New Delhi, India (BBN)-For a country that is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention of 1951 and the 1967 Protocol, which govern refugee protection and rights, India has been, at least on paper, quite welcoming of refugees, as attested by the huge numbers of Tibetan and Sri Lankan refugees.
But being hospitable to refugees also calls for recognition of their rights and a clearly defined path to citizenship or repatriation, as the case may be, reports The Economic Times.
The Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance government is reportedly planning to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955 to fast-track granting citizenship to refugees, mostly Hindus but also Sikhs, Christians and other minorities, who have fled Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, thanks to religious persecution.
But it is easier said than done, given the resistance from locals where refugees live and legal challenges like the Assam Accord, according to which only those foreigners who migrated to Assam till March 24, 1971 will be considered Indian citizens, thereby leaving the fate of thousands of migrants from Bangladesh and Nepal in jeopardy.
Even so, the government's views and actions on the issue have attracted much attention.
In this context, ET Magazine met two Hindu families in Jodhpur who came from Pakistan, and a Sikh family who fled Afghanistan.
While members of only one of the three families have become Indian citizens, all of them have loved ones in Pakistan and Afghanistan who are keen to join them in India.
JASBIR KAUR'S STORY
One has to really strain one's ears to be able to hear Jasbir Kaur unless the conversation happens in a sound-proofed room.
And she is not quick to respond even if the questions are perfunctory, and just before you start repeating the question, wondering if she did not hear you the first time, pat comes the answer.
She is all smiles till we get past the pleasantries to the issue at hand.
Kaur, who does not know how old she is but does not look older than 30, came to Delhi from Lashkar Gah in southern Afghanistan six years ago with her future father-inlaw and got married to Harpal Singh, a private cab driver who had arrived from Afghanistan a few years earlier.
Her father-in-law then went back to Afghanistan and has not been able to come to India since.
Everyone in her family — parents, five sisters and their families, and her brother — is in Lashkar Gah.
Does she have any hope that they will be able to move to India like she did? "I don't think so. They don't have the money," she says as she struggles to not let her emotions get the better of her.
Kaur, who has a daughter, is one of 7,425 Hindu and Sikh refugees and asylum-seekers from Afghanistan in India.
Her separation from her family notwithstanding, she is glad she has more freedom than she did in Afghanistan.
"I couldn't go to school there," she adds before she starts her tailoring classes at the Khalsa Diwan Welfare Society's office in Tilak Nagar in west Delhi.
Khalsa Diwan is an organisation formed to help Sikh refugees from Afghanistan.
Hardit Singh, joint secretary of Khalsa Diwan, says the Afghan Sikhs in Delhi have mostly looked after themselves without any help from non-governmental organisations or the government, except some assistance from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the local Sikh community.
"About 300 families who came from Afghanistan still get their monthly rations from our gurudwara and we sponsor the education of 780 children," adds Singh, who came in 1992 along with thousands of other Sikhs and Hindus from Afghanistan, a result of the civil war between the Mujahideen and the government.
Singh says most Hindus and Sikhs in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, who have been rendered homeless are now living in gurudwaras.
Singh applied for citizenship and got his certificate in 2008, while his wife who applied with him got it only in 2015.
"While there is hope in this government, the process has to be hastened. Those who left Afghanistan for European countries have got citizenship while many in India haven't, though this is our home."
Less than 10 kilometres from the imposing beauty of the Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, is the desolation of Bheel Basti, home to about 250 families, most of them belonging to the Bheel tribe and some from the Meghwal community, who have fled Pakistan.
A month ago, the city's municipal corporation reduced the homes here to rubble, as they were built illegally on the corporation's land.
Heavy rains in the past have only added to the misery of the inhabitants.
Gomandlal Bheel considers himself lucky; his home was spared in the demolition drive. But there is not much else he can look forward to.
"No Hindu who has come from Pakistan wants to go back, but the government's actions make us want to go back. Some people think they might as well go back."
Thirty-eight-year-old Bheel came to Jodhpur in 1997 on a visit visa from Rahim Yar Khan in the Punjab province of Pakistan with his father, mother, wife, brother and five cousins.
His sister Marvi and uncle Harijiram are still there.
"We came here because Hindus were under attack in Pakistan after the Babri Masjid demolition here (in 1992) and many temples were destroyed."
He says the visa process for those wishing to come to India has become more cumbersome, as a result of which thousands of refugees in India may never get to see their relatives in Pakistan.
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