Persecuted minorities of Pak, Bangladesh

Smruti S Pattanaik
Research Fellow, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses

ONE of the BJP’s electoral promises was to provide citizenship to the minority Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. After coming to power, it introduced the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, in the Lok Sabha; it was finally passed on January 8 this year. Many perceive this as an electoral stunt. However, within the BJP, this issue has been discussed several times. This Bill has opened up a larger debate on who should be a citizen and what should be the basis of granting citizenship. Assam, which in the past witnessed agitation against foreigners, and a political settlement was reached only in 1985 by the signing of the Assam Accord, is on the boil over the issue. The state is already witnessing problems in registering citizens under the National Register of Citizens. Many were excluded from the list when the first draft was completed on December 31, 2017, as they failed to provide valid documents. The citizenship Bill is only adding to the growing tension. 

Assam sees this as a ploy to settle ‘illegal immigrants’ from Bangladesh. Tension between Assamese and Bengali settlers is not new. Many Assamese perceive that they have become minorities in their own homeland and this is an attempt to undermine their culture and make their identity subservient. Assam also has historically witnessed colonialism of a different kind when the British encouraged people from neighbouring areas to settle and work in the tea plantations. The Asom Gana Parishad, which was a coalition partner of the ruling BJP in the state and had spearheaded the Assam agitation, has withdrawn its support to the government. Except for Meghalaya, there is not much reaction from other states, perhaps due to the fact that many of these may not be affected by the resettlement of refugees. The All Assam Students Union and Assamese intellectuals as well as activists have registered their protest against the Bill. Other political parties have opposed the idea of giving citizenship on the basis of religion. This Bill raises complex questions on policy implications. Recently, the government repatriated Rohingya refugees staying in India to Myanmar despite the fact that they face persecution in that country and even though India is providing aid to the community in Bangladesh.

Minorities are indeed persecuted and many of them migrated to India and sought refuge here. Though India and other South Asian countries are not signatories to the refugee convention, India has sheltered Tibetan, Tamil, Afghan, Burmese and Rohingya refugees who faced persecution in their own country. India also provided shelter to 10 million refugees from East Pakistan in 1971. Except for the refugees from East Pakistan, most of them have stayed back in India. However, due to religious persecution and discrimination, many of the religious minorities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh have sought refuge in India. If one looks at the minority Hindu population in the neighbouring countries, their numbers have reduced significantly in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Minorities constitute 3 per cent of Pakistan’s population, whereas in Bangladesh they account for 8.5 per cent. This is in sharp contrast to 23 per cent minorities that Pakistan had boasted of during Partition. For long, anti-foreigner agitation has rocked Northeastern states. Some of these states also have an inner line permit that all Indian citizens must have to enter these states. The complexity of the ‘outsider’ and ‘son of the soil’ debate has been a constant part of the political discourse. In the past, Arunachal Pradesh witnessed agitation against the Supreme Court’s decision of 2015 to settle Chakma and Hajong refugees in the state who had been living ‘stateless’ for 50 years.

It is important to refer to the Nehru-Liaquat Ali Khan agreement of 1950 on the protection of minorities. The agreement reads, “The Governments of India and Pakistan solemnly agree that each shall ensure, to the minorities throughout its territory, complete equality of citizenship, irrespective of religion, a full sense of security in respect of life, culture, property and personal honour, freedom of movement within each country and freedom of occupation, speech and worship, subject to law and morality.” In spite of this assurance, the minority Hindus in Pakistan were subjected to forced conversion, while female members were abducted and married off to Muslims. Christians were often victims of the draconian blasphemy law, killed on the basis of allegations. Minority Hindus were singled out for discrimination and their property was grabbed by members of the majority community in collusion with the authorities. This was one of the major causes of Hindu migration from East Pakistan (and later Bangladesh). It is true that many of the Hindu refugees from Pakistan face major problems in their day-to-day life in India as they are not citizens despite spending several years in the country. Some fear repatriation as they need to frequently extend their ‘long visa’. Without citizenship, they find it difficult to send their children for higher education and find employment. The same is also the case with the vast number of Tamil refugees staying in India. 

While it is important that the government has to take a decision on the future of these large number of refugees, especially wherever repatriation is not possible, it is equally important to ensure that its decision to provide citizenship on humanitarian grounds has to include all persecuted minority communities irrespective of the religious identity. Moreover, the decision to provide citizenship needs to be debated further. Northeastern states have a complex demography which has led to violent ethnic clashes. It is a sensitive region with undercurrents of ethnic tension. The government needs to think through the settlement policy. Without taking a decision on how and where to settle these refugees and calculating the economic cost and its impact on society, conferring citizenship would not be an adequate policy measure for accommodating persecuted minorities. It cannot be an election-time sop; it has to be part of a long-term policy on how to tackle the larger humanitarian crisis.