Abstract
The Rohingyas from Myanmar are the world’s most persecuted minority without citizenship. For over five decades, they have faced continuous waves of communal violence, extrajudicial killings and discrimination. Especially, after the global denunciation of the military crackdown in August 2017 and United Nations accusing the country of “ethnic cleansing and genocide”, it is currently estimated that approximately 1.9 million ethnic Rohingyas are refused nationality/citizenship and its foreseen rights, while more than 723,000 Rohingyas have fled Myanmar. The recent deportation of seven Rohingyas by India and Bangladesh, and UNHCR signing an agreement with Myanmar on the return of Rohingya Muslims but without any guarantee of citizenship further tarnishes their identity between the man and the citizen, dumping them into a socio-legal limbo. Thereby, this raises debate over democracy, nationality/citizenship, human rights humanitarian assistance and protection regime for victims of forced migration and denationalization within the nation state paradigm. Based on the ethnographic inquiry conducted among stateless Rohingya refugees living in Delhi, Mewat and Jammu, the chapter looks into the historical and political dimension of the Rohingya crisis, while exploring their refracted and displaced realities and complexities of “everyday life” in asylum. It even contests the dominant discourse of the state and statehood while bringing the focus back to the “illegal-immigrant” transcending the South and Southeast Asian borders and beyond as stateless, refugees, cross-border migrants or simply as displaced persons.
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Notes
- 1.
Nationality and Statelessness: A Handbook for Parliamentarians https://www.un.org/ruleoflaw/files/Nationality%20and%20Statelessness.pdf. Accessed May, 2018.
- 2.
UNHCR, Figures at Glance, https://www.unhcr.org/figures-at-a-glance.html.
- 3.
Rohingya Refugees “Stand on Precipice of More Tragedy” One Year After Brutal Breakdown, August 24, 2018 http://time.com/5374143/myanmar-rohingya-august-25-crackdown/.
- 4.
UNICEF, Bangladesh, Humanitarian Situation Report 17 (Rohingya Influx), January 7, 2018. https://www.unicef.org/appeals/files/UNICEF_Bangladesh_Humanitarian_SitRep_7_Jan_2018.pdf.
- 5.
Under the Article 1 of 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, de jure statelessness refers to “a person not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law”.
- 6.
ARAKAN Monthly, September, 2009, http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs08/mag_arakan01-09.pdf.
- 7.
- 8.
A meeting on the dawn of Independence in 1947 between General Aung San and representatives of ethnic minorities at Panglong to discuss their status and demand for autonomy in a independent Burma. An agreement was signed which is known as “Panglong Agreement”.
- 9.
Szep and Marshall (2013).
- 10.
Through personal in-depth interviews with the Rohingyas living in Delhi, Mewat and Jammu.
- 11.
Till now, there are only 70 countries who are party to 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and 89 countries to the 1954 convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.
- 12.
1951 UN Convention on Refugees and 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees.
- 13.
The right to seek and enjoy asylum is a customary principle in international law, under UDHR, Article 14.
- 14.
According to the NGO—Save the Children (Jammu), 130 Rohingyas have gone back to Bangladesh in 2018 alone.
- 15.
Through personal interview with Ms. Rena Senyal, senior project coordinator, DAJI, Jammu, February 2019.
- 16.
Through personal interview with Anuradha Bhasin, executive editor of Kashmir Times, February 2019.
- 17.
See Footnote 16.
- 18.
Though personal interview with Ipshita Sengupta, UNHCR, India, Delhi, March 2019.
- 19.
There is around 800 Rohingyas living in Delhi. Rohingyas are scattered in Delhi. They live in slum-like settlements such as in Kanchan Kunj near Madanpur Khadar, Saran Vihar in Shaheen Bagh near Jasola metrostation and Khajuri Khas in northeast Delhi where they are living in rented houses as well as few scattered families living in the unauthorized colonies of Vikaspuri and Uttam Nagar near Don Bosco’s field Office.
- 20.
There are 1300 families of Stateless Rohingya refugees are living in Mewat, Haryana. Three plots in Chandeni village and two plots in Nagli and Punananear the Nuh’s District Bus Depot, Nuh District of Mewat, Haryana.
- 21.
According to DAJI and save the children (Jammu), there were 8000 Rohingyas in Jammu till October 2018. But now it is estimated that approx. 5000–6000 Rohingyas in Jammu across nine major clusters. The two major settlements in Jammu are Narwal and Bhatindi with around 80% of the total population in Jammu. While other are—Sunjuwan, Malik Market, Channi Rama, Channi Himmat, Trikutu Nagar, Pananma Chowk, Bagh-e-Bahu, Bhagwati Nagar, GolPuri, Durga Nagar, Paloti, Paloda, Toph and Bari Brahmana. And, there are approximately 20–30 Rohingya families in Srinagar district near Dargah Hazratbal of Kashmir. There are few in Qazigund Anantnag, but they remain in a regular movement to Jammu to Srinagar and vice versa.
- 22.
Through personal interview—Noor Yunus, January 2019.
- 23.
Through personal interview—Mhd. Shafi, February 2019.
- 24.
Through personal interview—Jaffarulla, January 2019.
- 25.
Through personal interview—ShabukManhar, February 2019.
- 26.
Writ Petition (Civil) No 859/2013- Jaffar Ullah and Anr versus Union of India and Ors.
- 27.
- 28.
Through the personal interview with Mohammad Nayyar, production manager, MMI Publishers, 2015.
- 29.
Through the personal interaction with the stateless Rohingya Refugees in all three locations (Delhi, Mewat and Jammu).
- 30.
Government of India, Minister of External Affairs, Press Release September 14, 2017. https://mea.gov.in/press-releases.htm?dtl/28944/Operation_Insaniyat__Humanitarian_assistance_to_Bangladesh_on_account_of_influx_of_refugees.
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Kaveri (2020). The Politics of Marginalization and Statelessness of the Rohingyas in India. In: Chowdhory, N., Mohanty, B. (eds) Citizenship, Nationalism and Refugeehood of Rohingyas in Southern Asia. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2168-3_4
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