Rohingya Issue: Clash between Foreign Policy and Domestic Politics

Asia News Agency

Rohingya Issue: Clash between Foreign Policy and Domestic Politics

Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs, Hardeep Singh Puri caused a flutter in BJP circles when he announced Wednesday  that the Rohingya ‘refugees’ living in Delhi  would be provided housing and police security.

Home Minister Amit Shah was quick to deny that any such decision had been taken by the government. Puri backed down, and tweeted later that the MHA’s statement was the correct position on the issue.

Puri’s announcement, sources said, went against everything that the BJP and the government had said over the past five years on the issue. The government has consistently maintained that it had no desire either to recognise the Rohingya as refugees nor accommodate them in the country.

 

Rohingyas are ‘illegal immigrants’

During the debate on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill on December 10, 2019 in Lok Sabha, Amit Shah, on being asked why the government was not granting citizenship to the Rohingya since they too were persecuted minorities, said, ‘Rohingya come via Bangladesh. Myanmar is a secular country. We will never accept the Rohingya, I am making it clear now,’ he said.

Earlier in September 2017, then Home Minister Rajnath Singh had said, “The Home Ministry has clarified its position through its affidavit (in Supreme Court) that these are illegal immigrants and they will be deported. The Rohingya are not refugees. There is a procedure to get refugee status and none of them followed this procedure. No Rohingya has got asylum in India nor has anyone applied for it. They are illegal immigrants.”

 

Threat to national security

In Parliament, the government has repeated the following line often in response to questions on the Rohingya: “Illegal migrants (including Rohingya) pose a threat to national security. There are reports about some Rohingya migrants indulging in illegal activities.”

In 2017, the Ministry of Home Affairs, in response to a petition praying non-refoulement of the Rohingya, told the Supreme Court that “continuance of Rohingya’s illegal immigration into India and their continued stay in India, apart from being absolutely illegal, is found to be having serious national security ramifications and has serious security threats.”

It said it had found “linkages of some of the unauthorised Rohingya immigrants with Pakistan-based terror organisations and similar organisations operating in other countries.”

It said some Rohingya were indulging in “illegal/anti-national activities such as mobilization of funds through hundi/hawala channels, procuring fake/fabricated Indian identity documents for other Rohingya and also indulging in human trafficking.”

“They are also using their illegal network for illegal entry of others in India. Many of them have managed to acquire fake/fraudulently obtained Indian identity documents i.e. PAN Card and voter cards,” it said.

 

Treating refugees in the past

Thousands of  Rohingyas crossed over to India from the 1,600-km border that Myanmar shares with the four North-eastern states of Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh. In April last year, the Centre had asked these states to “take appropriate action as per law” and “maintain a strict vigil at the border” to prevent a Rohingya influx. The state governments were told that they did not have the authority to declare anyone as “refugees” since India is not a signatory to the Refugee Convention of 1951.

This lack of generosity and compassion, writes The Indian Express,  “is a blemish on India’s record of treating communities under siege in its neighbourhood – Tibetans, people from erstwhile East Pakistan and Sri Lankan Tamils for instance…….”

 

India not a signatory to UN convention of refugees

In retrospect, writes The Hindu Urban Development Minister Hardeep Puri’s proved "too good to be true” as also “puzzling”. Puri is a senior Minister and an experienced diplomat, and his statement was unequivocal. In broader terms thus, “the Rohingya housing issue seems to be an example of the clash between the Modi government’s foreign policy commitments and its domestic politics. Although, as Mr. Puri tweeted, India has 'respected and followed’ the 1951 UN convention of refugees — it is not a signatory — Mr. Modi’s colleagues such as Home Minister Amit Shah have frequently disregarded the conventions: referring to migrants as ‘termites’, stating in Parliament that India would ‘never accept’ the Rohingya, and even violating the UN principle of non-refoulment by deporting a Rohingya woman to Myanmar this year……..”

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