Human Rights of Refugees

The session of the day started at 2 PM. Before the lectures could begin, Dr. Pratapsinh Salunke came on to the stage, expertly summarizing the topic and providing a short speech, letting the students know what the topic would consist of. Then, Mr. Visruth Raveendran provided a lecture on the topic “Human Rights of Refugees”. In the lecture he spoke on the various institutions of refugees and on the work he had done to help the Rohinga refugees within India. He further spoke on all the measures provided by the UNHRC for the protection of these refugees, yet how every effort is still lacking.

Adv. Raveendran introduced the concept of ‘refugee’ to the audience by expanding on, for the benefit of the audience, the definitions of State (under Article 12 of the Constitution of India) and Statehood (through the concept of Citizenship under Article 11 of the Constitution of India). In establishing these, he brought up the concept of Statelessness- if a person can no longer be said to “belong” to a State, then no State in particular can be held responsible for the fulfilment of rights of the person or the enforcement of the person’s duties and liabilities. This, he highlighted, is where the crux of the problem lies. Adv. Raveendran brought before the audience the chilling story behind a famous internet meme of a small child lying face first on the beach- late Aylan Kurdi, a 3 year old who drowned in the Syrian refugee crisis when his family had attempted to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach Turkey.

Adv. Raveendran then digressed to address the difference between a few similar concepts that are often incorrectly used interchangeably: refugees, asylum-seekers, migrants, immigrants, and internally displaced persons. He then establishing the definition of refugee by the Geneva Refugee Convention held in 1951, wherein the United Nations maintains that a refugee is any person who – out of the fear of being persecuted on the basis of race, nationality, political opinion, or religion – is forced to leave their country of nationality and is unable to return.

Thereafter, he brought up the matter of the Rohingya refugee crisis as a matter actively faced by the State of India, also bringing into focus the fact that not only does India remain a non-party State to the 1951 Geneva Convention but it also lacks domestic laws pertaining to refugees. Adv. Raveendran also highlighted the discrepancy between the attitude of the State of India in dealing with refugees from Tibet, and those from Myanmar (Rohingya), citing a direct link between these differing attitudes and the State’s current political ideology. Herein he also acknowledged the factor of race and how it influenced the attitude of a recipient State and its subsequent likelihood of intake of refugees of different nationalities.

He also described the procedure to be followed by a person seeking refuge in the State of India- firstly to approach the Office of the United Nations in New Delhi and apply for asylum, followed by initial enquiry and the issuance of a yellow card which is subject to a limitation period and the subsequent grant of the status of “asylum seeker”, and pursuant to a final enquiry, the issuance of an identification card. He concluded his segment with a quick reference to the 1995 Bollywood movie “Mammo”, surmising how if the same process of identity deletion and creation were known to Syrian refugees, perhaps the late young Aylan Kurdi would have been alive today

Through his segment, Adv. Raveendran shared with us the reasons for statelessness, what it means to be a refugee and how it brings with itself a hoard of legal and social issues, and thereby how there exists an urgent need for India to frame definite laws pertaining to refugees.