Evaluate India’s stand on the recent Rohingya refugee issue. (2018, 10 Marks)
The Rohingya, a Muslim community of Myanmar’s Rakhine State, were rendered stateless by the 1982 Citizenship Law: in Hannah Arendt’s terms, people stripped of the “right to have rights”. The military’s operations after the ARSA attacks of August 2017 drove over 700,000 into Bangladesh, which hosted 1,204,500 by August 2026 on UNHCR’s count. India’s stand has three strands that pull in different directions.
The three strands
- Diplomatic: India treated Rakhine as Myanmar’s internal matter, condemned the ARSA attacks and dissociated itself from the 2017 Bali Declaration because it named violence in Rakhine. It framed the crisis as underdevelopment and funded the Rakhine State Development Programme to house returnees.
- Domestic: earlier arrivals were tolerated, but from August 2017 the Home Ministry told states to identify and deport Rohingya as illegal migrants; seven were deported in October 2018. UNHCR cards are not recognised for the roughly 40,000 in India.
- Humanitarian: Operation Insaniyat (September 2017) sent relief to Bangladesh, easing the host’s burden while discouraging onward flows to India.
The case for the stand
- Realist interest: Myanmar’s cooperation matters for North-East counter-insurgency, the Kaladan project through Sittwe, energy ties, and keeping Naypyidaw from drifting fully to China.
- Precedent: India is not party to the 1951 Convention; a formal designation could be irreversible and invite larger flows.
- Law: in Mohammad Salimullah v Union of India (2021) the Supreme Court allowed deportation by due procedure, as Article 19(1)(e) protects only citizens. In July 2025 it agreed to decide whether Rohingya can claim refugee status at all.
The case against it
- Selectivity: Tibetans and Sri Lankan Tamils received durable protection; the Rohingya did not, and the CAA excludes them, inviting the charge that protection tracks religion.
- Unproven security claim: asserted in court, never demonstrated, against tiny numbers. Securitising a repressed people may itself breed the radicalisation feared.
- Non-refoulement, widely seen as customary law, sits uneasily with returns to a state that denies citizenship.
- Diminishing returns: the Arakan Army now holds most of northern Rakhine, so the junta India courted cannot deliver return; Delhi has itself opened contacts with the Arakan Army. Accountability has moved to the ICJ, which heard the merits of The Gambia v. Myanmar in January 2026.
Conclusion
India’s stand is coherent as realism but weak as policy. Quiet diplomacy and aid to Bangladesh were sound, but without a refugee framework a security reflex filled the space. A status-determination law and support for safe, voluntary return would serve both India’s interests and its claim to be the region’s first responder.