India’s Hollow Friendship
In central New Delhi, hundreds of Afghan refugees have come out in the streets including children and women. All they must demand is unbearably simple, papers, respect, and an opportunity to live. And still with months and years of waiting, their voices have been unheard by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and what is worse is by the Indian government itself. Apparently, most Afghan refugees have concentrated on the backlog of cases and bureaucracy in the UNHCR in resettling refugees, however, more fundamentally wrong is the way India has treated the Afghan refugees is poor indifferent management policies. These are not only administrative weaknesses but signs of greater hypocrisy. It is such a hypocrisy where India declares friendship with the Afghan people in the international forums and denies them even the minimal human rights on its own territory. That’s what is India’s Hollow Friendship.
Is India’s friendship a façade?
Notably, India has been attempting to establish itself since long as a regional ally and advocate to Afghanistan. Whether via investments in the economy or reaching out diplomatically, the Indian authorities have continued to stress that they are on the side of the people of Afghanistan especially since Taliban rose to power. But when the persecuted, violence and terror-stricken Afghan refugees reach the borders of India, they encounter not help, but indifference, neglect and red tape. The paradox stands out. The foreign policy of India can claim as its asset the regional peace and humanitarian sensitivity, however, the domestic policy displays the lack of understanding and interest in human affairs in a rather shocking manner.
Behind the Smiles, India Faint Hypnotic States of Alliance
The situation of Afghan refugees in India have been not good. Hundreds of thousands of people have been living years in legal limbo awaiting their asylum decisions or official UNHCR recognition. Devoid of documentation, their lives are without any foundations. Students trapped in classrooms should be in the protest lines or stuck at home by a bureaucracy too used to dominate the situation instead of finding solutions to the problems. This excludes families to healthcare and other liberties of vital provisions thus making them susceptible to suffering and disease. Likewise, Employment opportunities are very few and most do not find an opportunity to work illegally; they end up in poverty and become dependent. Even the available aid is not enough, and the social environment tends to be unfair. Adding fuel to the fire, refugees also complain of discrimination, xenophobia, and harassment by the locals which only adds to their troubles and isolation.
On that account, such negligence is not casual. India does not have a written refugee law and even though thousands of refugees belonging to different parts of the world are accommodated there. And India addresses them in terms of a loose and discretionary policy. India has not taken the same perseverance as exhibited by Pakistan that has hosted more than 3million Afghan refugees over the past 40 years and in relative peace. The lack of legal safeguard implies that the refugees are left to the elements of arbitrary procedures and decisions. They are senseless and lost in the streets of Delhi whose voices are not heard by the in-hearing system but rather seen by the mindless.
The next most heartbreaking is the situation of the Afghan children. These children are being deprived of future by not being given an education. Whereas Indian leaders talk about progress, peace and development of the region, they forget that there is a lot of suffering of the Afghan youth in their country. Education is the right not the luxury. But to Afghan refugee children in India it is an elusive dream, blocked by red tape and lack of concern. Their parents ran away because of the war to have their kids live, learn and grow. Rather, they become stagnant and hopeless.
Over and above that, the administration incompetence which has not been able to act in India is not merely an administrative failure but is moral failure. A friend is one who is with you when you are hit, not only in the diplomacy manner but also in practice. Pakistan with all its political problems has been found guilty of offering hospitality to Afghan refugees more than which India has ever tried to do. Pakistan has been the home to more than 6 million Afghan refugees offering them services and avenues to integrate into its society since the past 40 years or so. Meanwhile, the Afghan families in India have been lingering near the gates of UNHCR more than four years, at the fringe of the society, as well as out of the juridical boundaries.
The comparison is condemning. India has remained unsuccessful in serving some of the most vulnerable people in the region, yet it hopes to grow to affect leadership in South Asia as it woos the international recognition. Refugees of Afghanistan are not seeking handouts in India. They do not want luxury or privilege. They just want to live in dignity, to be able to take their children to school, have access of medical facilities, be given the opportunity to earn their earnings to maintain their families and, they should be treated as human beings, with some right. These are not too unrealistic expectations. They are the basic needs of decent society.
However, in the modern India, they are inaccessible. The demonstrations in New Delhi are not a mere lament of inefficiencies of the UNHCR, but it is a straight and direct indictment on Indian false friendship. When the Indian leaders address the world community and speak about solidarity with Afghanistan, their words sound empty to the ears of those, who are waiting in the refugee shelters and on the lines of protests. India might have relations with Afghanistan on a cultural and historical front, but friendship is a mantle of deeds rather than words. And at this point of crisis, India has opted to be quiet.
Until India can review its refugee policies, acknowledge the rights of those it is currently housing and go beyond merely talking about being a compassionate country, it can be said to be betraying not only the Afghanistan refugees but also to itself. The voice of people of Afghanistan reverberates in the streets of Delhi, not to be charitable, but to be treated as humans. India should make choices on whether it is going to be a fair-weather friend or a true ally. In friendship, as in humanity, it is in adversity true loyalty is proved.
