Refuge & Realpolitik: India’s Asylum Dilemmas in a Broken System
Los Angeles security crackdown against protestors of antimigrant policy of the US! (Image X.com)
India’s refugee policy is flawed—at times exclusionary, often inconsistent—but it is not uniquely cruel
By SAHASRANSHU DASH
When India passed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in 2019, I was among those alarmed by its exclusion of Muslim refugees—seemingly at odds with Articles 14 and 21 of the Indian Constitution, which guarantee equality and protection of life to all persons. Paired with the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC), it raised fears of mass disenfranchisement and deportation.
Yet five years later, none of the worst-case scenarios sensationalised by Indian and global media materialised. There were no mass detention camps, no sweeping deportations—certainly nothing even approaching the scale of ICE operations in the U.S. or Frontex pushbacks in Europe.
This analysis reframes the CAA as a flawed but pragmatic attempt to manage demographic pressures, especially from Bangladesh, rather than an authoritarian blueprint. Like much of India’s refugee policy, it reflects a reactive, uneven ad hoc bureaucratic triage—less doctrinal than administrative, in need of reform rather than repeal.
A Directional Asymmetry: Who Leaves, and Who Arrives
What stands out is the consistent absence of Indian Muslims in global and regional asylum systems. The number of Indian Muslims seeking asylum in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and the EU has been statistically insignificant, based on available data.
Regionally, at since the early 1970s for which we have good data, there have been no significant Indian Muslim asylum claims in the nearby Muslim-majority nations Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia or the Maldives. UNHCR records and national statistics for all these countries confirm the absence of any sustained refugee inflow from India.
By contrast, India has absorbed large numbers of Bangladeshi Hindus—10 million in 1971, and an estimated 11 million more between 1971–2011, with 2 million still residing in India. It also hosts ethnically Muslim refugees from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, including Taslima Nasreen and Adnan Sami.
This asymmetry of movement—into India, not out of it—challenges portrayals of India as an ethnocracy-in-the-making. Discrimination exists, but the lack of Indian Muslim outflows underscores the need for a more comparative and proportionate global conversation.
In fact, India’s asylum posture stands out in a region where most states offer no legal or moral asylum obligations. Pakistan recently began deporting 1.7 million Afghan refugees, many of whom were born there. Myanmar continues its ethnic purges. China’s detention camps in Xinjiang are well-known.
India, au contraire, continues to host significant refugee populations: over 100,000 Tibetans, including the Dalai Lama, approximately 95,000 Sri Lankan Tamils, Afghan and Myanmar minorities, and individuals such as Taslima Nasreen and Adnan Sami, the latter granted full citizenship. Unlike its neighbours, India has extended sanctuary for decades, and often without international financial or logistical support.
Narrative Asymmetry and Selective Outrage
Despite this record, India is often singled out. In July 2024, The Washington Post ran the headline: “In India’s deportation drive, Muslim men recount being tossed into the sea.” The article, referring to boat repatriations of Rohingya, reported no deaths—but the headline’s imagery would appear grotesque if applied to the United States, the EU, or any comparable state.
In the EU, thousands of migrants have drowned due to Frontex-supported border practices. The U.S. deported over 355,000 people in 2023, including vulnerable populations. Australia continues to detain asylum seekers offshore. Yet we do not see headlines accusing these countries of “deporting Catholics” or “tossing Muslims into the sea.” Such language is reserved for India, where humanitarian inconsistencies are interpreted not as flaws of governance, but as moral failure of a ‘genocidal state.’
That said, Indian authorities have detained, denied status, and in some cases allegedly deported Rohingyas extraterritorially. India deported approximately 310 Rohingya between 2021 and 2023. However, its pushbacks of undocumented Bangladeshis are far more numerous amounting to tens of thousands annually, according to the Border Security Force. These actions frequently occur without formal legal proceedings, raising genuine due process concerns.
Yet the scale still pales in comparison to other democracies. The U.S. deported over 355,000 people last year. Frontex, the EU’s border agency, carried out more than 100,000 forced returns in 2022. Australia has kept over 3,000 asylum seekers in offshore facilities since 2013. These nations operate with vastly greater capacity and international legitimacy—and with less scrutiny.
Toward Principled Reform — Without Exceptionalism
However, it is true that India’s asylum practices do not operate through universal legal guarantees but via a discretionary ethos grounded in geopolitical strategy, cultural proximity, and civilizational ambition. This is what scholars like Achille Mbembe and Partha Chatterjee have called a fragmented sovereign logic—where the state’s power to recognize, exclude, or tolerate is exercised not through rights but exceptions.
India has no codified asylum law and is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention. Refugee policy is driven by executive discretion. The CAA, which offers a path to citizenship for non-Muslim minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, is ethically troubling for its explicit exclusion of Muslims, including persecuted sects like Ahmadis, Shias, and Hazaras. It also fails to recognise atheists, queer people, and political dissidents, all of whom may face real persecution in the region.
India needs a more coherent and transparent refugee framework. But these changes will not come from external vilification. They are already being debated within India’s legal system, civil society, and public institutions.
Several legal scholars and refugee advocates have proposed drafting a national refugee law, grounded in India’s constitutional principles and modelled on best practices elsewhere. One viable option is adopting a differentiated risk framework, akin to what Germany has implemented, which prioritizes vulnerable groups for protection while retaining case-by-case scrutiny. Another is establishing an independent asylum determination body, much like Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board, which separates executive discretion from legal adjudication and increases transparency.
These ideas are already circulating in Indian legal discourse. The Supreme Court continues to hear constitutional challenges to the CAA, and civil society campaigns have consistently pushed for broader humanitarian inclusion. Contrary to portrayals of India as a regressive outlier, its internal debates are active, informed, and reflect the same democratic contestation found in other liberal societies navigating migration dilemmas.
A Closing Note: Imperfect, but Within the Fold
India’s refugee policy is flawed—at times exclusionary, often inconsistent—but it is not uniquely cruel. Like many democracies, India struggles with migration, state capacity, and identity. Islamophobic rhetoric and anti-immigrant hysteria do exist in India, and in some cases, mirror the nativist panic and punitive enforcement patterns seen in the U.S. under ICE, or the securitized asylum discourse in Europe and Australia. Such impulses are not exceptional to India; they are symptoms of broader democratic anxieties around borders and belonging.
France and Sweden have tightened asylum policies under domestic strain. The United States remains embroiled in legal disputes over border enforcement. Australia and Japan enforce restrictive systems with far fewer humanitarian exceptions.
India differs in two important ways. It has absorbed millions of refugees—most from within its immediate region—without international support. And it continues to host them. Its courts, press, and public dissenters continue to shape how refugee rights and national obligations are negotiated. India belongs squarely within the global democratic conversation on asylum—not outside it.
(This is an opinion piece, and views expressed are those of the author only)
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