NEW DELHI, March 25 (AlertNet) - India may be home to the most famous refugee in the world, the Dalai Lama, but hundreds of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers in the country are unprotected with no legal rights, open to discrimination and harassment, experts say.
According to the World Refugee Survey 2009 by the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, there are some 411,000 refugees and asylum seekers in India, many of whom were forced to flee conflict or persecution in neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka, Bhutan, China and Myanmar.
But India - considered a haven in a volatile region - has not signed the landmark 1951 Refugee Convention spelling out refugee rights and the legal obligations of states to protect them.
The country has no domestic law to deal with its huge refugee population, classing them as foreigners with no more rights than immigrants and tourists.
"There is no definition of 'refugee' in any Indian law and so their treatment is dealt with through ad hoc administrative decisions based on the local authorities who receive them," said Meenakshi Ganguly, a researcher with Human Rights Watch.
"As a result, many are discriminated against based on nationality, ethnicity, as well as due to political and security considerations. There needs to be specific legislation which would ensure their rights."
Circumstances underlying the exodus of refugees into India from their countries of origin vary.
Tibetan refugees - which make up more than 100,000 of the total number of refugees - began fleeing to India in 1959, following their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, after China's invasion of Tibet.
The second-largest group, Sri Lankan Tamils, also sought refuge in India's southern state of Tamil Nadu during the long civil war between Tamil separatists and the Sinhalese government, which ended last year.
There are also tens of thousands of Chin from Myanmar, who fled persecution - including forced labour and severe economic deprivation because of their Christian faith and non-Burmese ethnicity.
Then there are Nepalis, Bhutanese, Afghans, Somalis and Bangladeshi ethnic Chakmas as well as a smaller numbers of Palestinians, Iranians and Iraqis.
PERSECUTION TO DISCRIMINATION
Aid workers say over the years India has been a generous host to many refugees. But rights and privileges, they add, are only conferred upon select groups such as Sri Lankans and Tibetans.
Sri Lankan refugees have generally been "encouraged" to enter India - given their close links with the southern Tamil population and due to the Tamil Nadu government's aim to please its Tamil vote bank. They are supported with food, shelter, housing as well as an allowance.
The Tibetan refugee community was also granted land to set up educational institutions and other social programmes and have even set up a government-in-exile in the north Indian town of Dharamsala.
Others have not been so fortunate.
For example, Chin refugees - most of whom live in the northeastern state of Mizoram across the border from Myanmar - do have access to housing, education and health services. They face chronic poverty mainly due to job discrimination, say aid agencies.
Â?Job discrimination generally prevents most Chin from finding work outside of menial jobs such as road construction, domestic work, or farm labour,Â? said a December 2009 report by Refugees International.
Â?There are also sporadic reports of wage discrepancies between Chin and local workers and denial of wages for refugees based on legal status.Â?
Other refugees face harassment, arbitrary arrests and other forms of discrimination at a local level.
Aid workers say the lack of any Indian legal regime to confer rights and protection to refugees is allowing these problems to continue unabated, encouraging more abuse of refugees.
Even the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR), usually the international body aiding refugees around the world, is limited in its role to support those who need it.
The agency has an informal presence in the country and is restricted to supporting refugees in the capital who are from non-bordering countries like Afghanistan and Somalia - providing documentation, medical, educational, vocational and financial assistance.
But UNHCR is not permitted to work anywhere else in the country, including bordering areas where many of IndiaÂ?s refugees live. There are only 12,800 who it recognises under its mandate.
The agencyÂ?s chief of mission, Montserrat Feixas Vihe, says a refugee law would be welcome as it would provide for Â?equality of treatment of all groupsÂ?.
Â?A bill for refugees would provide a legal framework that would ensure that refugees and asylum seekersÂ? rights and duties are based on legal and humanitarian considerations,Â? Vihe said.
SECURITY CONCERNS
Analysts say India refused to sign the 1951 Refugee Convention because it found it first too Â?EurocentricÂ? and later considered it a Cold War tool to criticise communist countries by accepting refugees from the eastern bloc into what was declared to be the Â?free worldÂ?.
Over the years, the government has hosted its refugees based on the random policies of local authorities. Officials have said they adequately handled refugee welfare and there is no need for a separate law.
Some parliamentarians who oppose a refugee law add that introducing such a law would encourage a surge of refugees into the country and see more economic migrants coming across the border posing as refugees, placing pressure on scarce resources.
Rights campaigners have for over a decade lobbied for a domestic law and two bills have been drafted - in 1997 and then in 2006 - but New Delhi has stalled on approving either of these bills, mainly due to security concerns.
Sharing a massive porous border with many hostile neighbours and consistently threatened by external militancy, India does not want to be tied down by any legal obligation that impinges upon its discretion to regulate the entry of foreigners into its territory.
Â?The security rhetoric of the government is at all time high - post 9/11 as well as after the Mumbai attacks in 2008, so this is also impacting decisions to push the draft bill through,Â? said Bipin Aspatwar, assistant director of the Public Interest Legal Support and Research Centre, a Delhi-based legal NGO.
Aspatwar, whose organisation drafted the stalled Refugees and Asylum Seekers (Protection) Bill in 2006, said a bill is due to come before the cabinet at the end of March, but even if approved, there is no guarantee it will be tabled before parliament this year.
Â?There is a lack of political will as it is not seen a priority amidst issues such a security and there are so many other bills which are pending. It is certainly not seen as a vote winner for most politicians.Â?
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