A few weeks back, a young Burmese refugee was criminally assaulted in Delhi. The Police didn't know how to begin the investigation as the woman could not speak English or Hindi and no interpreter could be found. It was not an isolated case of a person straying into the capital after running away from Burma. She is part of a nearly 10,000-strong community in Delhi, struggling for a better future after having escaped atrocities back in Myanmar. A language barrier and little help from any quarter means life has not exactly improved in the new country. Some even end up working as rag pickers. Since India is not a party to the International Refugee Convention, however, there is no obligation on the government to help them find livelihood.
Some, like Sawmte, are slightly better off. The 29-year-old can speak a little English. The Myanmarese refugee shares a one room rented barsaati with her younger sister in Sitapuri, a regularised colony in West Delhi's Janakpuri. Three years ago she fled her homeland. “The struggle to live life everyday is so daunting that we have no time to mourn our loss. The Army was closing in on us because we belong to a minority community; my parents were scared that we would be harmed, so they forced us to flee while they stayed back. I don't know how they are doing, I have no contact with them,” says Sawmte. The sisters followed the route most Christians from Chin, Kachin, Arakan and Burman tribes take to escape Army atrocities in Myanmar. They ended up in Mizoram. Searching for a better life, they travelled to Delhi to merge with the rest of Burmese refugees, living mostly in Sitapuri and Bodela areas of West Delhi. But local culture and language, says Sawmte, soon posed a huge setback to their hopes. “Though there was no future for us in Mizoram, it was better from the language point of view as we have common words but in Delhi, lack of Hindi and English has posed a big problem in finding jobs,” says Siami, Sawmte's friend and a fellow member of Burmese Women Delhi (BWD), an organisation set up by the Chin community for the welfare of their women.
Sitapuri is full of small workshops which cut glass, weld iron gates and doors but because these refugees don't know Hindi, they don't get jobs. “They mostly end up picking garbage,” says Ramesh Kumar, a local shopkeeper. “They are very poor and many go to the sabzi mandi to collect discarded vegetables to eat. They don't trouble us, they are a shy community.”
Though most of them speak Burmese, each community has its own dialect, so a Matu can't understand a Kachin's dialect and in many cases, a Matu needs a translator to speak Burmese. This makes the situation even more complex. “I feel English is the answer. Our organisation wants to start an English language course but can't do it because of lack of funds, so we conduct programmes like awareness trainings on violence against women among the Burmese refugee community,” says Rosian of BWD.
Helpful courses
Off and on, the Women Rights and Welfare Association of Burma, founded in Delhi in 1995, runs training courses in English and Hindi for refugee women. That clearly is not enough, considering the sizeable number of Burmese refugees here. So people like Sawmte have decided to help themselves. She has learnt English by hiring a private teacher. “I want to join the National Open School but for that I need to know English,” she says. Her knowledge of English has helped her find a job with the BWD. Siami has also been employed by the YMCA recently. But they are the lucky ones.
A typical example of joblessness due to the language barrier despite having skills is that of middle-aged Vansui. This astute weaver lives in one of the row rooms occupied by refugees on the top floor of a building in Sitapuri with a common kitchen and a toilet. When we visit her, she is at her makeshift loom, weaving a traditional shawl of her Matu community.
Hers is one of those fortunate families that UNHCR gives a subsistence allowance of Rs. 4,300 per month. What qualifies them is that Vansui's husband is ailing. She shows a woven coat, a tie to go with it, a traditional shawl and a sling bag to prove her talent. “In the last two years that I have been in Delhi, I have made 50 traditional dresses, all bought by the community for Rs. 3,000 each. Since the refugees are left with very little, they couldn't bring their traditional dresses with them, so they save money to buy one to keep their tradition alive,” says Vansui. She has tried selling her shawls to the locals but they find it too expensive. “Sometimes they strike it rich, when they get an annual order from fellow refugees living in Australia and New Zealand,” says Siami, who also works for the Centre for Chin Women Organisation.
Promising initiative
What might change Vansui's life is BWD's recent collaboration with an initiative by a clutch of IIT Delhi students. As part of the global initiative SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise), the students are working with the refugee women to devise an income generating model. “We are trying to find a local market for their craft. Dastkaar is coming forward to help us. Hopefully, they will be a part of their Nature Bazaar next year,” says Abhisekh Jain, SIFE-IIT Delhi president. Their traditional colours are red and black but Dasktaar is working out what colours and motifs would find buyers, says Arpit Khandelwal, one of the 23 members of the initiative.
Vansui admits that she is luckier than those living in the Northeast as the UNHCR allowance does not reach them there, one of the reasons why about 600 Burmese refugees find their way to Delhi every month (A 2009 UNHCR estimate).
Ravi Nair from the South Asian Human Rights Documentation Centre, a Delhi-based NGO working for better long-term legislation for the rehabilitation of refugees, is of the view that the more important action that the Government should take is to enact domestic refugee legislation. “Under the Refugee Convention, signatories agree to fulfil certain obligations to aid refugees in either temporarily or permanently re-establishing themselves in new countries. They allow refugees to work, provide them with travel documents, and allow them freedom of movement within the country. By implementing domestic refugee legislation, India can provide all of these rights to refugees even without signing the Convention,” says Nair. “Because of the lack of domestic legislation for refugees in India, UNHCR is unable to legally aid those in the Northeast.”
While the government may be lacking in will, activist Madhu Kishwar and editor of the women's magazine Manushi, gives full credit to society for not being phobic about refugees. “However, it is the State that is neither here nor there. It let down the Burmese movement by inviting the Army leader to India,” she says.
“It is time we understood that we need friendship with Burmese people, they are our neighbours. Our media shuns them because they don't have Hollywood actors to mouth their cause. One day the Army rule will go, what then?” asks Kishwar. Clearly, freedom is no amnesia.
