Col Satish Singh Lalotra

‘Manifest—Believe in it until it manifests for you. Don’t overthink how it will happen, just believe it will.’-THESSYCO.  ‘Statelessness’ can be the biggest curse that can befall a community. In international law, a stateless person is someone who is ‘Not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law’.

The relation between a stateless person and a refugee has been one of the biggest conundrums that has ever hit the human race, since the time nation/ states came into their independent existence as a governing body.

This so called indefinable grey zone of statelessness in which millions of people still thrive all over the globe has always racked best of brains and world bodies towards its honourable resolution, but with little success.

The problem is not finding a solution to this centuries old curse afflicted by statelessness. The problem is that one country’s propounded class of stateless people who are actually not stateless but rather refugees owing to the internal dynamics of that country, become a existential threat for a neighbouring country.

The status of a person who might be stateless ultimately depends upon the view point of the state with respect to the individual or a group of people. In some cases, the state makes it clear and explicit; in others its view point is harder to discern. In those cases, one may need to rely on prima facie evidence of the view of the state, which may in turn give rise to presumption of statelessness.

Therefore not all refugees are stateless and many people who are stateless have never crossed the international borders. India in such cases has always been at the wrong end of the stick owing to its very peculiar positioning in geographical terms as also most of the times being afflicted by self-declared doctrines of the ilk ‘Gujral doctrine’ that laid much emphasis on its ‘Big-brotherly’ attitude towards its less fortunate neighbouring countries in matters involving mutual relations often at the cost of its own well-being.

The peculiar case of ‘Rohingya’ community of Myanmar and one of the most persecuted ones in the world owing to the genocidal attacks at the hands of the Myanmar military w.e.f August 2017 caused more than 7.7 lakhs to flee from that country.

With about 20,000 to 40,000 of this community as per GOI /UNHCR entering surreptitiously the borders of India and living since then is a clear case of causing upheaval in the socio-political fabric of the country.

Actually the community has been always on the cross hairs of the military juntas of Myanmar since the 1970s with successive persecution waves hitting them repeatedly in each decade, but only exacerbating in 2017 leading to a typical ‘Tipping point’ for their mass exodus to neighbouring countries including India.

This population is a stark reminder of both the secondary effects of the Myanmar military’s abuses and the failure of countries throughout the ‘South-Asian’ region, including India to uphold the most basic of protections for Rohingyas.

Well if that be the case should India then as per the so called ‘Gujral doctrine’ give space to these hapless masses without much ado in its territorial limits minus a quid pro quo?

The first PM of India, gave a tacit approval of political asylum in India for the Tibetan spiritual guru HH Dalai Lama along with his 80,000 Tibetan followers way back in 1959 that was the trigger for the Sino-Indian nose-diving of relations ultimately culminating in the high altitude border war across the high Himalayas from which the country has still not been able to absolve its culpability.

India has a long history of providing refuge to various groups and has endorsed the ‘Global compact on refugees’-an agreement aimed at increasing responsibility -sharing and finding new solutions for refugees.

Not only the above, in 1971 India has had to bear all alone the trials and tribulations that were unleashed by a belligerent West Pakistan on its hapless East Pakistani population during the infamous liberation war triggering an exodus of sea of humanity mainly Muslim masses into India that are now even after 53 years living in our NE part of country.

As per the latest official records there are 20 million Bangladeshi refugees living in India, skewing the entire socio-political as well as Geo-political landscape of India towards its neighbours who are inimical to our interests.

Taking advantage of India’s all-encompassing generosity , these refugees have become a security threat to the national integrity and sovereignty of the country too by their anti-India stances and activities.

Something of a similar nature has now been the wont of the ‘Rohingyas’ who under the relentless persecution of military juntas of Myanmar have been on a west ward push into India, giving a go by to the ‘deliberate generosity’ so exhibited by a host country like India in accommodating them disregarding its own security concerns.

The fact that these Rohingyas and Bangladeshis who are mostly from the minority community are all funneled into India through a narrow corridor of our NE part of the country which is already reeling under the syndrome of being ‘Neglected India’, turns out to be heady cocktail whose hangover the country may not be able to lift off for a long time to come if quick remedial actions are not taken.

But recently the case of Rohingya Muslims have gathered traction and raised the heckles of various world humanitarian bodies in the light of GOI stand that doesn’t seem justified for safeguarding of a nation’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

The myopic view of these world humanitarian bodies regarding the Rohingyas is just filtering through the prism of their own self-interest with the host country’s (India) concerns thrown to the winds.

In March this year the government had made a significant statement regarding the status of illegal Rohingya Muslims in the supreme court of India, wherein it was asserted that these illegal migrants from Myanmar did not possess a fundamental right to reside and settle in India.

The main technical hindrance of this hapless community lies in it being termed a ‘Stateless community’ by its own successive Myanmar Governments over the years and denial of citizenship without protection and grant of basic services.

As explained by me earlier, a refugee can be a stateless owing to being driven out of his or her home country. But a stateless person on the contrary is a typical ‘persona non grata’ owing to his own home country’s volition, thereby keeping him out of the ambit of rules governing those of UNHCR.

As if the above is not enough to go against these people, the take of GOI as also of credible intelligence agencies of this nation in this regard is that this community has been found to be involved in activities such as obtaining fake/ fabricated Indian identity cards, documents , human trafficking and subversive actions across the country.

Little known Rohingya terror group ‘Aqa Mul Mujhaideen’ blamed for the attacks on Myanmar border posts in 2018 not only maintains links with Hafeez Saeed’s Lashkar but had developed ties with (JeM) cell in J&K too. Aqa Mul Mujahideen ( AMM) Leaders were trained in Pakistan and later recruited youth in Rakhine region of Myanmar.

AMM a new armed group originated from the Harkat -ul-jihad islami-Arakan( HUJI-A). There were reports too that these Rohingya terrorists were operating alongside Pakistani extremists in Kashmir also. One of their top leaders, Chotta Burmi was killed in Kashmir along with JeM commander Adil Pathan in 2017.

Earlier Burmi allegedly shared dais with Hafiz Saeed in Pakistan too. It is also alleged that JUD ( Jamaat -ud- Dawa) is working with these displaced Rohingyas for the past seven years or so. All these illegal migrants have primarily settled in Muslim ghettos all over India with certain places like Hyderabad in the south, Jammu in the north and practically in many parts of the NE of India to name a few.

The biggest concern of GOI is that of a tacit collusion of the so called ‘Troika’ of Pakistan, Rohinghyas and illegal Bangladeshis joining hands and becoming one of the biggest de-stabilizing factor in India goaded by the Islamic tenet of ‘Muslim Ummah’.

I am sure the readers of this article know that India is not a signatory to the 1951 ‘Refugee convention’ or its 1967 protocol and does not have a national refugee protection framework. However it continues to grant asylum to a large number of refugees from neighbouring nation / states and respects UNHCR Mandate for other nationals mainly from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

At the same time GOI deals differently with various refugee groups, in general it respects the principle of ‘Non-refoulement’ for holders of UNHCR documentation. But in case of these Rohingyas who are a stateless people ‘ab initio’ and holders of UNHCR refugee card holders is a strict ‘NO’ since India doesn’t recognize UNHCR refugee cards.

The reason for India being a non-signatory to the 1951 ‘Refugee convention’ or its 1967 protocol has its genesis in the Geopolitical dynamics of south Asia, wherein firstly there are no clear cut set rules framed in the region by the neighbouring countries of this part of Asian continent governing the exodus of migrants and their controlling of movement into the neighbouring nations.

This aspect led India not to take lead suo moto unless and until all countries came on board for this vexed issue facing a mass of humanity. Secondly and most importantly, since many of these migrants have dubious motives for their illegal migration often goaded by nefarious designs and on hot pursuit by their own state agencies their presence in foreign lands often are a big cause of threat for the national security and territorial integrity for a host nation.

As has been the case of these Rohingya community which has put its very existence in harm’s way in the host( India) country by undertaking actions that are deemed inimical to our national interests.

Moreover in view of the ever changing dynamics in theocratic countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Myanmar from which India has received max number of illegal migrants, India has not had a formal legislation on the question of refugees since it wants to keep its option open for declaring any set of migrants as illegal.

Rohingyas case is one such typical example wherein India despite the UNHCR verification decided to deal with them as trespassers under the ‘Foreigners act’ or the ‘Indian passport act’.

Though there have been countless petitions, applications, and such like things goading the GOI of biting the bullet in so far as treatment of this Rohingya community at par with other migrants is concerned, the Union Government has made it amply clear recently that ‘Whether or not any class of persons is to be recognized as refugees is a pure policy decision.

There cannot be any recognition of refugee status outside the legislative framework, and such a declaration of refugee status cannot be made by judicial order—right to equality is not available to foreigners and illegal migrants’.

Be that as it may, India would do well to take a leaf out of its own historical background and do a thorough self-evaluation as to way forward with regards to this Rohingya migrant issue, but keeping the template of national security and integrity overriding all expediencies governing a decision having wider ramifications.

(The writer is a retired army officer)