The pressure on Europe to take in thousands of displaced Asians and Africans is a reminder of the almost permanent refugee problem nearer home involving Hindus from Pakistan and Bangladesh, Sri Lankan Tamils and Tibetans. The European crisis also reminds us that the refugee situation everywhere can be solved harmoniously only if it adjusts to a national context.
Native American Indians, New Zealand’s Maoris and Australian Aborigines must rue the day when Europe’s excess population appropriated their lands. The ethnic Malays who inhabited Singapore Island before war, rebellion and famine drove thousands of Chinese out of their ravaged country to seek homes in South-east Asia must harbour similar anguish. The Palestinians who had to make way for Jews to reclaim their “promised land” certainly do so. History tells us in fact that while the world has a moral obligation to the dispossessed, their rehabilitation should never be at the expense of settled civilisations.
It is understandable, therefore, that a small country like Macedonia should fear being overrun by Syrians or Afghans. Or that Serbia should try to erect a fence along its border. Hungary and Australia have expressed a preference for Christian refugees. There was a time when British immigration officials resented having to process thousands of East African Asians fleeing Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika. True, everyone is morally obliged to follow the noble example of the hundreds of Germans pictured holding up placards with the word “Willkommen” (Welcome) and shown embracing the battered refugees from war and destitution. But such generosity does not come easily to those (like British immigration staff) who feel apprehensive for their own livelihood or culture.
This is a genuine misgiving in Assam, Tripura and some of West Bengal’s border districts which have received a high number of illegal migrants from Bangladesh. As a result, the demographic balance is in danger of being upset, if it has not been upset already in favour of Muslims who already boast a higher rate of growth. The Union Government’s policy to “exempt Bangladeshi and Pakistani nationals belonging to minority communities from the relevant provisions of the Passport Act and the Foreigners Act” may have come too late in the day to make an impact.
Understandably, the relaxation applies only to Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Parsis and Buddhists. It does not apply to such local Pakistani communities as Ahmadiyas and Shias, while rationalists and atheists – although much in the news nowadays – find no mention. However much sympathy one might feel, it is no part of New Delhi’s duty to meddle in the tortured relationship between Pakistan’s majority and minority communities, or pose as saviour of the latter. But given the history of the subcontinent’s communal relations, and the basis of Partition, India cannot escape its obligation to all the non-Muslims of the region, especially its Hindus.
Even in the past, when India rejected any attempt at being described as a “Hindu Rashtra”, this was the guiding principle on which border security operated. A Hindu fleeing erstwhile East Pakistan was admitted more readily than a Muslim. Going further back, the 1950 pact between Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistan’s then prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was an attempt (although misguided and therefore it misfired) to ensure that East Pakistani Hindus were not done out of their property rights. In practice, and this Nehru in his innocence did not anticipate, it enabled the Pakistanis to drive out Hindus and seize the properties over which they retained a titular claim to comply with the law. The point of reiterating this is to emphasise that even then, India acted upon a certain responsibility for the Hindus left behind in Pakistan.
There are still about eight million Hindus in Bangladesh. India’s strong political and economic support for Sheikh Hasina Wazed’s Awami League government is for the time being the best guarantee of their security. There have been suggestions of carving out a strip of territory from western Bangladesh to create a homeland for these people, but that is not feasible. They already comprise the majority in places like Assam’s Silchar and Cachar districts, and in Tripura. But laced among them are the East Bengal (East Pakistani or Bangladeshi) illegal Muslims who pose a subtle threat to the integrity of Indian nationhood.
The question of Akhand Bharat doesn’t arise in this context. Bharat has already been splintered into three nations, and nothing will ever reunite them. That is something even the most fanatical adherent of Hindutva must be reconciled to. Nor, swinging to the other extreme, can the ancient Vedic ideal of “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” be invoked to claim Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are one family. They are, but no more so than Indians, Myanmarese, Chinese and Vietnamese are also brothers under the skin. Until such time as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation can transform itself into an eastern equivalent of the European Union, we must be content with cementing ties of friendly cooperation among three sovereign nations that often do not see eye to eye.
Creating or reinventing “a new Hindu scripture” to provide some kind of justification for Hindutva will only make the task of South Asian cooperation even more difficult. By blurting out their uncomfortable thoughts on “cultural pollution” and the Muslim identity, the Mahesh Sharmas in Narendra Modi’s camp only alienate other groups. They also blur the vital difference between refugees and migrants.
The formal difference is that while the latter are impelled by the quest for a better life – like bright IIT graduates who seek their fortune in America’s Silicon Valley – the former are trying only to safeguard the one life they have. But roles overlap. Three-year-old Aylan Kurdi was a refugee, but his bereaved father may well have been a migrant trying to ensure prosperity for his wife and children. The Sri Lankan Tamils who flocked at one time to Canada and the Scandinavian countries were both. They were escaping a genocidal war. But they were also trying to secure their economic future.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that 59.5 million persons had been displaced by some form of conflict, war or persecution at the end of last year. Apparently, only a small fraction of these displaced persons could be called economic refugees. But a closer examination of individual motives in each case might have exposed the underlying economic motivation.
Everyone has agreed that Europe can absorb the Asian and African refugees who cross the Mediterranean in leaky tubs or travel overland via Turkey. But these people from Syria, Eritrea and other war zones do themselves no good by refusing the discipline of transit camps, escaping from special trains and attacking border fences. If they want to settle down among Europeans, they should demonstrate the capacity for living within the law that is a major distinguishing feature between Europeans and the rest of the world. Hindus from Pakistan and Bangladesh have a right to asylum in India; Europe’s acceptance of Asians and Africans is still an act of grace and favour.
