This handbook marks a key intervention in refugee studies in India—home to diverse groups of refugees, including an entire government in exile. It unravels the various socio-economic, political, and cultural dimensions of refugee issues in India.
The volume examines the various legal, political, and policy frameworks for accommodating refugees or asylum seekers in India, including the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Registry of Citizens. It evaluates the lack of uniformity in the Indian legal and political framework to deal with its refugee population and analyzes the grounds of inclusion or exclusion for different groups. Drawing from the experiences of Jewish, Tibetan, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Afghan, and Rohingya refugees in India, it analyzes debates around marginalization, citizenship, and refugee rights. It also explores the spatial and gendered dimensions of forced migration and the cultural and social lives of displaced communities, including their quest for decent work, education, and health.
The volume will be an indispensable reference for scholars, lawyers, researchers, and students of refugee studies, migration and diaspora studies, public policy, social policy and development studies.
List of Figures. List of Tables. List of Contributors. Acknowledgements. Part I Introduction 1. Refugees: Status, Conditions and their Future Part II Constitution and Refugees 2. Genealogies of Discourse: Updating the National Register of Citizens in Assam 3. The State of Being Stateless: Examining and Evaluating the Grounds of Exclusion in Assam’s NRC Exercise through Class and Gender 4. The Citizen Determination Process in India (including the citizenship Amendment Bill 2016) and the Ensuing Refugee Crisis 5. Exclusionary Trends in the Indian Citizenship Regime Part III Refugee Law and Policy 6. Exploring Refugee Lives in India Through the Lens of Legal Pluralism 7. Rohingya Refugees in India: Governmental and Judicial Attitude 8. India’s Refugee Law and Politics of Hospitality since Independence 9. Discourse around the Refugee Protection Paradigm in India 10. International Refugee Law and the Indian State: Contested Law and Refugee Life between ‘Two States" 11. India’s Refugee Protection Obligations beyond the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol 12. The Refugee Convention of 1951: India’s Persisting Dilemma 13. Reimagining Refugee Protection in India vis-à-vis Global Compact on Refugees Part IV Statelessness 14. Statelessness and the Indian State: National Belonging and the Right of Space 15. Stateless in India: Institutionalizing Home-Grown Solutions 16. Stateless among the Refugees 17. Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Stateless Citizens Part V Refugees 18. The Life of Labels: Refugees, Displaced Persons and Migrants 19. Between Host and Home: Cultural Lives and Activism of refugees 20. Refugees and Sustainable Development Goals: An Insight 21. Socio-Demographic Profile of Forced Migration 22. Resilience and Coping Mechanisms of Refugee Communities 23. Education and Lifelong Learning for Refugees: Equity and Inclusion in Policy and Practice 24. Conservation of Resources and Post-migration Stress Part VI Jewish Refugees 25. The History of Refugee Jewish Migration Part VII Rohingya Refugees 26. Rohingya Refugees in India 27. Living Conditions of Rohingya in India 28. The Rohingya Refugees in Hyderabad 29. The Perpetual Exceptions to Rights: Rohingya in India 30. Statelessness-Citizenship Continuum: The Rohingya’s Quest for Belonging and Surviving 31. Autonomy and Dignity of the Rohingya Woman 32. Human Security: A Solution-based Approach to the Rohingya Refugee Policy 33. India’s Response towards the Rohingya Crisis 34. Rohingya Refugees and Myanmar: State, Citizenship and Human Rights 35. Rohinya Refugees in Jammu: Analysis of Socio-economic and Demographic Conditions Part VIII Sindhi Refugees 36. Cartographies of Sindh: Religion, Region, Language 37. Resettlement Experiences of Sindhi Women Refugees Post-Partition Part IX Pakistani and Bangladeshi Hindu Refugees 38. Locating Pakistani Nationals in India: Challenges and Responses 39. A Pakistani Hindu Demographic Survey, Western Rajasthan 40. Livelihood Strategies: Pakistani Hindu Refugees in Rajasthan 41. Bengali Hindu Refugees in the Andaman Islands Part X Tibetan Refugees 42. The Privileged Refugees: Questions on Tibetan Nationality and Citizenship 43. Education of Tibetan Refugees: Sowing Future Seeds of Tibet 44. Making of a Mediatized Tibetan Diaspora in the 21st century 45. Household Economy and Livelihood Strategies among Tibetan Refugees Part XI Sri Lankan Refugees 46. Resolution of the Sri Lankan Refugee Dilemma 47. At the margins: Tamil refugee women in camps in Tamil Nadu 48. Sri Lankan Tamil Refugees: A Voiceless, Undignified Existence 49. Life of Sri Lankan Refugee Women in the Camps of Tamil Nadu 50. A synthesis of studies examining Sri Lankan Refugee families in India 51. Life-Livelihood-Dignity model of rehabilitation for Sri Lankan Refugees 52. The Contribution of Forced Colonial Migration to the Refugee Crisis: A Focus on Indian Origin Tamil Refugees from Sri Lanka 53. Repatriates and Refugees in Tamil Nadu: Learning to Live in Colonies and Camps 54. Spatial Dimensions in Narratives of History: Sri Lankan Repatriates on Katchal and Little Andaman Part XII Afghan Refugees 55. Gendered Refugee Experience: The Case of Afghan Women Refugees 56. Cast Away: Understanding Experiences of Afghan Hindu, Sikh and Christian Refugees Part XIII Emerging Issues 57. Tibetan Community in Exile: A Model for Other Refugee Groups 58. Pushbacks at Borders 59. The Economic Status of Sri Lankan and Tibetan Refugees in India 60. Afghans Refugees in the Higher Education System in Delhi 61. Agony of Survival: Refugees and Marginality in India during COVID-19 62. From Frames of Victimhood to that of Othering: Mapping Media Representations of Refugees 63. Media Representation of Rohingya Refugees 64. Healthcare for Refugees in India: A Humanitarian Approachtowards Public Health for All 65. The Global Compact on Refugees and the Global Compact for Migration: A Grand Experiment. Index.
Biography
S. Irudaya Rajan is chairman of the International Institute of Migration and Development (IIMAD), India, and chair of the KNOMAD (the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development) thematic working group on internal migration and urbanization, World Bank. Previously, he was a professor at the Centre for Development Studies, and Chair, Research Unit on International Migration (RUIM), funded by the erstwhile Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, Government of India (2006–2016). Dr Rajan is the founding editor-in-Chief of Migration and Development (Taylor and Francis), Refugee Survey Quarterly (Editorial Board member) and the editor of two Routledge series – India Migration Report and South Asia Migration Report. He has published extensively in national and international journals on demographic, social, economic, political, and psychological implications of international migration. He has also coordinated eight major large-scale migration surveys in Kerala since 1998 (with K.C. Zachariah), Goa (2008), Punjab (2009), Tamil Nadu (2015), and instrumental for Gujarat (2011).
