Tales of torture unlimited

Another World Refugee Day on June 20 was met with familiar indifference.Well, here is another sordid tale of Rohingya refugees in India, which shelters around 11,000 of them who have fled from Myanmar. The figure is from the UNHCR. They live mostly in Jammu, Delhi, Hyderabad and across Mizoram. Around 200 of them live in a makeshift camp in Madanapur Kahdar locality of Delhi Each family there has lost at least one person during anti-Muslim riots in Rakhine, western Myanmar.

The camp, which is run by the Zakat Foundation India is squalid. Houses are propped up with bamboo and covered by tarpaulin sheets. The thatched roofs are paper-weighted by big boulders. During the rains, the refugees bucketed out water from the narrow passages of the camp.

Abandoned people

This stateless minority – since they are not recognised in the land of Aung Saan Suu Kyi – has been exploited not only in Myanmar but also in Bangladesh which has recently said that it could not accommodate more people.

Abdul, 28, has been living in India for 28 years but has no citizenship. He does not have a birth certificate because he was born in an Indian jungle when his parents crossed over to India. “Nobody owns us,” he says on his stateless status. “We are born to tolerate everything silently,” he adds.

“In India we are at least safe and can practice our religion,” he adds.

The camp also houses around 10 destitute widows who are ragpickers. Samjida Begum, 20, lost her husband last year. She came to India illegally crossing the Indo-Bangladesh border. She is a ragpicker now, earning Rs 60-70 a day. She wants to educate her baby and bring her up in a peaceful environment. Most of the refugees work either as daily-wage labourers, rickshaw pullers, factory workers, or vegetable hawkers.

Equal treatment

Out of 50 families around 40 have so far received temporary refugee cards from the UNHCR which provides a subsistence allowance of Rs 1000 to each employed family. However, this allowance has not touched destitutes like Samjida Begum, and the handicapped.

But the UNHCR, which has the mandate over 24,000 refugees of various nationalities in India, says it is not discriminating against anyone. Replying by email to questions, a representative said that the Rohingyas were being treated at par with refugees of other countries. People in the camp call themselves refugees rather than migrants because they fled to India not on their own volition but due to anti-Muslim violence in Arakan state. They feared persecution and torture. Moreover their property had been appropriated by the government and hooligans.

“We had enough to eat and lived happily in our village, but Buddhists looted everything. We were intimidated,” Mohammad Haroon laments.

Meek criticism

On their expectations from the UNHCR and the Government of India, they contend that it has been satisfactory. They meekly criticise the Indian government and are appalled by its indifference. “For the past one-and-a-half years, nobody from the government has visited us,” says Mohammad Haroon.

However the UNHCR hails India in some regards. It says, “Overall, India offers safe asylum to refugees and asylum seekers. Despite the absence of a national legal framework for refugees, India has traditionally been hospitable towards refugees.”

The Zakat Foundation says that this land had been granted for an orphanage. “After securing procedural documents, we will start building the orphanage. It might take around two months,” says the foundation’s secretary, Mumtaz Nazmi. Nobody knows what is in store for the Rohingyas once work on the orphanage begins.

(Shivnarayan recently passed out from the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai.)

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