“Ensure no discrimination in education”, said the Supreme Court of India on 12th February 2025 while hearing a plea filed by the Rohingya Human Rights Initiative (R4R) seeking government benefits and free-of-cost school admissions for Rohingya ‘refugees’ residing in New Delhi.
The Supreme Court bench comprising Justice Surya Kant and Justice N Kotiswar Singh, directed the NGO to submit address proof of Rohingya immigrants in Delhi to assess possible relief measures. The court, however, added that before deciding on the benefits for the Rohingya refugees, the status of residence of their families needed to be ascertained. The SC bench directed the petitioner not to disclose details of minor children.
Representing the petitioner NGO, senior advocate Colin Gonsalves argued before the court last month that Rohingya illegals despite having a UNHCR refugee card are denied access to schools and hospitals since they don’t have Aadhaar cards. The petitioner not only sought free-of-cost school admission for Rohingya children but also sought an extension of the government’s free health services in government hospitals for Rohingya illegals alongside subsidised food grains as provided to Indian citizens under various schemes.
Apparently, under the garb of ‘humanitarian provisions’, the petitioners want the Central and Delhi governments to treat Rohingya ‘refugees’ as Indian citizens without them really having Indian citizenship and disregarding the fact they are illegal infiltrators.
While Rohingya illegals may brandish their UNHCR refugee card as much as they want, it must be noted here that having a UNHCR refugee card does not give any legal status for illegals in India as the UNHCR card is not recognised by Indian law.
OpIndia’s detailed report on advocate Colin Gonsalves’s Soros connection and the activities of those linked to R4R NGO can be read here.
The fact that Rohingyas somehow, through NGOs or by other means are able to approach Indian courts and seek free-of-cost school admissions, free healthcare, subsidised food grains and other benefits which under specific criteria are available to legal Indian citizens warrants a serious question. What empowers Rohingya illegals Rohingyas to move SC to demand ‘rights’ even though India is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention?
What empowers Rohingya illegals to demand ‘rights’ in Supreme Court?
Even though India is not a signatory of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention or its 1967 protocol, the country has endorsed the 1966 Bangkok Principles on the Status and Treatment of Refugees also called the Bangkok Principles. These principles advocate for humane treatment of refugees and also emphasise non-refoulement.
About the minimum standards of treatment to refugees, the Bangkok Principles say, “A State shall accord to refugees treatment no less favourable than that generally accorded to aliens in similar circumstances, with due regard to basic human rights as recognised in generally accepted international instruments.”
“A refugee shall not be denied any rights on the ground that there is no reciprocity in regard to the grant of such rights between the receiving State and the State or Country of nationality of the refugee or, if he is stateless, the State or Country of his former habitual residence. States undertake to apply these principles to all refugees without discrimination as to race, religion,
nationality, ethnic origin, gender, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, in accordance with the principle of non-discrimination,” it adds.
As per the latest UNHCR data as of 31st December 2024, there are over 95,000 Rohingya Muslims staying in India. his includes 22,500 refugees and asylum seekers considered stateless by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The majority of Rohingya Muslims, over 10 lakh, who fled Myanmar reside in Bangladesh, and they are supported by international aid agencies.
Despite the fact that the Bangkok Principles are not legally binding, India cannot, or rather unwilling to blatantly deprive such a large number of Rohingya refugees of basic human rights. In addition to the Bangkok Principles, India has signed the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights (ICESCR) which do lay a direct or indirect emphasis on non-refoulement and advocate for providing basic rights to refugees.
This further raises the question that when these principles are not legally binding, why should the Indian government heed them? Even though there is no specific refugee law in India as of now, these international treaties including the Bangkok Principles apply a framework of basic rights that should be extended to refugees.
The courts have on various occasions emphasised that Article 21 of the Indian Constitution which guarantees the right to protection of life and personal liberty, suggests that refugees cannot be deprived of basic rights. The courts also cite Article 51 of the Indian constitution which encourages fostering respect for international law and treaty obligations. Thus, despite the international treaties not being legally binding, the Indian government cannot completely disregard the treaties it is a signatory of.
In their quest for rights, Rohingyas are inadvertently doing NRC’s job
Interestingly, while in this scenario, amid all the ‘citizen-like’ rights the Rohingya demand from the government, the silver lining is that this entails the infiltrators voluntarily identifying themselves as non-Indians and registering themselves, a step helpful towards the National Register of Citizens (NRC), which otherwise has been resisted. The NGOs, individuals and other entities who unsurprisingly subscribe to the Islamo-leftist ideology, seeking judicial intervention to demand rights for Rohingyas are inadvertently identifying Rohingya illegals as non-Indians.
The NRC, aimed at identifying and documenting legitimate Indian citizens has faced significant opposition from the Islamo-leftist ecosystem and the opposition parties who push a false narrative that somehow NRC will disenfranchise Indian Muslims. Since 2019, the political parties that thrive on Muslim appeasement tactics and propagandists masquerading as journalists and intellectuals began inciting Indian Muslims by claiming that their citizenship will be revoked and they be dumped into detention centres randomly due to their religious identity.
OpIndia reported earlier about politicians like Mamata Banerjee holding constitutional posts, the ‘elite’ members of the infamous Khan Market gang to ‘human rights’ bodies like Amnesty peddling falsehoods that if a nationwide NRC is prepared, people will lose citizenship. Not to forget how West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee who on numerous occasions labelled her political adversaries like BJP as “Kafirs” (infidels) to bolster her Muslim-supporting credentials, declared in March 2024 that she would not let NRC be implemented in the state. The opposition to CAA, NRC and NPR has been so vehement that the Islamists ran riots against Hindus in India’s national capital in 2020.
It must be noted here that beyond the fear-mongering that somehow NRC will strip Indian Muslims of their citizenship and rights, the Islamo-leftist cabal including dubious NGOs with foreign funding especially those funded by regime change specialist George Soros, oppose NRC to prevent detection and deportation of illegal Rohingya immigrants. What makes Rohingyas special is their religious identity. Rohingyas are dear to certain NGOs, political outfits and the extended ecosystem not simply because of deplorable conditions or persecution in their own country but because they are Muslims. This can be understood from the fact that the very people who want Rohingyas to be allowed to stay in India and given rights, fiercely opposed the CAA, which granted citizenship to persecuted Hindus and other non-Muslim communities in Islamic nations of Pakistan, Afghanistan and a Muslim-majority Bangladesh.
We reported earlier, how the Aam Aadmi Party government wanted to give EWS flats to Rohingya illegals in Delhi, but wanted to jail persecuted Hindu and other religious minorities from Pakistan labelling them as “BJP’s votebank”.
After all these years of opposing the NRC, the Rohingya-sympathising entities who are taking legal recourse to demand rights for Rohingya illegals, are inadvertently facilitating the segregation and identification of these illegal immigrants. The Supreme Court has demanded the address proof and other details of Rohingya illegals in Delhi, who the petitioner NGO through its counsel said are residing in Shaheen Bagh, Kalindi Kunj, and Khajuri Khas areas.
As ironic as it sounds, the Rohingya illegals and the entities seeking free education, free healthcare and whatnot are essentially doing the work of NRC at no cost to the State, that too even before the NRC has been tabled before the parliament. While NRC implementation is the need of the hour, even without it, such information can be used to expedite the deportation of illegal immigrants residing in the country for years.
Challenges in deporting Rohingyas, and the risks posed by Rohingyas demanding ‘rights’
It must be noted here that mass deportation of Rohingya illegals is not pragmatic given the several challenges India faces in identifying and ousting them. One of the biggest challenges is the statelessness of Rohingyas. Due to the 1982 Citizenship Law in Myanmar, Rohingyas are not recognised as Myanmarese citizens and in 2017, they faced one of the largest exodus from their homeland.
These people over the years have illegally entered Bangladesh, India and Malaysia. Since Myanmar does not recognise Rohingyas as its citizens, these stateless people do not have a country where they can be deported. The situation becomes further exacerbated due to international non-refoulement laws which restrict the deportation of refugees back to countries where they might suffer persecution.
It is, however, pertinent to note that Rohingya refugee camps in India have been strongly suspected to be breeding grounds for radicalisation and terror activities. Rohingyas have been arrested in the past for involvement in human trafficking. They have been arrested for involvement in dacoities. There has also been the suspicion that there is a deliberate attempt to Islamicize Hindu-majority Jammu by settling Rohingyas. Rohingyas are known to have committed massacres of Hindus. They undeniably pose a threat to India’s national security and need to be ousted from the country.
Despite the UNHCR refugee cards having no legal significance in India, it creates moral and international pressure to provide basic rights to Rohingya illegals until they are deported. Besides, the deportation of Rohingyas becomes challenging due to their undocumented status. Since these illegal immigrants lack identification documents it is difficult to verify their nationality with Myanmar given the latter’s stance on their citizenship. The non-refoulement principles which even the Indian courts emphasise coupled with the resistance from Rohingya illegals to deportation further complicates the process. International norms, porous Indo-Myanmar border, domestic politics, and judicial interventions, among other challenges, make it a mammoth task to deport the illegal infiltrators.
The very fact that rights are being demanded for Rohingyas who entered illegally in India and are staying here illegally is alarming. While their voluntary identification as non-Indians facilitating NRC could be a silver lining since there are no signs of legislation in this regard being passed anytime soon, it is pertinent to look into the risks that these audacious demands for ‘rights’ pose.
Taking the Delhi Rohingyas case for example, if the Supreme Court which already has said that there is no question of denying education to Rohingya children, directs the Central and Delhi governments to provide free education alongside free healthcare to the illegal immigrants, it is plausible that these ‘refugees’ would seek more rights including employment.
Eventually, demands for citizenship could also be raised by the illegal immigrants or NGOs and political parties backing them, citing long-term residence or the “de facto integration” into Indian society. Given the lengths to which Muslim appeasing political parties, ‘intellectuals’ and NGOs travel to ensure rights for illegal Muslim immigrants, demands for granting citizenship to Rohingyas could be raised by arguing that in many countries long-term residency or principle of naturalisation are applied to grant citizenship to refugees, particularly to those considered stateless.
Thus, domestic politics coupled with international pressure to provide more than just temporary refuge to Rohingya illegals might create a pathway to long-term legal status or permanent refugee status if not citizenship especially since Myanmar remains largely uncooperative and unstable.
However, despite the challenges in deporting illegal Rohingya immigrants, OpIndia reported earlier how the Indian government has been deporting Rohingyas as well as Bangladeshi illegals and cracking down on those involved in obtaining forged documents and indulging in criminal activities.
