslim identity of the refugees and expressed fear of them turning into terrorists posing a serious threat to the national security.
New Delhi is still weighing all the available options to take a final call on the issue ignoring its long standing religious and civilizational tradition of respecting and hosting refugees from the neighboring countries and the larger third world countries.
Let us see how Indian government responded towards this issue at the regional level to decipher the logic behind the current position.
A statement issued soon after PM Narendra Modi's return from a recent visit to Myanmar said "it is imperative that violence is ended and normalcy in the state restored expeditiously".
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj told her Bangladeshi counterpart during the former's visit to Bangladesh that India is with Dhaka in this time of need and consignments of foodstuff and other necessities have been dispatched to Bangladesh to help it deal with Rohingya refugees. The right-wing government, however, have succumbed at home to the pressure of some Hindu extremist nationalists demanding deportation of the Rohingya refugees at any cost.
This is in stark contrast to Indian policy of non-refoulement though New Delhi is not a signatory to any international conventions dealing with the refugee question.
Traditionally, India has taken a pro-refugee stand domestically and took a position internationally insisting that refugees should not be turned away by any country.
In the case of Rohingya refugees, despite the fact they are minuscule, the central government is desperately wanting to expel them either to Myanmar where they are discriminated, unwanted and are likely to face death or to a third country.
This has elicited strong opposition from both within and without the country.
Leading Indian figures including Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen and former UN Under-Secretary and ex-minister in the Congress-led former government Shashi Tharoor have come down heavily on the government's policy, which smacks accepting the increasing Islamophobia and the resultant stereotyping of Muslims branding them as potential terrorists. While Sen termed the plight of Rohingya as a slow genocide, Tharoor contented that Indian constitution has provisions for the protection of persecuted and expelled Rohinya refugees.
He contended that the current position has tarnished India's image of a benevolent pro-refugee nation and would be an anathema to its own civilizational and religious legacy and tradition.
A number of rights organizations, opposition politicians, and Muslim groups have also vehemently opposed deportation of Rohingya refugees condemning such move a scar on Indian culture.
Indian government's position towards Rohingyan Muslims is contrary to earlier stand when refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan came to India.
India has not adopted any uniform regulation to deal with the refugees, though it is accommodating one of the largest refugee populations in Asia and so far had dealt with the issue in line with the international norms.
Successive governments in the past had dealt with the refugees on a case-to-case and ad-hoc basis relying upon various archaic regulations including the Passport (Entry of India) Act, the Registration of Foreigners Act, and the Foreigners Order and other similar regulations.
The Modi government, however, provided some ease in 2016 to religious minorities fleeing persecution from the neighboring states of Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Excluding Muslims, all major religious groups of India including Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians are entitled to enjoy benefits of this act.
This very discriminatory politics elicited objection from various corners and it was called a patently parochial move and against the secular fabric of India.
Plight of Rohingya is a byproduct of the British colonial subjugation of Indian subcontinent and the subsequent formation of states following their departure.
Rohingya Muslims, considered one among the most persecuted minorities in the globe, hail from the northwestern Rakhine state of Myanmar.
The state authorities under various military juntas have treated them as illegal immigrants denying them all government services, forcing them to flee through intimidation and deadly physical violence practiced indiscriminately against women children and old.
Conflicting narratives about the origin and root of Rohingya's predominantly Muslim population are available but the international community have supported their cause though proper action is not forthcoming.
India and Bangladesh, which share border with the predominantly Buddhist Myanmar, have to deal with the increasing influx of refugees since this August.
The porous borders and humanitarian considerations have often led to the mass cross over of Rohingyans to these neighboring states as they came under systematic military attacks often amounting to ethnic cleansing.
Aung San Suu Kyi, who earned international fame and bagged Nobel for peace, was often seen as a redeemer but her lame excuses justifying cruelty of General Min Aung Hlaing's soldiers, have proved herself weak and supporting Myanmar's apartheid.
Some desperate young Muslims who witnessed persecution of their fellow beings formed Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army and launched resistance movement and engaged in armed struggle against Myanmar army and paramilitary forces inviting harsher cleansing operations. People of Rakhine state previously known as Arakan are said to be indigenous people inhabiting the area since eight century.
But some historians say that they were taken to Burma as bonded laborers by the British who engaged in tea plantation there in a bid to dilute the Buddhist resistance against the colonial powers through demographic change.
India has called upon the Myanmar's authorities to observe restraint in handling Rakhine and as early as 2015 had extended one million US Dollar to the neighboring state in the form of humanitarian assistance and built 10 schools in Rakhine State.
However, the development projects of India and China in the region are often cited as an excuse for these two countries to silently endorse the military actions aimed at purging the region from its inhabitants who happened to be predominantly Muslims.
Some commentators and political observers in India hold that Indian constitution gives certain rights to refugees whether they are Indians or not and the current dispensation in New Delhi has a polarized parochial take on the Rohingyans.
It is well documented that the government in 2016 enacted a law seeking speedy processing of citizenship to the members of minority communities who are seeking shelter in India.
Muslims were excluded while all other major religious minority communities in India were allowed to receive the benefit of this regulation if they are seeking