Refugees in India

Pranjali Bandhu

Refugees are people forcibly displaced from their homes and who are, therefore, compelled to seek shelter elsewhere. There are many reasons for the displacement: wars including civil wars, border clashes, inter-ethnic conflict, gross violations of human rights, communal riots, environmental degradation, natural and man-made disasters, climate change, epidemics and pandemics, development pro-jects, and so on. The displacement could be internal or across national borders.

Officially, there are about 2.5 lakh documented refugees living in the country; the unofficial estimate is around 4.5 lakh. Internally displaced people are estimated to number over 5 million. To begin with, a chronological overview of the different categories of refugees is presented, starting from the pre Second World War period when the phenomenon of modern day refugees began to make itself felt on the Indian subcontinent.

In the mid-1930s some 5000 Jews from Central Europe (mainly Germany and Austria) sought asylum in British India. Jews from these countries had started applying for asylum to the British Indian authorities in the 1930s after Hitler came to power in Germany. Not all such applications were accepted because the British rulers were wary of Nazi spies and, in fact, in 1939 interred all Germans in the country considering them ‘enemy aliens.’ Indian industrialists and politicians like Nehru lobbied for visas for Jewish refugees out of humanitarian considerations, and also because they realised their skills would aid India’s development.

Those who applied for and obtained visas were majorly highly qualified people in the sciences, arts, architecture, medicine, etc. They were employed as consultants or given responsible positions by the various Maharajas, like of Baroda, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Mysore and Patiala and after independence by the Government of India. One of them, Alex Aronson, was given refuge in Tagore’s Santiniketan and made useful contributions as author and educator. Another well-known composer and ethnomusicologist, Walter Kaufmann, spent some time in Bombay and is well known for his composition of the signature tune for AIR (All India Radio). However, despite their interest in Eastern/Indian cultures, after World War-II ended they settled in Israel/Palestine or the USA.

During the War some Polish refugees (including Polish Jews) found shelter in India. Under the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939 the Soviet Union annexed a part of Eastern Poland into Ukraine and Belarus. A good number of Poles were deported to Soviet labour camps in Siberia and Kazakhstan. When the Soviet Union became part of the Allied Forces after being attacked by Germany it released Poles from its prisons and labour camps so that they could join in the war effort. In 1942, the Maharaja of Nawanagar in the Kutch region of Gujarat (present-day Jamnagar) accepted 500 orphan Polish children into his territories. By March 1943 the Valivade Camp in Maharashtra’s Kolhapur, then a Princely State, was set up. It soon became a small Polish settlement with 5000 refugees having a church, schools, hospital, post office, shops, gardens, fire brigade and even a tent cinema theatre.

Another camp for them was set up in Karachi in 1946. The expenses for these settlements were borne by the Polish government-in-exile, which had negotiated with the British government to get these deportees out from the Soviet Union. After they left in 1948, the Valivade Camp was used for housing Sindhi refugees who came to India post-Partition. During World War-II many refugees from Eastern Europe were settled in Asia and Africa by the colonial administrations, an instance of the colonial/neo-colonial world being used to bear the ‘burden’ of a war fought solely in their interests.

During the Second World War, after the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1941, when Burmese nationalists teamed up with the Japanese against the British rulers, who initially beat a retreat, there was an exodus of around 5 lakh Indians and some Euro-Burmese to India under very difficult conditions and with very little help from the colonial rulers who had encouraged their immigration to Burma in various capacities. Indians had faced riots in the 1930s and they feared the worst. Those who survived the difficult trek home (1 to 1.5 lakh) were able to resettle themselves fairly well in their home country.

The Partition of India in 1947 was marked by very large refugee outflows and inflows accomplished by horrific violence to give birth to the two new nation states of India and Pakistan–a religion-based division of the subcontinent. In terms of the numbers and savagery involved, it was a cataclysmic event. Its ramifications are being felt till date and refugees continue to cross the borders created at that time and after the secession of East Pakistan (Bangladesh) from West Pakistan in 1971.

After the incorporation of East Turkestan as the Uyghur Autonomous Region by Communist China about 1000 Uighurs who had come in 1949 to India, were allowed to stay only for a few years. In 1954, under Chinese governmental pressure, they were made to leave for other countries. There is still a small number of Uighurs living in Kashmir and Ladakh (in Srinagar, Leh, and Kargil). They are the descendants of Silk route traders who were in this region at the time of Chinese communist occupation. Deciding to remain here they married locally and settled down in this country.

In 1959, the Dalai Lama fled Tibet along with many Tibetans, many of them belonging to the feudal elite, after Chinese communist occupation of Tibet. Among the refugees from Tibet are Tibetan Muslims from Lhasa who were allowed to leave by the Chinese government, if they wished. After diplomatic negotiations with the Indian government they resettled in Kashmir because they are originally traders from Kashmir, who had settled in Lhasa centuries back, married local women and had formed a distinct community there.

Tribal communities of Buddhist Chakmas and Hindu Hajongs from the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of then East Pakistan came as development refugees to India in the 1960s. The building of the Kaptai Dam on the Karnaphuli River by the Pakistan government with the help of USAID and World Bank had displaced them and they also suffered from communal animosity. Against their will the CHT had been included in Pakistan. They were settled in the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA), present day Arunachal Pradesh, and parts of Assam and Tripura, by the GOI. During and after the formation of Bangladesh, some of them cooperated with the West Pakistan government in fighting against the national liberation struggle of the East Bengalis, despite overtures from Mujibur Rahman, because of the fear of domination by the majority community. After the formation of Bangladesh they resisted their inclusion and subordinate status in the country and demanded self-determination rights. The resultant conflict situation and the settling of Bengalis in their habitation areas have added to the refugee outflow. After the overthrow of the Sheikh Hasina government in 2024 there has been some refugee outflow of mainly Hindus from Bangladesh into India.

Between 1962-64 more than 3 lakh Indians and 2 lakh Nepalis were forced out of Myanmar by the General Ne Win regime. Their property and businesses were nationalised and wealth confiscated. Some people of Indian and Nepali origin including Gurkhas still live in Burma and are integrated into Burmese society. Various minority ethnic groups from Myanmar have been migrating to India due to clashes with the military government since the 1970s, and it is continuing. These are mainly Chins, but also include Karens and Kachins. They live mainly in Mizoram and to a lesser extent in Manipur, Assam, and New Delhi. The Rohingya refugees being rendered into a stateless people having been denied Burmese citizenship form a special case among them.

Some of the Ugandan Indians who were ousted by Idi Amin in 1972 came back to India as refugees. Many of them settled in the UK and Canada, some went to Kenya and others to Pakistan and elsewhere. Afghans started coming in as refugees from the time of Russian occupation in 1979 as part of The Great Game between imperialist powers, and their influx continues. These include Hindu and Sikh Afghans. 60,000 Afghans came to India during the decade 1979-89. They are one of the big refugee groups of the world. Thousands of Afghan refugees and asylum seekers in the country do not have any legal status.

A few lakh (3,04,269) Sri Lankan Tamils entered India during the various Eelam Wars starting in the early 1980s, a fairly good number of whom were repatriated after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in 1991. Nepalis from Bhutan had to leave the country due to its “one nation, one people” policy introduced in the late 1980s. By the end of 1992 more than one lakh had fled or been forced out of this Himalayan country. They settled in North-East India, in Darjeeling in North West Bengal, in Sikkim and Assam, though most went back to Nepal. During the decade-long Maoist people’s war in Nepal from 1996-2006 displaced Nepalis came to live in India.

Small groups (few hundreds, sometimes less than a hundred) of Iranians (among them Christian converts from Islam), Iraqis, Palestinians, Syrians, Somalis, Sudanese, Congolese, Eritreans and Ethiopians are here escaping from the problems in their home countries due to ethnicity- and/or religion-based clashes, and issues of political control. There are some Balochs who have come to India because of their struggle against the exploitation by the Pakistani state.

Internal Refugees
There are a large number of development refugees, many of them Adivasis, who have been forcibly displaced due to developmental activity like dams, SEZs, infrastructure building, etc. Then there is large-scale rural to urban migration; but post the first nationwide sudden lockdown of about two months in 2020 due to Covid-19 there was a forced reverse flow, in the course of which they suffered great deprivations and many died. There are others who flee from life-threatening situations created by natural disasters (floods, tsunamis, cyclones, landslides, earthquakes). The ramifications intensify due to unscientific development policies and climate change. Coastal erosion in the Sundarbans Delta, Majuli Island in Assam, and coastal Odisha has led to displacement.

Communal violence is another cause for displacement. This includes the Kashmiri Pandits/Brahmins, who were forced to leave the Valley in the 1990s (350,000 according to some estimates, with 1 lakh living in Delhi and the rest in Jammu). Many Sikhs left Delhi (at least temporarily) after the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. The pogrom in Gujarat in 2002 led to displacement and ghettoisation of 100,000 Muslims there; clashes between Jat and Muslim communities in Muzaffarnagar district in UP left more than 50,000 Muslims displaced in 2013; the Bhagalpur riots in 1989 in Bihar had also displaced many Muslims. It is a continuing phenomenon where the ‘nation’ is turning against its own people, not to speak of outsiders. Muslims, who no less belong here, are being threatened with genocide and are in great danger. Christians too are increasingly under attack.

The North-East is a major arena of displacement of various ethnic groups due to multiple reasons. Here are of them here: The Assam movement against ‘foreigners’–Bengali Muslims and Hindus, people from Bihar and UP–led to and is continuing to lead to forcible displacement of some of these people. Nagas from Imphal Valley in Manipur have been forced to flee to the State of Nagaland. Insurgency and counter- insurgency operations by security forces in the North-East also create displacement: for example, Hmar and Paite ethnic groups have been displaced in Manipur from areas bordering Myanmar, and have had to live under deplorable conditions.

The Bodo and Santhal conflict in Assam led to displacement of the latter as well as those who had come and settled from other States like Bihar and UP. 250,000 people had to live in refugee camps. They became landless and destitute because the government stopped aid after some time. Nepalis have been ousted from North-Eastern States. They have had to leave Assam, Manipur (1980) and Meghalaya (1987). Most resettled in the Nepal Terai; some in North Bengal. Intra and inter group clashes among the 30-40 rebel groups in the North East are there. This also leads to displacements. Internally displaced Chakmas from Mizoram live in camps in Tripura due to their conflict with Mizos. 31,000 Bru (Reang) were displaced from Mizoram after fleeing ethnic fighting with Mizos in 1997 and live in camps in northern Tripura. There are about 50,000 internally displaced people in Manipur due to the inter-ethnic conflict between the Meiti and Kuki communities.

People along the border with Bangladesh–70,000 in Tripura alone without compensation from the central government and along the LOC with Pakistan have been displaced. Villagers in border areas in J&K and Punjab are often disturbed by cross-border firings. Displacement and rehabilitation also takes place because the fields are mined and become toxic, infertile and useless for agriculture. During the 1999 Kargil War 1.57 lakh people were temporarily displaced from the border belt. Naxalite insurgency and state counter-insurgency in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Odisha has also led to many villagers getting displaced and living in camps.

There are also asylum seekers and refugees from India: Khalistanis, Kashmiri militants, militants belonging to various ethnic groups in the North-East have since long sought shelter across the border, in neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, or even in the US, Canada or UK. People left out in the course of the NRC exercise in Assam, many of who are in detention camps, become stateless and can add to the number of refugees and asylum seekers.

Concluding Remarks
The India government, while not acceding to international conventions on this issue, has also not passed any national refugee law uniformly applicable to all refugees or stateless persons, which would properly document them and ensure their access to basic necessities, their right to education and work, freedom of association and other basic human rights, like freedom of movement. Neither does it have a national policy for the internally displaced peoples. The discriminatory Citizenship (amendment) Act of 2019 needs a review. Considering the number and variety of refugees and now deportees in the subcontinent and their steady exponential growth worldwide India needs more Migration and Refugee Studies Centres at universities offering academic progra-mmes on this topic and solutions to the issues involved.

Having a South Asian, rather than a narrow, chauvinistic or communal ‘national’ perspective on this issue is important. Without giving priority to our South Asian identity we will not be able to resolve the refugee problem that is an outcome of our collective skewed approach to political, economic and social issues on the subcontinent and an inherited colonial legacy. Prior to the establishment of the British colonial Empire in this region we did not seem to have any notion of “foreigner.” The region was characterised by pluralism and diversity, a basic spirit of adjustment and accommodation. Foreigners, outsiders, have been made welcome and given a space; examples abound in this regard. The spirit is that of Atithi Devo Bhava, of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world is one family). Swami Vivekanand in his address at the First Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1893 had extolled this country for sheltering the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. The motto of the Rabindranath Thakur founded university, Visva-Bharati, is “Where the world meets in one nest,” eschewing national chauvinism and narrow patriotism of any hue in favour of internationalism while rejecting imperialism, domination of and by others.

New economic theories and models away from the perpetual economic growth model have been and are being proposed by various thinkers, such as the Economy of Permanence by the late Gandhian ecological economist, Dr J C Kumarappa. These are the economics of austerity, degrowth model, post-development theory, economics of ecosystems and biodiversity, steady state economics, open system economics, economics of happiness, and well-being, transition economics and so on, which need to be further explored, discussed, debated and experimented with in right earnest against the current predatory and rapacious world economic system ruinous to planet earth. Electoral autocracies, fascist and military dictatorships that sustain the world imperialist order have to be discarded. Only in this way can people overcome the current conflicts arising from considering as ‘trespassers,’ ‘infiltrators,’ ‘termites’, ‘criminals’, etc. those people crossing lines drawn on maps, hard borders that have often been artificially imposed along narrowly defined nations/nationalities or by breaking up fluid economically and culturally contiguous areas, and take the road to a democratic borderless world where the mind is without fear.

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Frontier Autumn Number
Vol 58, No. 14 - 17, Sep 28 - Oct 25, 2025