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REFUGEES AND REGIONAL SECURITY IN
SOUTH ASIA
- Muni and Baral
Konark Publishers Pvt Ltd, A-149,
Main Vikas Marg,
New Delhi. Hard cover, 245 pp, 1996, Indian Rupees 275.
Despite, the noise and hype of
the 'invasion' of developed countries by waves of refugees and economic migrants
from the third world leading to an obsession among governments to develop
mechanisms to permanently shut the door, of say "fortress Europe", on
those seeking asylum, the truth is that the bulk of people compelled to
involuntarily leave their homes remain in their own region. Thus, while studies
on a global scale of the effect of the movement of large numbers of people has
its own uses, focussing on this issue on a regional basis is likely to be more
practical and worth while. The Regional Centre for Strategic Studies (RCSS),
Colombo, Sri Lanka, recognized this truth, especially in view of the fact that
"very little attempt has so far been made to relate refugee flows with
security concerns in general, and in the context of South Asia in particular,
" and approved a Seminar Project, 'Refugees and Regional Security in
South Asia'. The result is a book by the same name edited by S.D.Muni,
Professor of Asian Studies in the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal
Nehru University, Now Delhi, and Lok Raj Baral, Professor of Political Science
at Tribhuwan University, Kathmandu. (Prof Baral has since moved to New Delhi
having been appointed Nepal's ambassador to India; he is also accredited to
Bhutan.) the volume is a compilation of papers presented in a seminar at the
RCSS in Colombo, Sri-Lanka, presumably sometime during 1994 - unfortunately, the
dates are not indicated anywhere m book.
In their introductory chapter,
the editors note that at the end of 1993, South Asia with 2.14 million refugees,
ranked fourth in concentration among regions of the world. In the recent past,
however, South Asia was forced to cope, with the displacement of far larger
numbers: 20 million between India and Pakistan during 1947-50 following
partition; 10 rnillion from East Pakistan to India during 1970-71 prior
to the birth of Bangladesh; and 3..5 million Afghans to Pakistan during the
eighties following Soviet intervention.
Most South Asian countries have
generated as well as received refugees. In the context of South Asia, the three
main refugee generating factors are/were: a) breakdown of colonial
rule (India/Pakistan - 20 million resettled. and rehabilitated, Burma -
150,000 Indians repatriated, Sri Lanka - 338,000 Indians resettled till 1987);
b) nation-building processes (East Pakistan/ Bangladesh - 10 million in
India most of whom subsequently returned, and more than 300,000 'Bihari Muslims'
still stranded in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka - 295,000 Tamils in India and outside
the region, Bangladesh - 1.8 million Hindus and 50,000 Chakmas to India, Bhutan
- more than 100,000 southern Bhutanese to Nepal and India); and c) extra-regional
refugee flows (Tibet - 133,000 in India. Nepal and Bhutan, Afghanistan - 1.5
million in Pakistan, Burma - 200,000 Muslim Rohingyas in Bangladesh).
Addressing the issue of forced
migration in global perspective, Nicholas Van Hear [Refugee Studies Programme,
University of Oxford] argues that although many of the conflicts resulting in
refugee flows, new and long-running, are taking on ethnic dimension, it is not
clear that ethnicity is at the root of these upheavals. A more fruitful line of
inquiry, he believes, may be the investigation of the wider issues of
membership, or how a particular society defines itself, and, most important,
who belongs to it are at the heart of many involuntary mass migrations."
Clear residence, naturalization, and citizenship rules are often lacking and
even long-settled people, confirmed citizens but of alien origin, are often
forced to live in a limbo, "tolerated until there is a crisis." There
may be emerging "a crisis of membership" for such populations and
"it is those who are not full members of the society in which they aside,
or whose membership is some how disputed or thrown into doubt that are targeted
for expulsion, regardless of national citizenship status." Resolution of
this question of membership, balancing the right of the "prior or
established community" with the "territorial and locational
right" of the newcomer, is the key to stemming forced mass exodus that
appears to be increasing alarmingly, VanHear concludes.
Analyzing ethnonationalism in
South Asia, Shelton Kodikara [RCSS, Colombo] undertakes a country by country
analysis and concludes that there are many parallels and commonalities in the
contemporary political experience of different states in the region.
Specifically in Bhutan, Kodikara states that ethnonationalism encompasses a
sense of "sons of the soil" being threatened by immigrants from
outside, fear of the indigenous populace being tendered a minority, sense of
discrimination felt by the Nepalese, a conflict of cultures, and "a stark
geopohtical reality: the consequences of demographic imbalance are threatening
the survival of the state itself." Language figures in all the ethnic
tensions, Kodikara observes, but his assertion that Bhutan adopted English as
the first language and Dzongkha was made the second language only to placate
Nepali-speaking Bhutanese is not true.
The Tibetan refugee problem,
states Dawa Norbu [School of International Studies,, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi] is significant not so much in its numbers, but because
the refugees symbolize the survival of a unique culture and the peaceful
struggle for a just cause. The 'free world' sees aid to Tibetan refugees as
"humanitarian compensation for their State's inability to help the Tibetan
cause." Norbu addresses the motives for the flight of Tibetans, mostly
between 1959 and 1962, rehabilitation and survival strategies, impact on and
tensions with host populations and social changes. He argues that attempts to
blame Tibetan refugees for "creating" security problems, national or
regional, miss the mark because "refugees are basically at the political
mercy of host states, subject to its uses and abuses," he writes, recalling
that Tibetan refugees were made scapegoats in Bhutan following an abortive
external political intrigue in 1974 when Gyalo Thondup, brother of the Dalai
Lama, and an unnamed external power allegedly plotted to assassinate the then
crown prince. He also notes that the CIA funded Khampa guerrillas in Nepal were
quickly disarmed and camps dismantled as soon as Washington achieved detente with
Beijing in the early 1970s.
Shikha Bose [The Times of India,
Calcutta] contends that refugees pose a serious security threat to India and
states that the show magnitude of flow of people into the country itself serves
as an indicator of the dimension and complexity of the problem. Bose claims that
the Government of India allowed, and the Congress Party even encouraged,
large-scale migration from East Pakistan/Bangladesh into the north eastern
states. Except for some 45,000 Chakmas who were recognized as refugees and
settled in Arunachal Pradesh, the rest are illegals although many have acquired
legal status through underhand means. The presence of people with confused
identity undermines India's internal security arrangement, Bose states. She
refers to the various aggressive campaigns in the different states, notably
Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, against 'foreigners', but admits that even accords
reached an unlikely to be implemented.
Refugees played a significant
role in the birth of Bangladesh, according to Imtiaz Ahmed [Department of
International Relations, University of Dhaka]. The large flow of refugees from
erstwhile East Pakistan allowed India to justify its interventionist actions
that enabled it to "control and conclude the liberation of
Bangladesh," by sending in the army, easily achieving a military victory,
redefining its relationship with its arch rival, and emerging as a regional
power.
Lok Raj Baral [Tribhuwan
University, Kathmandu] provides the Nepali perspective of the Bhutanese refugee
problem - the genesis, refugee flows, effect of refugees on local economy and
environment, Nepal-Bhutan dialogue, and Indian indifference. Baral will
undoubtedly be accused of bias, but understandable as this might be (every paper
has naturally tended to reflect the attitude of the respective authors
government/country) it is all the more unfortunate because the bias in this
instance has more to do with style than substance. Baral warns that "Bhutan
cannot remain problem-free by evicting a large number of its own people,"
that failure by Bhutan to address the issue of refugees will allow the problem
to fester, that the matter has moved beyond simple repatriation of refugees to
questions of human rights and democracy, and that failure to resolve the problem
early could give way to guerrilla-type violent activities.
Refugees from Afghanistan have
caused many political problems in Palristan, says Pervaiz Iqbal Cheama [Quaid-i-Azam
University, Islamabad]. Political parties are at loggerheads over the presence
of the Afghans while easy availability of arms has led to increased crime,
violent tribal clashes, and terrorism.
According to Bertram
Bastiampillai [University of Colombo], in the 1980s, along with ordinary Sri
Lankan refugees came Tamil militants who were given shelter and even received
weapons training from Indian security forces. The shift in Indian policy towards
Sri Lankan refugees since the time of Rajiv Gandhi's assassination has hurt the
common refugee, especially since, there is now a greater thrust to complete
repatriation even though the situation on the island is far from normal.
The editors contend that
refugee-generating situations in South Asia, instead of being resolved have
persisted and even intensified over the last few years. Bilateral negotiations
have not always been successful and drastic intervention strategies are seldom
adopted with return of refugees as the only agenda. While SAARC may not seem to
appear as the forum for a regional approach to resolving issues, since many
conflicts involve more than two SAARC countries, it should be possible to look
beyond bilateralism, state the editors. The real answer, however, Muni and Baral
conclude, "lies in working at the national level to resolve such conflicts
or diffuse such situations that produce refugees."
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