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Indian Express
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
A new immigration law reflects India's rising paranoia over the ‘undesirable outsider'
Written by Aashish Yadav and Angshuman Choudhury 'India is not a dharamshala' — that's how the Supreme Court responded on May 16 to a petition by a Sri Lankan Tamil individual to not be deported to his home country out of fear of persecution. Remarkably, this is the exact language that Union Home Minister Amit Shah recently used in the Lok Sabha to defend the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, which came into effect in April. This dovetailing of the judiciary and the executive on the issue of immigration control and refugee rights reflects a troubling anti-humanitarian flare-up in the Indian state apparatus, conspicuous in a series of recent events. Four days before the 'dharamshala' remark, another Supreme Court bench called media reports on the Indian government allegedly abandoning some 40 Rohingya refugees forcibly at sea near the southeastern coast of Myanmar 'a very beautifully crafted story'. Just over a week prior, yet another bench concluded that Rohingya refugees were 'illegal immigrants' who could be deported as per due process. However, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma recently announced that India had now begun to directly 'push back' undocumented individuals and refugees into Bangladesh, instead of following legal procedures. This was not just bluster. It coincided with reports on India pushing hundreds of undocumented individuals into Bangladesh through the land borders in Assam and West Bengal, much to Dhaka's chagrin. Meanwhile, various state governments have been rounding up undocumented, mostly Bengali-speaking working-class individuals in recent days while the Centre seeks a countrywide verification of the identities of suspected illegal immigrants within 30 days and subsequently, deportation of those found to be undocumented. These developments cannot be seen in isolation and must be placed in a threefold context. First, they mirror a global surge in anti-immigrant rhetoric and action, accompanied by a hardening of border control regimes. The Trump administration's actions against both undocumented and documented immigrants in the US have been the most pronounced manifestation of this xenophobic surge. Second, the anti-immigrant and anti-refugee actions come on the heels of India's Operation Sindoor against Pakistan and the attendant anxiety over national security and borders. This phase saw the Narendra Modi government not only deporting Pakistani nationals from India, but also adopting a parallel, allusive process of expelling a broad set of 'others' who have long been profiled as threats to India's internal security. Bengali-speaking Muslims and Rohingya seem to be first among these unequals. Third, they are synchronised with the Modi government's decision to reform the legal regime on immigration control. The Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, under the garb of streamlining immigration laws, sets new norms of entry, stay and exit while giving unprecedented powers to central immigration authorities to enforce them. It is the second and third contexts that Indian civil society should be most concerned about. The Home Minister has framed the Immigration and Foreigners Act as an outcome of the Modi government's 'compassion, sensitivity, and awareness of threats to the nation'. But, by vesting extraordinary powers in a central bureaucratic node — the Bureau of Immigration — and introducing vague norms of immigration control, the new law creates an arbitrary legal regime with broad executive discretion. For starters, the act is littered with excessive delegation of power. Rather than formulating clear provisions through any parliamentary process, it provides sweeping powers to the Centre to specify any new ground for the entry of foreigners and even restrict their activities within the country. Under this regime, such executive decisions would be made without any institutional oversight, leaving no recourse to a statutory remedy. This is unlike the multi-tiered immigration appeal systems most leading democracies have, including those with strong immigration laws. Particularly concerning is the act's provision on restricting the entry of a 'specified class or description of foreigner', which could potentially justify a blanket travel embargo akin to US President Donald Trump's 2017 ban on nationals of Muslim-majority countries. The law also gives immigration officers carte blanche to restrict the entry of foreign nationals to India on vague grounds of national security and public health, among others, without providing any concrete reasons. In recent years, the government has adopted a punitive immigration stance against foreign journalists and academics critical of the regime. This includes the deportation of a British professor in 2024 and the revocation of her OCI status this week, and similar actions against a French journalist and a Swedish academic. If these actions are to be taken as precedent, the government could weaponise the new law to deter and expel 'undesirable' foreign nationals. Beyond standard border control, the act constricts an already restricted asylum regime, including for stateless refugees (like the Rohingya). Not only does the law remain silent on these vulnerable groups, but it also strengthens the legal rationale to expel them from or deny them entry into Indian territory through its arbitrary provisions on 'national security' and expansive government discretion. The new law fundamentally fails to address a critical gap in the Indian legal regime — the absence of a comprehensive, protection-centric asylum law. Instead, it has fallen on the heels of the discriminatory CAA and its opaque procedures, disingenuously painting it as a humanitarian, pro-refugee law. More concerningly, the government has signalled its intention to terminate the long-standing policy of recognising UNHCR refugee cards, which is the primary form of identification that refugees in India have. These cards are issued after a meticulous vetting process to verify the claims of each person. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court, too, has dismissed the value of these cards, most recently in a Rohingya deportation-related hearing on May 8. Clearly, Trump's bellicose immigration policy echoes in many provisions of the act. But, its most serious radiating effect has been felt in the recent deportations in India. Both actions reveal a paradox that, despite passing the new act, the government did not invoke it in the deportation of Pakistani citizens after the Pahalgam attack. In the case of Rohingyas, the government appears to totally circumvent any legal procedure. In that sense, the law itself appears to be overshadowed by extra-legal interests over national security and domestic politics. What is perhaps more troubling is that the Supreme Court has indirectly supported the systematic and incremental erosion of refugee rights by not just adopting narrow interpretations of fundamental rights, but also refusing to critically scrutinise the rhetorical positions and actions of the executive. Instead, it has chosen to simply recapitulate the hostility that the government has shown towards refugees and other vulnerable groups that are routinely profiled as 'infiltrators' without any evidence. Aashish Yadav is a doctoral candidate at the University of Melbourne. Angshuman Choudhury, formerly at the Centre for Policy Research, is a doctoral candidate in Comparative Asian Studies jointly at the National University of Singapore and King's College London. Views are personal
The Star
22-05-2025
- Politics
- The Star
‘I saw a ship dropping many people into the sea': India accused of returning Rohingya refugees to Myanmar
BENGALURU: Fisherman Nye Nge Soe was returning from a night's work to his village in Tanintharyi, the southernmost region of Myanmar, when he saw dark figures bobbing among the waves about 50m from the shore. 'It was almost 1am. From my boat, I saw a ship dropping many people into the sea. I could hear them shouting,' said Nye Nge Soe, 22, describing events on the night of May 8 on the phone to The Straits Times. 'They had life jackets, but the water is 2m deep there. There were old people and women who could not swim. 'A ship crew (from our village) threw them a long rope. I watched the people swim to the shore holding this rope,' he said. It was only in the light of dawn that Nye Nge Soe realised that the people they had rescued were Rohingya – an ethnic Muslim minority group in Myanmar. As the villagers gave the new arrivals meals, water and dry clothes, the refugees told them that they had been deported from India. In the same week that India was exchanging fire with Pakistan on the western border, its government deported at least 40 Rohingya refugees from May 6 to 9 from its eastern coast into Myanmar. The United Nations has launched an inquiry into reports that the refugees were forced off an Indian Navy vessel and into the Andaman Sea, which it called 'unconscionable' and 'an affront to human decency'. Around the same time, India also 'pushed back' another 50 Rohingya men and women from the north-eastern state of Assam into Bangladesh. This means that instead of formal repatriation, they were sent walking across the border. The UN and global refugee rights organisations have urged India to stop deporting Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar, where they face life threats, persecution and ethnic cleansing. Many Rohingyas fled a brutal crackdown by Myanmar's military in 2017 – atrocities rooted in decades of state repression and discrimination that rendered them stateless by denying them citizenship. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas fled Myanmar in waves, before and after the military's violent 2017 'clearance operations', which saw their largest exodus as about 700,000 sought refuge in Bangladesh, which borders Myanmar. An estimated 40,000 Rohingya people live in India. Analysts say that India is undertaking these elaborate, sweeping actions against Rohingya refugees as part of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) hard political stance against 'illegal Muslim immigrants' that has borne electoral dividends for the Hindu-first party. 'The Indian government's political narrative clubs Rohingya refugees from Myanmar with undocumented immigrants from Bangladesh, who have religious and linguistic similarities but little else, into one subgroup of unwanted immigrants,' said policy analyst Angshuman Choudhury, who is a joint doctoral candidate researching Myanmar at the National University of Singapore and King's College, London. India's Ministry of Home Affairs did not respond to ST's queries. Although India is not a signatory to the UN refugee convention, Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said India's 'cruel actions' violate the international legal principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits states from returning individuals to a territory where they face threats to their lives or freedom. Two relatives of Rohingya deportees have filed urgent petitions in India's Supreme Court to cease such deportations, but the judges dismissed them as lacking evidence. One judge said that claims that the refugees were dropped in the sea were 'fanciful'. But Myanmar locals and the authorities confirmed the allegations. Aung Kyaw Moe, the deputy minister for human rights in Myanmar's in-exile elected government, the National Unity Government (NUG), told ST that '40 Rohingya refugees from India were deported and thrown along the coastal side of southern Myanmar. They landed on May 9 in Myanmar territory'. He shared a list of 40 names of Rohingya deportees in Myanmar. ST found that 37 matched a list of 43 names submitted in the Supreme Court petitions. All confirmed deportees held refugee identification documents issued by the UN refugee agency UNHCR, which guarantees basic human rights and certifies that the individual is verified. Thirteen of the deportees are women. Most of the deported men are in their twenties. ST was asked not to reveal the name of the village where the Rohingya landed, given security concerns. All the Rohingya people ST spoke to asked not to be identified, fearing deportation. Half the Rohingya refugees in India – around 20,000 – are registered with the UNHCR. Most of them live in poor Delhi neighbourhoods, while an unknown number are held indefinitely in detention centres. The Indian government severely restricts their mobility, shelter and livelihood, but courts allow the refugees to access basic education and healthcare guaranteed to the Indian poor. Priyali Sur, whose non-profit The Azadi Project gives skills training to refugee women, said: 'Since February, Rohingya refugees in Delhi have faced increasing police harassment in the name of verification. 'During these police crackdowns, racial slurs are hurled, the refugees are questioned about whether they are Bangladeshi immigrants and detained arbitrarily, violating their rights.' On May 6, the police reportedly rounded up dozens of Rohingya men and women from Hastsal, Vikaspuri and Okhla neighbourhoods in New Delhi to resubmit their biometric details. But instead of being verified and sent back home, the refugees were detained overnight in several police stations. A community leader in Vikaspuri said that '50-60 policemen came in many vans, forcing us to drop everything and go with them for document verification'. Others alleged that the police beat them, abusing them as 'ghuspetiya', a Hindi word for infiltrator that BJP leaders often use. Mohammad, a 25-year-old Rohingya man, was in a Delhi hospital with his wife who had just miscarried, when his parents and two brothers were detained. He shared with ST several photos and hurried voice messages his brothers had shared from the police van, before their phones were confiscated. On May 7, at least 40 detainees were flown to the Indian union territory of Andaman Islands, then forcibly taken in a naval vessel to south Myanmar and dropped in the sea to swim ashore. Non-profit Fortify Rights, which works on human rights in Myanmar, reported that in an audio recording of a call made to his relatives in India, a Rohingya deportee said that they were 'blindfolded and handcuffed' on the ship. In Myanmar, the rescued Rohingya borrowed phones from villagers and called relatives in India. Their worst nightmare – being back in Myanmar – had come true. 'Tonight, the Indian Navy left us in the middle of the water near Mandalay sea… We might get caught by the military,' a man's quivering voice tells a woman in an audio recording of a call ST heard. In another call recording, a father asks his son, barely 20, if he is okay. When the young man mumbles a response, his mother shouts: 'Don't cry!' Mohammad said: 'My brother said that the navy had asked if they wanted to be sent to Myanmar or Indonesia. All of them had begged to be sent anywhere but Myanmar, where death is sure. And still, Myanmar is where they threw them.' On May 9, Myanmar fishermen handed the Rohingya refugees over to representatives of the NUG, a coalition of ousted democratically elected lawmakers and parliamentarians that was established in the wake of the February 2021 military coup. Aung Kyaw Moe said that the refugees are 'now with the People's Defence Force, who are among several groups that work with the NUG to fight the junta'. Myanmar faces an ongoing civil war, with several armed groups fighting the military junta since the coup. 'Myanmar is an active war zone now, and not safe. The Rohingya have been pushed back to a war zone that they had escaped from. It's inhumane of India to do this,' Aung Kyaw Moe added. The UNHCR's global spokesperson said it has sought further information from the Indian authorities on unconfirmed reports about the detention of Rohingya refugees in Delhi, 'while seeking assurances that refugees and asylum seekers not be returned to a situation where their life or freedom may be at risk'. Apart from the 50 Rohingya people sent by foot into Bangladesh, at least 118 Bangladeshi immigrants were pushed into Bangladesh, confirmed Debabrata Saikia, Assam's leader of the opposition and legislator of Nazira border constituency. All including the Rohingya people were inmates of the Matia detention centre in Assam. 'It was so secretive that even the local district administration was not aware of the deportation,' Saikia said. Bangladeshi media reported that the Border Guard Bangladesh had on May 7 detained at least 123 individuals, including Rohingya and Bengali-speaking individuals. In a May 8 letter, the Bangladesh Foreign Ministry called on India to immediately stop 'pushing in people across the border', warning that it posed risks to security and undermined existing bilateral frameworks. But on May 11, the chief minister of the BJP-led Assam government Himanta Biswa Sarma boasted about the 'push back' as a new operation of the government of India. 'Earlier, we used to arrest 1,000-1,500 foreigners,' he said, without providing details. 'They would be sent to jails, and then produced before a court of law. Now, we have decided that we will not bring them into our country, and will push them back.' Choudhury said the BJP leader's eagerness to 'proudly announce this direct, extra-legal deportation as a new innovation' was an attempt to project itself 'as a party that is proactive in the pushing out of undesirable foreigners'. Previous governments in Assam have been known to push back Bangladeshi immigrants, but in smaller numbers. The BJP governments in Delhi and Assam had pledged to throw out illegal immigrants, whom they hold responsible for crimes and loss of jobs, despite there being no evidence for these claims. Assam and the northern state of Bihar will face state elections later in 2025. 'There is great political premium in rounding up so-called illegal immigrants and sending them out,' Choudhury said. 'Where will I be safe?' 'Most Rohingya refugees in India and Bangladesh don't expect citizenship here. They just want a safe place as they await resettlement through the UNHCR in countries like the US, Britain and Europe that have refugee laws,' said Ravi Hemadri, founder of Development and Justice Initiative, a UN partner agency that works with refugees. But after the detentions and deportations, Rohingya refugees, especially in BJP-led regions like Jammu, Delhi, Gujarat and Rajasthan, fear more crackdowns. Some of their landlords are also now forcing them to vacate. A Rohingya student in his twenties who was to sit a 12th class computing exam in May said that he is hiding in a south Indian city under a non-BJP government after the Delhi police burst into his best friend's room at 3am and detained him. S, 26, a resident living in a refugee settlement in Jammu in northern India, has been sleepless since her parents and brothers, aged 18 and 20, were deported to Myanmar. 'Just like that, my whole family is gone. How are they? Are they dead? Alive? Are they in trouble with the military? I can't bear it any more,' S said, sobbing over the phone. To add to her anxiety, India's Ministry of Home Affairs has set a 30-day deadline in May for all states to verify the credentials of people suspected to be illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar who claim to be Indian citizens. If their documents are not verified, they will face deportation. S said that India had deported her family to Myanmar despite having verified refugee cards and never claiming to be Indian citizens. She now fears the same fate. 'I would rather die than return to the horrors in Myanmar. But if no one wants us – not Myanmar, not Bangladesh, not India – where will I go?' she asked. - The Straits Times/ANN
Straits Times
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Straits Times
‘I saw a ship dropping many people into the sea': India accused of deporting Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar
'I saw a ship dropping many people into the sea': India accused of returning Rohingya refugees to Myanmar – Fisherman Nye Nge Soe was returning from a night's work to his village in Tanintharyi, the southernmost region of Myanmar, when he saw dark figures bobbing among the waves about 50m from the shore. 'It was almost 1am. From my boat, I saw a ship dropping many people into the sea. I could hear them shouting,' said Mr Nye Nge Soe , 22, describing events on the night of May 8 on the phone to The Straits Times. 'They had life jackets, but the water is 2m deep there. There were old people and women who could not swim. 'A ship crew (from our village) threw them a long rope. I watched the people swim to the shore holding this rope,' he said. It was only in the light of dawn that Mr Nye Nge Soe realised that the people they had rescued were Rohingya – an ethnic Muslim minority group in Myanmar. As the villagers gave the new arrivals meals, water and dry clothes, the refugees told them that they had been deported from India. In the same week that India was exchanging fire with Pakistan on the western border, its government deported at least 40 Rohingya refugees from May 6 to 9 from its eastern coast into Myanmar. UN urges India to stop deportations The United Nations has launched an inquiry into reports that the refugees were forced off an Indian Navy vessel and into the Andaman Sea, which it called 'unconscionable' and 'an affront to human decency'. Around the same time, India also 'pushed back' another 50 Rohingya men and women from the north-eastern state of Assam into Bangladesh. This means that instead of formal repatriation, they were sent walking across the border. The UN and global refugee rights organisations have urged India to stop deporting Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar, where they face life threats, persecution and ethnic cleansing. Many Rohingyas fled a brutal crackdown by Myanmar's military in 2017 – atrocities rooted in decades of state repression and discrimination that rendered them stateless by denying them citizenship. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas fled Myanmar in waves, before and after the military's violent 2017 'clearance operations', which saw their largest exodus as about 700,000 sought refuge in Bangladesh, which borders Myanmar. An estimated 40,000 Rohingya people live in India. Analysts say that India is undertaking these elaborate, sweeping actions against Rohingya refugees as part of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) hard political stance against 'illegal Muslim immigrants' that has borne electoral dividends for the Hindu-first party. 'The Indian government's political narrative clubs Rohingya refugees from Myanmar with undocumented immigrants from Bangladesh, who have religious and linguistic similarities but little else, into one subgroup of unwanted immigrants,' said policy analyst Angshuman Choudhury, who is a joint doctoral candidate researching Myanmar at the National University of Singapore and King's College, London. India's Ministry of Home Affairs did not respond to ST's queries. Although India is not a signatory to the UN refugee convention, Mr Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said India's 'cruel actions' violate the international legal principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits states from returning individuals to a territory where they face threats to their lives or freedom. Two relatives of Rohingya deportees have filed urgent petitions in India's Supreme Court to cease such deportations, but the judges dismissed them as lacking evidence. One judge said that claims that the refugees were dropped in the sea were 'fanciful'. But Myanmar locals and the authorities confirmed the allegations . Mr Aung Kyaw Moe, the deputy minister for human rights in Myanmar's in-exile elected government, the National Unity Government (NUG), told ST that '40 Rohingya refugees from India were deported and thrown along the coastal side of southern Myanmar. They landed on May 9 in Myanmar territory'. He shared a list of 40 names of Rohingya deportees in Myanmar. ST found that 37 matched a list of 43 names submitted in the Supreme Court petitions. All confirmed deportees held refugee identification documents issued by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which guarantees basic human rights and certifies that the individual is verified. Thirteen of the deportees are women. Most of the deported men are in their twenties. ST was asked not to reveal the name of the village where the Rohingya landed, given security concerns. All the Rohingya people ST spoke to asked not to be identified, fearing deportation. 'Anywhere but Myanmar' Half the Rohingya refugees in India – around 20,000 – are registered with the UNHCR. Most of them live in poor Delhi neighbourhoods, while an unknown number are held indefinitely in detention centres. The Indian government severely restricts their mobility, shelter and livelihood, but courts allow refugees to access basic education and healthcare guaranteed to the Indian poor. Ms Priyali Sur, whose non-profit The Azadi Project gives skills training to refugee women, said: 'Since February, Rohingya refugees in Delhi have faced increasing police harassment in the name of verification. 'During these police crackdowns, racial slurs are hurled, the refugees are questioned about whether they are Bangladeshi immigrants, and detained arbitrarily, violating their rights.' On May 6, the police reportedly rounded up dozens of Rohingya men and women from Hastsal, Vikaspuri and Okhla neighbourhoods in New Delhi to resubmit their biometric details. But instead of being verified and sent back home, the refugees were detained overnight in several police stations. A community leader in Vikaspuri said that '50-60 policemen came in many vans, forcing us to drop everything and go with them for document verification'. Others alleged that the police beat them, abusing them as 'ghuspetiya', a Hindi word for infiltrator that BJP leaders often use. Mr Mohammad, a 25-year-old Rohingya man, was in a Delhi hospital with his wife who had just miscarried, when his parents and two brothers were detained. He shared with ST several photos and hurried voice messages his brothers had shared from the police van, before their phones were confiscated. On May 7, at least 40 detainees were flown to the Indian union territory of Andaman Islands, then forcibly taken in a naval vessel to south Myanmar and dropped in the sea to swim ashore. Non-profit Fortify Rights, which works on human rights in Myanmar, reported that in an audio recording of a call made to his relatives in India, a Rohingya deportee said that they were 'blindfolded and handcuffed' on the ship. In Myanmar, the rescued Rohingya borrowed phones from villagers and called relatives in India. Their worst nightmare – being back in Myanmar – had come true. 'Tonight, the Indian Navy left us in the middle of the water near Mandalay sea… We might get caught by the military,' a man's quivering voice told a woman in a call whose audio recording ST has heard. In another call recording, a father asks his son, barely 20, if he is okay. When the young man mumbles a response, his mother shouts: 'Don't cry!' A view of the Rohingya refugee slum at Kanchan Kunj in Delhi. The camp, which is home to some 260-odd Rohingya refugees, has been destroyed twice in a blaze that some believe may have been acts of arson. PHOTO: ST FILE Mr Mohammad said: 'My brother said that the navy had asked if they wanted to be sent to Myanmar or Indonesia. All of them had begged to be sent anywhere but Myanmar, where death is sure. And still, Myanmar is where they threw them.' On May 9, Myanmar fishermen handed the Rohingya refugees over to representatives of the NUG, a coalition of ousted democratically elected lawmakers and parliamentarians that was established in the wake of the February 2021 military coup. Mr Aung Kyaw Moe said that the refugees are 'now with the People's Defence Force, who are among several groups that work with the NUG to fight the junta'. Myanmar faces an ongoing civil war, with several armed groups fighting the military junta since the coup. 'Myanmar is an active war zone now, and not safe. The Rohingya have been pushed back to a war zone that they had escaped from. It's inhumane of India to do this,' Mr Aung Kyaw Moe added. The UNHCR's global spokesperson said that it has sought further information from the Indian authorities on unconfirmed reports about the detention of Rohingya refugees in Delhi, 'while seeking assurances that refugees and asylum seekers not be returned to a situation where their life or freedom may be at risk'. BJP's 'push back' operation seen as vote game Apart from the 50 Rohingya people sent by foot into Bangladesh, at least 118 Bangladeshi immigrants were pushed into Bangladesh, confirmed Mr Debabrata Saikia, Assam's leader of the opposition and legislator of Nazira border constituency. All including the Rohingya people were inmates of the Matia detention centre in Assam. 'It was so secretive that even the local district administration was not aware of the deportation,' Mr Saikia said. Bangladeshi media reported that the Border Guard Bangladesh had on May 7 detained at least 123 individuals, including Rohingya and Bengali-speaking individuals. In a May 8 letter, the Bangladesh Foreign Ministry called on India to immediately stop 'pushing in people across the border', warning that it posed risks to security and undermined existing bilateral frameworks. But on May 11, the chief minister of the BJP-led Assam government Himanta Biswa Sarma boasted about the 'push back' as a new operation of the government of India. 'Earlier, we used to arrest 1,000-1,500 foreigners,' he said, without providing details. 'They would be sent to jails, and then produced before a court of law. Now, we have decided that we will not bring them into our country, and will push them back.' Mr Choudhury said the BJP leader's eagerness to 'proudly announce this direct, extra-legal deportation as a new innovation' was an attempt to project itself 'as a party that is proactive in the pushing out of undesirable foreigners'. Previous governments in Assam have been known to push back Bangladeshi immigrants, but in smaller numbers. The BJP governments in Delhi and Assam had pledged to throw out illegal immigrants, whom they hold responsible for crimes and loss of jobs, despite there being no evidence for these claims. Assam and the northern state of Bihar will face state elections later in 2025. 'There is great political premium in rounding up so-called illegal immigrants and sending them out,' Mr Choudhury said. 'Where will I be safe?' 'M ost Rohingya refugees in India and Bangladesh don't expect citizenship here. They just want a safe place as they await resettlement through the UNHCR in countries like the US, Britain and Europe that have refugee laws,' said Mr Ravi Hemadri, founder of Development and Justice Initiative, a UN partner agency that works with refugees. But after the detentions and deportations, Rohingya refugees, especially in BJP-led regions like Jammu, Delhi, Gujarat and Rajasthan, fear more crackdowns. Some of their landlords are also now forcing them to vacate. A Rohingya student in his twenties who was to sit a 12th class computing exam in May said that he is hiding in a south Indian city under a non-BJP government after the Delhi police burst into his best friend's room at 3am and detained him. Mrs S, 26, a resident living in a refugee settlement in Jammu in northern India, has been sleepless since her parents and brothers, aged 18 and 20, were deported to Myanmar. ' Just like that, my whole family is gone. How are they? Are they dead? Alive? Are they in trouble with the military? I can't bear it any more,' Mrs S said, sobbing over the phone. To add to her anxiety, India's Ministry of Home Affairs has set a 30-day deadline in May for all states to verify the credentials of people suspected to be illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar who claim to be Indian citizens. If their documents are not verified, they will face deportation. Mrs S said that India had deported her family to Myanmar despite having verified refugee cards and never claiming to be Indian citizens. She now fears the same fate. 'I would rather die than return to the horrors in Myanmar. But if no one wants us – not Myanmar, not Bangladesh, not India -- where will I go?' she asked. Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Reuters
02-04-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Myanmar's deadly earthquake brings diplomatic payoff for junta chief
BANGKOK, April 2 (Reuters) - Myanmar's deadliest natural disaster in years has strengthened the position of ruling general Min Aung Hlaing, by opening diplomatic channels closed for four years after his junta ousted an elected government to unleash a brutal civil war. Just before Friday's quake of magnitude 7.7 killed more than 2,700, the junta chief was readying for a rare foreign visit to a regional summit in Thailand, as aides worked the phones to arrange meetings with other leaders. It is still unclear, opens new tab if Min Aung Hlaing will attend the BISTRE grouping's summit in Bangkok this week, but the disaster has helped end his isolation by most world leaders over a war that displaced 3.5 million and decimated the economy. "The junta knows that regional powers jostling for influence in Myanmar, like India, China, and Russia would want to use this opportunity to strengthen their own toehold in the country," said Angshuman Choudhury, an analyst based in Singapore. "By publicly and directly engaging with regional capitals, it can demonstrate its supposed indispensability as Myanmar's primary public authority." A junta spokesman did not respond to telephone calls from Reuters to seek comment. In the past week, Min Aung Hlaing has spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim - conversations that have led to a flurry of international aid. Just weeks after the junta reaffirmed plans for a general election in December, one of the impoverished nation's strongest earthquakes in a century has opened a new window for its leader to engage with regional powers. The junta had steadily lost ground in the conflict sparked by the 2021 coup, suffering a string of battlefield defeats and piling unprecedented pressure on Min Aung Hlaing himself. Key allies such as China have backstopped the junta, with efforts such as pushing major anti-junta groups to stop fighting, but even Beijing had not entirely embraced the embattled general. He did not get an audience with Xi when he visited China in November for the first time since the coup, for example. But during a state visit to Moscow last month, Min Aung Hlaing held court with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, one of his earliest backers after the coup. "I would think he's getting like everything he ever dreamt of and more right now," said a diplomatic source in the commercial capital of Yangon, referring to the Moscow visit, the telephone call with Modi and a meeting of the ASEAN grouping. "He's back in the circle. He has a seat at the table." However, the junta is doing what it can to benefit from the crisis and deny assistance to civilians and opposition groups, said a second diplomatic source in the country. Millions of dollars in aid, relief supplies and hundreds of rescue workers from countries such as China, India, Russia and Southeast Asia, have flooded Myanmar since the quake, though the junta keeps up military operations despite ceasefire calls. The junta could exploit the crisis to strengthen its position in Myanmar's battlefield, Choudhury added. "The quake will complicate the resistance's fight and its ability to retain support from the local population." TIGHTROPE WALK Some regime hardliners believe the junta can continue with the help of a handful of allies, said Sihasak Phuangketkeow, a former Thai vice minister for foreign affairs who visited Myanmar last month. "They see the world order as shifting, and that there is a new pole with China, Russia and India," Sihasak told Reuters. "They think Myanmar may be able to thrive without other engagement." If Min Aung Hlaing were to attend this week's BIMSTEC summit, he would get a further opportunity for diplomatic validation, such as more engagement with India and Thailand. BIMSTEC, or the Bay of Bengal initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, comprises Thailand, Myanmar, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bhutan. "What I got from my recent trip was that Min Aung Hlaing doesn't want to be just under China only," said Sihasak. "It is about how we can assert our own position. We should not let this opportunity to engage Myanmar slip by." In Bangkok, the junta chief could meet Modi, who has rushed aid and personnel to Myanmar since the quake, said three sources with knowledge of discussions. "Modi, particularly, has already indicated that he is willing to directly engage," said Choudhury, referring to the two leaders' call. The visit may also give Min Aung Hlaing a chance to meet Thaksin Shinawatra, the former Thai prime minister whom Malaysia's Anwar appointed a personal adviser in his capacity as chairman of ASEAN. Some analysts say Thailand is walking a tightrope by giving legitimacy to Min Aung Hlaing as he battles the armed resistance which has eroded his grip on Myanmar. "There's a nasty, brutal, violent civil war," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University. "Thailand has to be very careful because it has a long border with Myanmar and lots at stake."
