Two Union Ministries Contradict Each Other on Myanmar Rohingyas

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, Aug 17: The union home and the housing ministries on Wednesday contradicted each other on the centre’s refugee policy with Hardeep Singh Puri promising housing and security to the Rohingya refugees from Myanmar and Amit Shah refusing to provide the “illegal foreigners” any such benefits and extra facility.

Within hours after Puri, who hold housing and urban affairs departments, said the Rohingya refugees, most of them Muslims, would be shifted to EWS flats in Bakkarwala area in Delhi with additional security and taunting “those who made a career out of spreading canards on India’s refugee policy, the union home ministry refuted any such move and said the Rohingya refugees would remain where they were, at the detention centres.

Puri’s earlier tweet promising EWS flats to Rohingyas, was seen as a change in the stance towards the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Union Government’s policy on Rohingya. Puri stated: “India has always welcomed those who have sought refuge. In a landmark decision all #Rohingya #Refugees will be shifted to EWS flats in Bakkarwala area of Delhi. They will be provided basic amenities, UNHCR IDs & round-the-clock @DelhiPolice protection.”

He also taunted the critics of the government’s treatment of the Rohingyas, “Those who made a career out of spreading canards on India’s refugee policy deliberately linking it to CAA will be disappointed. India respects and follows UN Refugee Convention 1951 and provides refuge to all, regardless of their race, religion or creed,” he added in another tweet.

But to his disappointment, the home ministry immediately contradicted him saying, “With respect to news reports in certain sections of media regarding Rohingya illegal foreigners, it is clarified that Ministry of Home Affairs [MHA] has not given any directions to provide EWS flats to Rohingya illegal migrants at Bakkarwala in New Delhi,” the MHA tweeted from its official handle.

The Home Ministry clarified that it had only directed the GNCTD (Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi) to ensure that Rohingya migrants would continue at the present location, since the Delhi Government proposed to shift them to a new location.

“Illegal foreigners are to be kept in Detention Centre till their deportation as per law. They will continue at the present location as MHA has already taken up the matter of their deportation with the concerned country through MEA. The Government of Delhi has not declared the present location as a Detention Centre. They have been directed to do the same immediately,” the Home Ministry said in a series of tweets referring Rohingya Muslims as “illegal foreigners” and not even recognising them as “refugees.”

India is not a signatory to the UN convention which spells out refugee rights and the obligations of countries to protect them. A former diplomat, Hardeep Puri is the minister for Housing, Urban Affairs as well as Petroleum and Natural Gas. His tweets were followed by three from the Union Home Ministry, led by Amit Shah, who has in the past called illegal immigrants “termites.”

Rohingyas have been living in Madanpur Khadar and Kalindi Kunj for the past decade. Their dwellings were gutted in fire twice – in 2018 and 2021 – and they have since been living in tents provided by the Delhi government. The MHA said that it had directed the Delhi government to declare the present location of the refugees as a detention centre.

The Modi Government had previously tried to send back members of the minority from predominately Buddhist Myanmar, hundreds of thousands of whom have fled from persecution and waves of violence in their homeland over the years.

As of early this year, around 1,100 Rohingya lived in Delhi and another 17,000 elsewhere in India, many of them working as manual labourers, hawkers and rickshaw pullers, according to estimates from Rohingya rights activist Ali Johar. He said some 2,000 people went back to Bangladesh this year, amid fears many would be deported. Bangladesh has sheltered nearly a million Rohingya.