Seeking asylum is a human right

By – Vishal Agarwal

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
— Emma Lazarus

India hosts more than two lakh refugees and is at the centre of refugee movements in the South Asian region. It has been a home to refugees from numerous neighbouring countries.

Since India’s independence and partition, it has had an influx of migrants from its neighbours, and this incident is not pertinent to the partition of India. The issue of the economic burden India has to bear and the significant demographic changes brought about by this inflow were frequently raised. In addition to economic and demographic problems, the refugee crisis also endangers India’s security. The legal demands of migrants, internally displaced people, and refugees have all been controlled by existing laws, although this has not yet been formally acknowledged. Although the matter has been partially addressed by current law and court involvement, there are still significant obstacles to resolving the bigger issue. Existing domestic laws regulating foreign nationals’ entry, stay and exit in normal circumstances are inadequate to deal with refugees. In the absence of domestic law for refugees and asylum seekers, there should be a domestic protocol on their status, assigning specific responsibilities to specific agencies. This will ensure prompt response and enhance accountability.

India follows the principle of dualism when it comes to Refugees; that is, international law is not directly applicable domestically and must be implemented through law by Parliament. But in the light of current international situations, we need to review the current scenario from a legal and humanitarian perspective. It is high time that a proper legal framework is set up for the same!
Refugees and illegal immigration are also two distinct concepts. However, both groups are treated equally under Indian law because of the Foreigners Act of 1946.

An individual seeking international protection from persecution is called an asylum seeker, and a country may grant refugee status to an asylum seeker. But sadly, there is no clear definition in India regarding this! Moreover, India is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol – vital legal documents about refugee protection in International Law. As a result, the government’s policies and solutions to address these problems lack clarity and policy value. This leads to India’s refugee policy being guided primarily by ad hocism! This enables the government in office to pick and choose ‘what kind’ of refugees it wants to admit for political or geopolitical reasons. This is sad; ultimately, the refugees end up suffering.

However, India has signed numerous Human Rights Instruments that articulate a commitment to the protection of Refugees. India is a party to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) 1948 and has joined the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) -1966 and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)- 1966 since 1979. India is also a signatory to -the convention on eliminating all forms of Radical Discrimination (CRED in 1965), which ensures equal human rights to all human beings without discrimination.

Moreover, Article 51(c) of the Indian constitution directs the state to respect and uphold International Law. Keeping all this in mind, we can say that a Refugee law has been awaited for a long time.
With the recent enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA), India further fails to address the real issue of refugees and exclusively addresses the issues of illegal immigrants, which are not the same as refugees. Furthermore, the CAA act goes against the basic principles of our democracy, like equality and religious non-discrimination enshrined in the constitution!

With traditional knowledge and values, progressive nations and economic behemoths like India might function as impetuses for international aid and asylum management.

By passing national refugee legislation, India may better calibrate its treatment of asylum claims in light of the global humanitarian and economic crises.

A day in the life of a Chinki

 Chinki, Momo, Chinese, Korean, and so on, people usually call her using these names. Merenla was my colleague, but now, she is leaving Delhi for good, giving up her career, friends, and struggles to belong in her own country. When she was asked for her reason re, she said she is tired of feeling unsafe in her country. I wanted to know more about what she was trying to say, and so did the others. Today is the last day of her notice period. The entire office was there to bid farewell, and not even a single person knows her name. Even in a colleague’s gift, it was written that chinki, we will miss you a lot. Wow! 

Later that day, we decided to go out as she would leave for Nagaland the next day, and she wasn’t feeling well. I was there to help her. We got in a cab, and the cab driver sneered, “Looks  like you also got your country’s disease.” And she replied angrily, “I am an Indian. Please do understand that for God’s sake.”

As I reached her home, we saw a crowd outside their place, where the landlady was screaming at her tenants. An argument sparked among them by the pungent smell of Axone, their native dish, and in due course of the fight, a random person from the crowd came forward and slapped Merenla, calling her a ‘Coronavirus causer’ and spat on one of her friends’ faces. 

And after an hour or two, when things cooled down, we turned on the news, and it said that two students from Nagaland were brutally tortured for hours by local men in Goregaon to teach them the lesson engraining in them the ideology that ‘they don’t belong here.’ They said, “If you Northeast people come here, we will kill you.” 

While I was shocked watching the news, one of her roommates murmured, “Same thing, Different day.” 

How is insensitivity towards a particular community so normalized? While thinking about this, I realized that even I was a part of this. Though she was my friend, I did nothing to stop the casual racism against her. Instead, I was a part of it. The seven sisters belong to India only theoretically in our maps, but they are still foreigners in practice.