Tibetans: Exiled For Life

By Suzan Okar, Countercurrents.com, 12 October, 2007

Combat Law

India shelters one of the largest refugee populations in the world. Tibetans are the largest refugee group in South Asia and majority of them live in India. They maintain a unique culture and are pursuing a peaceful struggle. Before drawing a conclusion about the treatment meted out to Tibetans in India one must first look at international norms for treatment of refugees.

The international norms of treatment of refugees are embodied in the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951 and its 1967 Protocol. The latter removes temporal and geographical limitations. In these two documents, 34 rights and freedoms are granted to refugees. World's 137 countries have signed the convention and the subsequent protocol. Contracting parties can express their reservations to all the articles contained in the Convention and Protocol except Article 3 non-discrimination; Art 1- refugee definition; Art 4- freedom of religion; Art 16(1)- access to courts; and Art. 33 - the principle of non-refoulement (a pre-condition against rejection and deportation of any person trying to cross borders in case this could endanger life of the entrant). India has yet to sign the Convention and its Protocol, leaving Indian policy outside the jurisdiction of UN supervision.

In its 1998 Country Report on India, the US Committee for Refugees highlighted that only 18,500 refugees had received United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) protection out of 3,00,000. India, by not signing the 1951 Convention, in essence, has refused substantial international assistance from other UN member states. Even though India maintains that refugee convention places a large burden on the host state, the UNHCR would actually bear a substantial part of the burden by providing most important financial assistance to the refugees arriving in India. India's current policy regarding refugees within its borders is not to assist and the refugee situation is handled on ad-hoc basis.

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