Afghan Refugee Crisis – India and the World

Recently, Putin has said that neighbouring countries of Russia should not accept any Afghan refugees. The citizens from ex-Soviet Central Asian countries can travel in Russia without Visa. So, Putin said that Afghan militants may enter Russia in the form of refugees. Turkey has also reinforced its border to prevent the influx of Afghan migrants. Erdogan has told that “Turkey does not have any obligation whatsoever to be a safe haven for Afghan refugees”. Turkey already has about 4 million Syrian refugees citing this, Erdogan has said that “Turkey will not be Europe’s migrant storage unit”.

Countries accepting Afghan Refugees: –

Canada has decided to intake 20,000 Afghan Refugees which will include “particularly vulnerable” groups. It means that they will give priority to women leaders, people who worked at the embassy, journalists, human rights activists, people from LGBT community, and persecuted minorities. Canada will accept them either from Afghanistan or if they have fled to neighbouring countries, then in that case too Canada will accept them and resettle them in Canada. USA has decided to accept those Afghan refugees who previously worked for the government.

UK and Australia have decided to accept 20,000 and 3,000 Afghan refugees respectively. UK will give priority to children, women and those sections of the population which have faced prosecution.

India has started issuing emergency e-visa for the citizens of Afghanistan who wish to come to the country due the current situation in Afghanistan. Any Afghan citizen can apply for this emergency e-visa irrespective of their religion.

What can India learn from the policy of different countries on Afghan refugees?

The world can be divided into two factions. The first one consists of those countries which have openly declared that they will not accept any Afghan refugees (like Turkey, China, Russia, Austria, etc.) and the second one consists of those countries which have decided to accept the Afghan refugees.

Now, the latter one (2nd one) has a fixed criteria on which they are accepting refugees. They are not open for all the Afghanis. Canada is open to particularly vulnerable groups like women leaders, human rights activists, LGBT community people, journalists and persecuted minorities. USA will accept those people who have worked with the government. UK has decided to give priority to women, children and the persecuted population. So, every country accepting refugees has set a classification for Afghan refugees on the basis of which they will give them shelter.

CAA as proposed by the Indian Central Government was an apt one in this scenario. Had CAA been implemented till now in India, persecuted minorities in Afghanistan – Hindus and Sikhs would have easily got citizenship in India. They would have been eligible to get all those benefits in the country which other Indian citizens enjoy. We need not prove that Sikhs and Hindus are persecuted minorities in Afghanistan. The data shows that there were at least 2,00,000 Hindus and Sikhs in 1970s in Afghanistan. In 2020, not more than 700 Hindus and Sikhs are there in Afghanistan.

Thus, CAA was an apt Act proposed by the Indian Central Government to give proper justice to the persecuted minorities who enter India as refugees. As per CAA, Afghan Sikhs and Hindus would have got citizenship in India if they stayed here for more than 5 years. In CAA, the period of mandatory stay has been reduced to 5 years from 11 years.

There was nothing wrong in setting up a classification in the act (CAA) that only persecuted Hindus, Sikhs (Jains, Buddhists, Christians and Parsis too) immigrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan will be provided citizenship in India. This is because people belonging to all these faiths in countries like Afghanistan have faced persecutions for generations and it is clear from the current situation. Further, as it has been already mentioned above that all the countries who are accepting Afghan refugees have a fixed criteria or classification for refugees as per which they will accept them. These countries will not allow everyone to enter their countries until they qualify under the heads mentioned in the classification.

Another point is the number of refugees. All these countries have already fixed the number of refugees which they will accept. They have taken this decision keeping in mind the resources present in their country and as per their economy. For a developing country like India which itself has a huge population, it is really a herculean task to settle them in the country. Therefore, if India decides to take only Hindus and Sikhs refugees and provides them citizenship in the country then it would not much affect the population as they are nearly 700. There were various countries like Turkey, mostly Islamic countries which criticised India when the central government proposed to pass CAA but these countries are themselves not accepting the Afghan refugees. This reflects their hypocrisy and double standards. Turkey has clearly said that they already have 4 million Syrian refugees so, they won’t intake any Afghan refugees. India has about 40,000 Rohingya refugees and more than 2.7 million Bangladeshi refugees. So, passing an Act as per which religious minorities will only be given citizenship in India is the best thing which India needs to do at this point of time.

In a world where more narrow nationalism is used by countries like Turkey to ignore the plight of Afghan people, India by issuing emergency e-visas has shown the world what nationalism truly means. Please note that India is not a signatory to 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol but still India has taken such a step to intake Afghan refugees. Indian nationalism is vast in the sense that it has truly stood for the idea of Bharat. We have again shown the world that we respond to human plight. It has always been our tradition and culture and India stands with the people who are in need.