Delhi Diary: For Rohingya Refugees, It's A Life Of Misery In India

Shakir Husain, Bernama’s correspondent in New Delhi shares his take from the Indian sub-continent. NEW DELHI, Oct 2 (Bernama) -- Living in squalor in a cramped shelter near the polluted Yamuna river in Delhi, the conditions for Rohingya refugees are getting more desperate. In addition to their miserable existence, Rohingyas in India must now also live in the fear of being sent back to their scorched villages and concentration camps in Myanmar. Rohingya refugees keep hearing horror stories about Buddhist-majority Myanmar's ongoing massive crackdown, described by the United Nations as "a textbook example of ethnic cleansing", against their community in their ancestral villages and towns. Given a choice, they would leave India at the earliest opportunity. But they hardly have a choice. Their conditions in India may be deplorable, but at least the refugees are lucky to be alive and are trying to eke out a living doing any menial job. "Is this life? Is this how human being should live?" asked 45-year-old Mohammed Haroon, pointing towards the decrepit shacks at one of the refugee shelters in the Indian capital. Haroon and his family are among 230 Rohingyas who live in the camp in Delhi's Madanpur Khadar area. Covering an area of 1,100 square yards, it houses 47 families. The Zakat Foundation of India charity has provided the land for what's called "Darul Hijrat", or the abode for refugees, and tries to help the families as best as it can within its limited resources. "We do not want to live here. But where else can we go?" says Haroon helplessly, aware that now the Indian government wants to deport them. His village is in Buthidaung in the province of Arakan, also known as Rakhine, where widespread atrocities have taken place. However, it appears that the Rohingyas are unwelcomed in India. The government told the Supreme Court recently that it considers Rohingyas as "a threat to national security." Haroon is upset and considers the allegations as preposterous. "How are we a threat to India? We left our homeland to save our lives. We will go back when it is safe for us. We do not want to live here permanently," he told Bernama. According to estimates, there are 40,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees in India and more than 16,000 of them have refugee papers from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). India wants to deport them all. There is also pressure from right-wing Hindu groups for their expulsion. An influential section of the media has portrayed Rohingyas as a "threat" to India. Now the refugees are afraid to talk to the Indian media. "They came and talked to us and after that they said bad things about us on TV. We have decided not to talk to them anymore. We thought they wanted to help us by showing our difficult conditions," said Haroon. The camp has 74 children and the refugees are horrified to even think that they will be forcibly removed one day. They have been living in India for many years, having entered the country via Bangladesh. Many remember the brutal crackdown the Myanmarese military began after Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won a landslide election victory in 1990. Its result was officially nullified later and Suu Kyi became one of the longest serving celebrity political prisoners. Rohingyas had backed her party, but today the community considers her complicit in the genocide being carried out by the military and Buddhist mobs. "We have no hope in Myanmar. We left because Myanmar became a place where there was no dignity even in death. They took away all of our rights. Today the situation is much worse," Mohammed Salimullah, aged 35, told Bernama. Until the clamor grew for their deportation recently, Rohingya refugees found India to be an open society, which showed kindness towards them even though it could not provide them a comfortable life. Now they feel scared and humiliated when they hear that the government considers them a security threat. In their exposure of three countries -- Myanmar, Bangladesh, India -- the refugees see Indian conditions as most acceptable. They say Myanmar is a hellish place that offers them only death, misery and destruction. Bangladesh wants to help them and has good intentions but lacks resources. India being a large country should be able to accommodate them, but their lives are full of uncertainties. "They are depressed and nervous," said a person who helps the refugees in improving their conditions. Salimullah said other countries should work with the UNHCR to help them get out of their misery. "We want our children to have a future. We don't deserve this inhuman life we are living today," he said. -- BERNAMA