Much debate is centred on whether India should offer refuge to the Rohingyas who are facing persecution in their home country – Myanmar. The first point is that Rohingyas are not refugees in India. They are illegal immigrants as much as the Bangladeshis who enter India illegally are. Rohingyas have entered India primarily through our porous borders with Bangladesh in North East India and Bengal, in the same way that Bangladeshis have done over decades. Every country should have strict laws and clear policies on how to deal with illegal immigrants. Unfortunately India lacks clarity on this issue. As a result many Rohingyas and Bangladeshis have made use of our faulty official systems to obtain voter IDs and PAN cards. They then pass off as Indian citizens. How long can India adopt such a soft stance vis-à-vis its borders. It is time to seal the borders and make it difficult for illegal immigrants to cross over because it ultimately means that Indians have to share scarce resources with non-citizens.
By deporting illegal immigrants India would not be violating any international convention. We are not signatories to the principle of “non-refoulement” where a country cannot send back asylum seekers to a country in which they could face persecution on various grounds. Rohingya Muslims are not asylum seekers as they did not apply for asylum in India. They have simply entered India illegally and settled down. Were we to expel them to Bangladesh from where they came, we will not be endangering this Muslim population which Myanmar identifies as Bengalis, to persecution.
Even the non-refoulement principle excludes those refugees who may pose a danger to the security of the country in which they are present. In the case of the Rohingyas there are ample evidences that terrorist groups such as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army with links to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are operating in the Rakhine province. Earlier in 2014 Rakhine was declared a key region for jihad by Islamic State leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Considering that no country in the world today wants to shelter refugees, it would be naïve on the part of India to succumb to pressure from human rights activists to embrace the Rohingyas. There has to be a policy of Indians first in this country!
