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Refugees and Refugees

Indians are familiar with refugees, rather political refugees. It all started with the partition of India in 1947. Then there are internal refugees. In a sense the recent riot-victims in Assam are internal refugees though the chauvinists won’t like to subscribe to the idea as they describe them as Bangladeshi infiltrators. Infiltrators or indigenous inhabitants, they too are political refugees. ‘Any person with a genuine fear of being persecuted for membership in a particular social group or class’ comes under the definition of refugee as per 1951 UN convention. Thus refugees are mainly treated as victims of political persecution, open or hidden. UN is silent about internally Displaced  Persons (DPs) for ‘development’ projects, though their status is no less political than say, Gujarat riot sufferers.

What about environmental refugees? After all they are multiplying in numbers every year. They are not yet recognised by any country as refugees. Nor does UN agencies, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), try to formulate any guidelines for their rehabilitation, albeit the advanced Northern Countries, not to speak of backward south, teeming with impoverished millions, are not impervious to the threat of climate catastrophes that create environmental refugees in the first place. Whether global crisis managers like it or not, environmental refugees are likely to grow to 50 million by 2020, even by conservative estimates.

Where the forest used to be, torrential rains bring barren hills of mud down on villages. Crops wither in the perched earth. Animals and birds die. Melting glaciers and a rising sea swallow islands and low-lying countries, flooding rice fields with salt water. Factories spew toxic chemicals into rivers and oceans, killing fish and the livelihood of generations.

Kiributi, the Maldives and Tuvalu are disappearing as sea level continues to rise, notwithstanding the pompous earth summits and conferences on climate change.

The prospects of Bangladesh with a population of 170 million, losing 17.5 percent of its landmass, for the rise of one metre in sea level, is very much real. The danger of large-scale displacement is already threatening millions, it is no longer an idle exercise of the academics. And the huge number of environmental refugees as they are, have nowhere else to go but India. It means further strained relations between the two most populous countries of South Asia. And in the long run the question of infiltration will vitiate the political atmosphere in all the north-eastern and eastern states of India, including West Bengal.

But things are already worrisome in West Bengal’s Sunderbans where rising sea has rendered many thousands homeless. Lohachara island has vanished in sea. And now Ghoramara island seems to be disappearing bit by bit in sea.

Once this 34000-acre high green island was a busy hub of agricultural and fishing activities. No more. Now what stands as Ghoramara island is not even one-third of its original size.

Prevailing mood of success in China’s burgeoning economy may turn into a tragedy, not in the distant future. For all practical purposes China is a hot spot for environmental disasters as it buckles under unsustainable development, giving rise to unprecedented air pollution and toxic rivers. Alongside desensitisation, these man-made catastrophes have already left millions displaced.

All concerned agencies, national as also international, talk of global warming round the year and yet, no effective measure is taken to combat it. Meanwhile, environmentally displaced persons have already far out-stripped the number of political refugees worldwide, which according to UNHCR is currently around 10.2 million.

Every year eco-disasters are forcing more and more people to seek shelter elsewhere. It’s no longer a hidden crisis. The 2010 earthquake of Haiti in a matter of hours displaced more than 3 million people. In another 10 years or so, coastal people in most third world countries will have to migrate, because the advancing sea, showing no sign of stability, will swallow the landmass they inhabit.

Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 13, -Oct 7-13, 2012

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