U.S. Committee for Refugees World Refugee Survey 2000 - India

At the end of 1999, more than 292,000 refugees were living in India, including 110,000 from Tibet (China), 110,000 from Sri Lanka, 42,000 from Burma, 15,000 from Bhutan, 14,500 from Afghanistan, and more than 400 from other countries. Sixty Afghans repatriated from India in 1999.

Some 507,000 people were internally displaced in India because of political violence, including some 350,000 Kashmiris and more than 157,000 others in Northeast India. In 1999, an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 Kashmiris were temporarily displaced by fighting between India and insurgents from Pakistan.

India is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention, does not have national legislation regarding refugees, and does not permit the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) access to most refugee groups. It extends a refugee-like status to some refugee groups but regards other refugee groups as economic migrants. However, in recent years a number of Indian court rulings have advanced the protection of refugees whom the government had considered to be economic migrants. UNHCR is present in India but is involved only with the refugees living in urban centers, primarily Afghans.

Refugees from Sri Lanka

A 16-year conflict between Sri Lanka's Sinhalese, Buddhist majority and Tamil, Hindu minority has led more than 110,000 Sri Lankan Tamils to flee to India. According to UNHCR, nearly 5,000 Tamils fled to India during 1999, the largest number in several years. Although no refugees repatriated officially during the year, an unknown number returned by their own means, including 100 thought to have returned by boat.

Some 66,000 of the refugees lived in camps in Tamil Nadu State. Estimates of the number of refugees living outside the camps varied widely. The U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR) believed their number to be about 45,000, including those who arrived in 1999.

Many of the refugee camps in India were well maintained, although others were badly neglected. According to the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Center (SAHRDC), inadequate sanitation remained a problem even in the best camps. In most camps, the supply of clean drinking water was low. The Indian authorities gave camp residents cash grants and provided them some non-food items at subsidized rates. They permitted the refugees to work outside the camps, but restricted their movement, making it difficult for them to keep jobs.

Refugees from Tibet

The Tibetan refugee population in India marked its 40th year in exile in 1999. Tibetan refugees, led by their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, first fled to India in 1959, after China annexed Tibet. India permitted Tibetans to establish their own administration, based in the northern Indian city of Dharamsala, which in effect functioned as a Tibetan government in exile.

The number of Tibetan refugees in India fluctuated as many of the original refugees died, children were born in the refugee settlements, and thousands more arrived from Tibet each year. In addition, an unknown number of Tibetans returned to Tibet each year after completing their pilgrimages or studies. In 1999, more than 110,000 Tibetan refugees lived in India. Some 2,200 Tibetans arrived in India during the year, having fled over the Himalaya Mountains to Nepal, where UNHCR assisted them in their journey on to India.

Many Tibetans in India were self-sufficient, but some, including elderly persons, female-headed families, and recent arrivals, struggled. Although the Indian authorities continued to permit Tibetan refugees to enter, they did not grant most of those who arrived in recent years legal residence.

Refugees from Burma

More than 40,000 ethnic Chin and 1,000 ethnic Naga refugees from Burma were living in Northeast India. The Chin, who are largely Christian, are among the many ethnic minorities who have suffered discrimination under successive Burmese governments and persecution by the present Burmese regime. UNHCR has said that the Chin in Mizoram might qualify as refugees, but India considered them illegal immigrants and did not permit UNHCR access to them. In July, a unit of the Indian armed forces allegedly destroyed a Chin refugee camp in Mizoram, reportedly in search of Chin Burmese insurgents.

More than 1,000 ethnic Nagas fled from Burma into India's Nagaland State in August. The Nagas, who are also Christian, reportedly fled Burma's Sagaing Division because of religious persecution and raids on their villages by the Burmese military.

Another 700 Burmese whom UNHCR recognized as refugees lived in New Delhi. These included both Burmese political dissidents and ethnic Chin who made the long and costly journey from Mizoram to New Delhi to seek UNHCR protection. In March, Indian police arrested nine Burmese Chin protesters outside the UNHCR office in New Delhi, charging them with having entered India illegally. The nine had traveled from Mizoram to apply for refugee status, but UNHCR rejected their claims. The group, ranging in age from 16 to 27, went on a hunger strike to protest UNHCR's decision. The police subsequently released them; UNHCR reviewed their cases and recognized them as mandate refugees.

Refugees from Bhutan

An estimated 15,000 Lhotsampa, ethnic Nepalese refugees from Bhutan, were living in India. Most were located in West Bengal and Assam states. Under the terms of the Indo-Bhutanese friendship treaty of 1950, India allowed Bhutanese to live and work freely in India. Therefore, the Indian government did not acknowledge the Bhutanese as refugees, assist them, or require them to live in camps. Because the Bhutanese in India fled Bhutan and remained outside their country for the same reasons as Bhutanese refugees in Nepal, USCR considers them to be refugees.

"Urban" Refugees

Some 15,600 UNHCR-recognized refugees lived in India, mostly in New Delhi. A large majority, some 14,500, were from Afghanistan. Smaller numbers came from Burma (700), Iran (170), and Somalia (140). UNHCR reported that it newly recognized about 400 persons as mandate refugees during 1999, including 150 Afghans, 150 Burmese, and 50 Sudanese. UNHCR also regarded the 5,000 Sri Lankans who arrived in 1999 to be prima facie refugees. According to Indian refugee advocates, more than 40,000 other Afghans may have been living in India in refugee-like circumstances.

For several years, UNHCR provided most urban refugees cash assistance. Recently, UNHCR terminated ongoing assistance to most refugees, offering instead one-time "self-sufficiency" grants. Indian advocacy groups and the refugees themselves sharply criticized these grants, saying that few refugees were able to establish viable businesses with the small grants. As a result, they said, many refugees were left destitute and without access to any further UNHCR assistance. A November 1999 report by SAHRDC said that even those who were able to use the grants to initiate some economic activity found it difficult to sustain because they did not have work permits.

UNHCR continued providing medical assistance, education, and other social services to the refugees through local nongovernmental organizations. According to the SAHRDC report, however, those services were also deficient. Vocational courses were poorly designed, the report said, adding that they trained refugees for jobs for which they could not legally be hired.

UNHCR-recognized refugees had no legal status under Indian law. In previous years, recognized refugees could register with the Foreigners' Regional Registration Office (FRRO) and receive yearly residence permits that allowed them to remain in India legally but did not authorize them to work. In early 1999, the FRRO began refusing to renew residence permits for UNHCR-recognized Afghan refugees who did not hold valid Afghan passports. Because most refugees did not have such documents, they were left without legal residence permits, making them vulnerable to deportation despite their refugee status. UNHCR protested the Indian government's actions, but was unable to persuade New Delhi to reverse the new policy.

There were no confirmed reports of India deporting Afghan refugees during the year, although local advocacy groups believed several such deportations had taken place. In July, Afghan refugees staged a protest outside UNHCR's office in New Delhi. They demanded that UNHCR take action to restore their residence permits.

Internal Displacement in Northeast India

An estimated 157,000 persons of various ethnicities were displaced in several states in Northeast India, a geographically and politically isolated area of India that is home to many "tribal" groups. Once sparsely populated, in recent decades the population has swelled with the arrival of millions of ethnic Bengali Hindus and Muslims from Bangladesh and India's West Bengal State.

Population growth led to competition for land and jobs, and tension between ethnic minority groups and migrants and among the ethnic groups themselves. Those tensions resulted in the rise of ethnic and politically based insurgencies that have battled each other and attacked civilian populations belonging to rival ethnic groups, causing widespread displacement. Clashes between the Indian armed forces and the insurgents also contributed to the high level of violence in the region. During 1999, nearly 500 people were killed in Northeast India because of ethnic conflict.

Throughout the Northeast, conditions for the displaced were poor. Violence and displacement continued in some areas, and no intergovernmental or international organizations were present. Many of the displaced lived in public buildings and makeshift shelters. Most received little medical care and had no access to formal education. Many received food aid, although it often arrived sporadically and was insufficient.

The displaced population included an estimated 87,000 ethnic Santhals in Assam (including 7,000 newly displaced in 1999); no less than 3,500 Bengalis, also in Assam; 37,000 ethnic Reangs displaced from Mizoram into Tripura; 25,000 Bengalis in Tripura; and 3,000 ethnic Chakmas in Arunachal Pradesh. Some 20,000 ethnic Paites, Nagas, and Kukis whom USCR reported as displaced in 1998 were no longer displaced at the end of 1999.

Most of the Santhals became displaced in 1996, when ethnic Bodo insurgents attacked them. During 1997, most of the displaced Santhals and all of the displaced Bodos returned to their homes. However, the Assam state government prevented many Santhals from doing so, claiming that the land the Santhals had lived on was in a "national forest." Further Bodo attacks in May 1998 displaced another 25,000 Santhals, bringing the total displaced at the end of that year to some 80,000.

Bodo-Santhal conflict erupted again in mid-1999. On May 30, Bodo militants abducted 14 Santhals from a village in Dhubri District. The bodies of four of the Santhals, including a six-month-old baby, were later found in nearby woods. On June 2, Bodos burned down 27 houses belonging to Santhals in a village in Bongaigaon District. According to The Statesman (India), some 7,000 Santhals subsequently fled their homes in search of safety.

Tensions between ethnic Reangs (also known as Bru) and Mizos in the state of Mizoram led to the displacement of more than 39,000 Reangs into neighboring Tripura between late 1997 and mid-1998. The Mizoram government set up a camp for the Reangs in Kanchan District and provided some food aid. The camp reportedly lacked proper sanitation, had no clean drinking water, and had inadequate shelters. Some 37,000 of the Reangs remained displaced at the end of 1999.

Some 25,000 displaced Bengalis lived in camps in the Khowai region of Tripura. They were displaced by conflict between tribal groups in Tripura and Bengali migrants, who now comprise a majority of Tripura's population.

More than 3,000 ethnic Chakmas were displaced in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. Originally from the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of what is now Bangladesh, they were displaced into India in the mid-1960s by the construction of a large dam. New Delhi resettled the Chakmas in what is now the state of Arunachal Pradesh. The Chakmas have since become the third largest ethnic group in the sparsely populated state, and local people have called on New Delhi to move the Chakmas out of Arunachal Pradesh. Violence by locals directed at Chakmas has displaced 3,000 Chakmas.

Displacement from Kashmir

As many as 350,000 Kashmiris, mostly Hindu Pandits, have been displaced since 1990 as a result of long-standing conflict in Kashmir between the Indian armed forces and separatists among the majority Muslim community. Some 250,000 were living in or near the city of Jammu, both in camps for the displaced and in their own homes; an estimated 100,000 other Kashmiris were displaced elsewhere in India, many in the New Delhi area.

Many displaced Pandits received cash assistance and food aid from the government. Former government workers continued to receive full salaries or retirement benefits from the government. However, displaced Kashmiris complained that government assistance was inadequate. In September, some 50,000 displaced Pandits staged a demonstration in Jammu to protest inadequate accommodation and medical facilities. One displaced person was killed and 40 others were injured when violence erupted between police and demonstrators.

In May 1999, conflict broke out between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. The conflict centered around the Kargil area, high in the Himalayan Mountains, halfway between the major Indian towns of Srinagar and Leh and just south of the Line of Control between Pakistan-held Kashmir and Indian-held Kashmir.

The conflict began when India launched air strikes along the Line of Control (the unofficial border between Indian-held Kashmir and Pakistani-held Kashmir), claiming that infiltrators from Pakistan had crossed the Line and occupied Indian territory. It ended in July, when, following international mediation, the infiltrators withdrew.

In India, the conflict displaced an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 people, mostly Kashmiri Muslims. The largest towns in the area, Kargil and Dras, were left completely deserted. Most of the displaced fled heavy Pakistani shelling of their villages. Scores of villages were heavily shelled; a displaced man from Idkot village told Inter Press Service that his village was hit by 19 shells on a single day in May. To reach safety, many of the displaced climbed over mountains more than 13,000 feet high.

The Indian military evacuated some villages, transporting the residents to sites farther away from the Line of Control. A displaced man from the village of Pandrass told the South Asia Forum for Human Rights (SAFHR) that Indian soldiers forcibly evacuated Pandrass on May 14. While the army moved the women and children to Gagan Geer, where they were placed in a makeshift camp, he said, the soldiers took all the male villagers with them and subjected them to forced labor.

Most of the displaced took shelter in schools and public buildings or in private homes in towns and villages well south of the Line of Control. In some of the host villages, the displaced constructed makeshift shelters using bamboo and other available materials. The Indian government provided the displaced little aid, most observers reported. Instead, the displaced survived largely because of the generosity of local people in the towns and villages where they sought refuge. Representatives of both SAFHR and the South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude went to the area to investigate conditions for the displaced.

SAFHR said that the 400 displaced persons sheltered in Gagan Geer were crowded into four tin-roofed storage sheds. They were living in unhygienic conditions, lacked bedding, cooking utensils, and clothing, and were receiving little food aid. According to the SAFHR publication Refugee Watch, political leaders of Jammu and Kashmir State had visited and "several promises [of aid] were made, but none has been kept." The Coalition on Child Servitude visited displaced persons in four districts. The makeshift camps "lacked sanitation," the coalition said, adding that "government relief was not reaching" the displaced.

After the cessation of hostilities in July, many of the displaced people returned to their villages. Some were able to re-establish their normal lives; others found their homes destroyed by Pakistani shells or looted by the Indian army troops who occupied their homes while they were gone. Many lost their cattle, their main source of livelihood. Farmers had missed the brief planting season. Because winter reaches the area in September, many remained stranded in their makeshift camps and were unlikely to return home until spring 2000. The Indian government promised to assist the returnees, although many remained skeptical that the help would materialize.

(In February 2000, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and the Brookings Institution Project on Internal Displacement released an Issue Paper on internal displacement in Northeast India.)