Relevance: GS-2: Effect of policies and politics of India and developing countries on India’s interests.

Key phrases: Private Member’s Bill, Refugee and Asylum law, Principle of Non-Refoulement, Foreigners Act, 1946, Supreme Court of India ruling 1996, 1951 UN Refugee Convention, 1967 Protocol.

Why in News?

• On refugee issues, it ought to be among the most admired nations and not one that has much to be ashamed of - as now.

Context:

• The Government of India has expelled to Myanmar two batches of Rohingya refugees in the face of a grave risk of persecution in the country they had fled.
• In wake of this, this month Shashi Tharoor introduced a Private Member’s Bill in the Lok Sabha proposing the enactment of a Refugee and Asylum law.
• The Bill lays down comprehensive criteria for recognising asylum seekers and refugees and prescribes specific rights and duties accruing from such status.
• It was made necessary by our government’s continuing disrespect for the international legal principle of non-refoulement - the cornerstone of refugee law, which states that no country should send a person to a place where he or she may face persecution - and even more, its betrayal of India’s millennial traditions of asylum and hospitality to strangers.

About Bill:

• This Bill would put an end to such arbitrary conduct by the authorities. The right to seek asylum in India would be available to all foreigners irrespective of their nationality, race, religion, or ethnicity, and a National Commission for Asylum would be constituted to receive and decide all such applications. The principle of non-refoulement is clearly affirmed, with no exceptions, though reasons have been specified for exclusion, expulsion, and revocation of refugee status, to respect the Government’s sovereign authority but limit its discretion.
• This Bill, if enacted, will instead put India at the forefront of asylum management in the world. It will finally recognise India’s long-standing and continuing commitment to humanitarian and democratic values while dealing with refugees.

Refugee policy in India:

• In the absence of a uniform and comprehensive law to deal with asylum seekers, India lack a clear vision or policy on refugee management.
• India have a cocktail of laws such as the Foreigners Act, 1946, the Registration of Foreigners Act, 1939, the Passports Act (1967), the Extradition Act, 1962, the Citizenship Act, 1955 (including its controversial 2019 amendment) and the Foreigners Order, 1948 — all of which club all foreign individuals together as “aliens”. Because India has neither subscribed to international conventions on the topic nor set up a domestic legislative framework to deal with refugees, their problems are dealt with in an ad hoc manner, and like other foreigners they always face the possibility of being deported.
• When we speak of refugee protection, we often limit ourselves to just providing asylum. We need a proper framework to make sure that refugees can access basic public services, be able to legally seek jobs and livelihood opportunities for some source of income. The absence of such a framework will make the refugees vulnerable to exploitation, especially human trafficking.
• In 2011 when India came out with a Standard Operating Procedure to provide Long Term Visas to asylum seekers, I had pointed out that in the absence of a law, the application of these notifications can be easily tampered with based on political and extraneous reasons. Our officials want the freedom to do as they please — for political or other reasons — without being confined by the limits of a law.

India role as Vishwaguru:

• We should build on the Supreme Court’s vision and pass this Bill, or something very like it. We should be among the most admired nations in the world, not one that, on refugee issues, has much to be ashamed of now.
• The problems of refugees worldwide are problems that demand global solidarity and international cooperation.
• India, as a pillar of the world community, as a significant pole in the emerging multipolar world, must play its own part, on its own soil as well as on the global stage, in this noble task.
• In so doing, we would uphold our own finest traditions and the highest standards of our democracy, as well as demonstrate once again that we are what we have long claimed to be: a good international citizen in an ever-closer knit and globalising world.
• This is a worthwhile aspiration for all of us who care about what India stands for, at home and in the world. If India wants to be a Vishwaguru, it should behave like one.

Way Forward:

• Given this history, India ought to be a natural leader on the question of refugee rights on the world stage. However, our present actions and our lack of a legal framework does our heritage no credit, shames us in the eyes of the world, and fails to match up to our actual past track record.
• India has been, and continues to be, a generous host to several persecuted communities, doing more than many countries, but is neither a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, nor does it have a domestic asylum framework.
• Our judiciary has already shown the way forward on this: in 1996, the Supreme Court of India ruled that the state has to protect all human beings living in India, irrespective of nationality, since they enjoy the rights guaranteed by Articles 14, 20 and 21 of the Constitution to all, not just Indian citizens.
• It troubles us that a country with proud traditions and noble practices remains legally neither committed nor obliged to do anything for refugees, even if we behave humanely in practice. We think it is high time the Government reviewed its long-standing reluctance to sign up legally to what we have already been doing morally.

Source: The Hindu  

Mains Question:

Q. “If India wants to be a Vishwaguru, India needs a refugee and asylum law” Critically analyse.