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Book Review
The displaced people
THE ELSEWHERE PEOPLE — Crossborder Migration, Refugee Protection, and State Response: Omprakash Mishra and Anindyo Majumdar; Lancer's Books, P.O. Box No. 4236, New Delhi-110048.
Rs. 580.
IN 1971, INDIA opened its borders to those fleeing genocide in East Pakistan. Six to eight million refugees were cared for so well that even during the monsoon no epidemics occurred.
The rest, as these 16 papers show, is highly varied. To start with, no South Asian state has signed any U.N. convention on refugees, in India's case because the conventions lay no obligations on countries of origin or the international community as a whole. The result is incoherence.
Indian public sympathy for two-lakh Sri Lankan refugees in the 1980s was soured by the LTTE militants and then exploited by successive Tamil Nadu Governments.
In India's North-East, the colonial importation of Bengali labour as well as ad hoc definitions of refugees has caused problems.
Some 50000 Chakmas and Hajongs from Bangladesh were voluntarily repatriated in 1998 but found that during their absence Bangladeshi plainspeople had been encouraged to appropriate their vacant lands in resettlement from the Kaptai dam area.
Among other arrivals, Gorkhas were classed as illegal migrants but Tibetans as refugees. Ethnic cleansing has started; the BJP calls Hindu arrivals refugees and Muslims illegal migrants.
The Union and the Mizoram Governments have been indifferent to Burmese refugees, and the Burmese junta has targeted Muslim but not Buddhist Rohingyas; the former have fled to Bangladesh.
In Bangladesh, 2.38-lakh "stranded Pakistanis" remain in camps denied even a nationality for fear of litigation over property. Yet Bangladeshi collaborators got citizenship in 1973.
India too, has exacerbated Nepal-Bhutanese tensions by allowing Bhutanese of Nepali origin through India to Nepal but refusing them re-entry into Bhutan while professing non-interference.
Going westwards, we find great generosity on the part of Afghanistan's neighbours. Pakistan still has two million refugees and Iran 1.9 million.
The documented U.S. involvement in installing the Taliban could have been mentioned, but the price paid by Afghanistan's neighbours is clear enough.
Some governments will not pay. Hong Kong's initial receptivity to Vietnamese refugees gave way to hostility as the influx brought intra-Vietnamese tensions; the U.K.'s attitude did not help.
Malaysia and Indonesia too, were hostile to the refugees, whose exodus was the result of botched decolonisation, ethnic tensions in Vietnam, and superpower rivalry.
Ultimately Vietnam itself curbed illegal emigration. The worst case is Africa, with 12 million displaced people. The world has done almost nothing.
By the time a weakly-mandated, under-equipped U.N. force arrived in the mid-1990s (the U.S. had blocked tough action earlier), the Rwandan genocide had happened; since then, international indecision and the racist refusal to take African refugees have made the camps a terrifying mélange of innocent people and vicious militias engaged in casual slaughter, often encouraged by the region's governments.
Inevitably, command over Africa's colossal resources — mostly controlled from outside — is a significant cause.
The arms industry too, is making billions. Power relations rather than production relations explain why African elites sought power through institutions rather than via economic activity; this was probably a consequence of the colonial imposition of state borders on existing jural communities.
To excellent detail, with strong explanations, the authors add compassion for the refugees and justified anger at governments' conduct.
In the absence of international political will, millions will continue to flee two of the four horsemen, namely war and famine. Tomorrow, it could be your turn and mine.
ARVIND SIVARAMAKRISHNAN
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