Refugees on rise in India

India has seen an increase in the number of foreigners seeking asylum in the last two years, mainly from troubled neighbouring countries. Moushumi Das Gupta reports.

India has seen an increase in the number of foreigners seeking asylum in the last two years, mainly from troubled neighbouring countries.

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Of the 7,300 asylum seekers registered with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in New Delhi, a majority of them are from Afghanistan and Myanmar.

But overall, the total number of refugees in India has remained relatively stable at 1.85 lakh, according to the 2009 Global Trends report released on Tuesday by the UNHCR.

In 2009, however, it was India's next-door neighbour Pakistan that hosted 1.7 million refugees – the largest in the world.
The other four largest refugee-hosting countries were Iran (1.1 million) and the Syria (1.05 million), Germany (5.9 lakh) and Jordan (4.5 lakh).

Notwithstanding internal problems in Pakistan, nearly all refugees in Pakistan in 2009 were from Afghanistan.

"Apart from the fact that the Pakistan-Afghanistan border is very porous, it's also partly because of Pakistan's ethnic composition. In the North-West Frontier Province, a majority of the people are Pashtuns who also form a large ethnic community in Afghanistan," said Lalit Mansingh, former Indian foreign secretary.

One out of four refugees in the world were from Afghanistan. With up to 6.4 million of its citizens seeking refuge in other countries, Afghanistan tops the list of countries whose nationals have sought asylum in other countries. The other major source countries of refugees are Iraq with 1.7 million refugees, Somalia with 6.7 lakh, Congo with 4.5 lakh and Myanmar with 4 lakh.

Overall, 43.3 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide at the end of 2009 – the highest number since the mid-1990s, says the report. Of this, the total number of refugees in Asia and Pacific region was 3.9 million. However, the overall refugee numbers remained relatively stable at 15.2 million.

"Over the last two decades, since the end of the cold war, there are more internal conflicts than inter-state conflicts.
And a majority of the internal conflict is taking place in developing countries. The growing number of refugees is a consequence of that," said Prof Rajesh Rajagopalan, School of International studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

The report also says that only 251,000 refugees voluntarily returned to their countries —the lowest since 1990.