Sectarian refugee policy underway as Modi Sarkar plans to deport Rohingya Muslims

The Union Home Ministry is reportedly in talks with Myanmar and Bangladesh to deport 40,000 Rohingya Muslims who are illegally staying in India. This move is surely a cruel joke on the refugees whose status are pitiable. Nevertheless, it is least surprising given the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) proposed sectarian approach towards refugees in the lead-up to the 2014 general elections. “India shall remain a natural home for persecuted Hindus and they shall be welcome to seek refuge here,” said the BJP’s 2014 election manifesto, which used terms such as “Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat” and “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas”.

The saffron political outfit was quite categorical in linking the country’s refugee policy to the religion of the ones seeking refuge. No artificial lip service was extended to non-Hindus and it was made clear that India will welcome Hindu refugees with open arms. But refugees professing a different faith could face differential treatment and this is precisely what is happening in the case of Rohingyas.

Are they a demographic threat?

A shameless argument which is being built against the presence of Rohingyas is that they are a threat to the prevailing religious demography in the country. As per an India Today report, the government’s estimates show that their population has “increased four times” since 2015 when their sum total population was said to be 10,500. In a country of nearly 1.3 billion or 130 crore people, it is frivolous to suggest that a few thousand refugees will alter the demographic composition.

Some 14,000 Rohingyas are already registered with the United Nations’ refugee agency. Hence, they are not liable to be sent back like the other 40,000 who are not registered. However, MoS Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju has argued the opposite claiming that India can deport the registered refugees also since it is not a signatory to the Refugee Convention which has been repudiated by the office of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Nevertheless, the combined tally of both registered and non-registered Rohingyas does not even equal 0.1 per cent of the country’s population. In the state of Jammu & Kashmir, there has been a lot of resentment regarding the settlement of Rohingyas in the Hindu-dominant region of Jammu. Once again, the figures tell a completely different tale. With a population of more than 12.55 million or 1.25 crore, the number of Rohingyas settled in J&K is a drop in the ocean compared to the local population of Kashmiris and Dogras.

“When Omar Abdullah was ruling, 10,000 Rohingyas, all the way from Burma’s Rakhine state, came across Bangladesh, across the entire breadth of India in Bhatinde area of Jammu which is barely fifty kilometres away from LOC and have been put up there as refugees. These are all Muslims who Burmese Buddhists could not stand on their soil,” alleged Sushil Pandit in a recent conversation with Rajiv Malhotra. Being from the internally displaced community of Kashmiri Pandits, it was bewildering that Pandit, who is a known BJP sympathiser, used such insensitive language while referring to a bunch of people who have been described as “one of the most persecuted minorities” in the world. Having witnessed the exodus himself, one expected him to be empathetic towards the plight of Rohingyas but it was not the case owing to his parochialism.

What we need to understand is that the central government has a problem primarily with the religious identity of Rohingyas because refugees having a non-Muslim background are not being meted out similar treatment. Nobody has objected to the 107 camps which house Sri Lankan refugees in the states of Tamil Nadu and Odisha or the Hindu refugees who have come in from Pakistan. Thousands of Tibetan refugees, far greater in numerical strength than Rohingyas, have been granted political asylum in India and it is a matter of great pride that India has stood for their religious freedom when their own country i.e. China is unwilling to accommodate their belief system. Unfortunately, Modi Sarkar’s prejudiced mindset isn’t allowing them to nurture the country’s composite culture by extending a helping hand to Rohingyas.

False bogey of terrorism

“No hate, no fear, refugees are welcome here,” thundered protesters at airports across the United States after president Donald Trump put into place a travel ban on the entry of people from certain Muslim-majority countries. It was all being done in the name of safeguarding American citizens from terror attacks at the hands of potential Muslim terrorists. There is no doubt that Islamist terrorism is a severe threat which needs to be dealt with efficiently.

However, it appears like that the threat of Islamist terrorism is being utilized to further identity politics and promote Islamophobic government policies world over. In India, media reports have cited unnamed intelligence bureau sources to claim that Rohingyas are susceptible to recruitment by terror organisations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba. They are apparently under the radar of Pakistan’s infamous Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Fingers have also been pointed towards Rohingyas’ “alleged” involvement in the 2013 Bodh Gaya shrine attacks.

It is possible that some misguided Rohingyas may have been involved in the said terror plot. If it is so then they should not be spared. But convictions are yet to occur. Moreover, a beleaguered community which began to flee its home state of Myanmar in 2012 after having been subjected to widespread state-sponsored discrimination and killings cannot be labelled as “pro-terror” on the basis of what a few people from among their ranks could have done. The government certainly needs to identify the 40,000 Rohingyas who are staying in the country illegally.

Given the times we live in and considering the fact that immigrants stand accused of orchestrating terror strikes in far off countries, it is essential that the unregistered Rohingyas go through a process of vetting. Once that is done, they can be registered with the UN and provided with some form of identification. The radical Rohingyas who have touched base with terror outfits and can be a potential threat based on an objective government assessment should be deported or tried according to the law. There is no harm in doing that but the state cannot have one overarching policy of deportation for Rohingyas who haven’t got the necessary paper work done. The fundamentals of such a state position are flimsy because it assumes that 40,000 Muslim immigrants from Myanmar are potential terrorists, similar to the projection of Syrian refugees in the west. We must not forget that one can’t be prosecuted without having committed a crime.

History of acceptance

Refugees are people in distress. Very often, they come from poorer sections of society. Uprooted from their homes, they face several socioeconomic problems in an alien country with language being a major hurdle. When demonetisation was announced in November last year, Rohingya refugees faced numerous difficulties in getting the old five hundred and one thousand rupee bills exchanged as they did not have the required identification documents. The government must work towards providing them with some kind of recognition. We are the seventh biggest country in the world and there is enough space in our land as also in the hearts of common Indians to allow a tiny bunch of refugees to dwell amongst us. The influx of a minuscule foreign population would not exert any significant pressure on the resources or make the local citizenry feel apprehensive unless there is political provocation.

Wonders have happened whenever India has stood for tolerance. Parsis fled persecution and came to India. Today, as a result of the same, the country has got Tata Group which is a Parsi creation and the biggest Indian multinational conglomerate. At the close of the fiscal year 2016-17, Tata Group’s companies employed over 6 lakh people generating US$103.51 billion or 6,77,556 crore in revenues annually. The 14th Dalai Lama, whom India gave refuge in 1959, is an international crusader of peace and an ambassador for the country promoting its values across the globe. Another historical precedent is the intake of millions of refugees from East Pakistan during the time of the Bangladesh liberation war with an estimated 1.5 million refugees choosing to stay back and amalgamate into India.

This is the strength of acceptance which politicians don’t understand in their narrow pursuit of votebank politics. Back in Myanmar, Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi is refusing to accept the Rohingya problem. In fact, she also had issues being interview by a BBC presenter who turned out to be a Muslim. While the Myanmar establishment broke the back of Rohingyas by being complicit in their persecution, the Indian government under Narendra Modi is not applying a healing balm either with their blueprint for action against Rohingyas drawing the ire of Amnesty International. Differential treatment of refugees premised on their religious beliefs is unheard of in India’s history.

If Modi succeeds in deporting 40,000 Rohingyas, he would have dealt a severe blow to the country’s long-cherished tradition of being a safe haven for people from all communities and regions. The government of the day needs to turn mature as the Republic of India turns 70. Indians must outlive this villainous narrative propounded by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) wherein many are led to believe that Muslims will somehow takeover this Hindu-majority nation through conversions, love jihad, increased procreation courtesy polygamy and illegal infiltration from Bangladesh and Myanmar. It is essential for the republic to shut these rumours forever.