The disaster next door: 

The disaster next door: 

Context:

• India’s stand on Rohingya refugees’ issues and its implications.

How India’s stance undermines its ties with Bangladesh and its regional leadership?

• Rohingya refugees from the Rakhine state in Myanmar has put Bangladesh in a difficult situation.
• Almost 300,000 refugees have taken shelter in squalid, unsanitary camps scattered along Myanmar-Bangladesh border in a span of two weeks.
• The Myanmar authorities claim that 400 lives have been lost due to military action.

Where is India’s century old policy of Atithi Devo Bhava?

• The Rohingya refugees have been shunned, denied basic public services in India where they have sought refuge in India.
• The government has called them to be illegal immigrants and trespassers.
• India has been generously accommodative towards refugees in the neighborhood fleeing persecution in the past.
• India accommodated Parsis, Tibetans, Afghans, Sri Lankan Tamils, and Bangladeshis during the war of liberation in 1971.
• India has prided itself in its tradition of Atithi Devo Bhava.
• India’s stance on the Rohingya has been disappointing and is contradictory to the values of hospitality and inclusiveness.
• India has overlooked the atrocities on Rakhine in the India-Myanmar joint statement.
• Being a resource-constrained country, Bangladesh is badly impacted due to the refugee crisis.

What is the current situation in Bangladesh?

• Bangladesh has been a role model of friendship in India’s neighborhood.
• International relief agencies in Bangladesh (UNHCR, World Food Programme etc.) are struggling to attend to a large number of refugees arriving each day on foot or by boat.  
• Bangladesh, itself one of the world’s most densely populated nations.
• It has hosted more than 600,000 Rohingya compared to 40,000 by India.
• It has plans of making another 607 hectares of land available near the Myanmar border for camps.
• It has also urged the international community to put pressure on Myanmar to take back the refugees and stop the violence against them.

What are the implications?

• India’s move to dissociate itself from the Bali Declaration puts into question its respect for human rights and the treatment of minorities.
• The declaration claims to respect human rights of all people in Rakhine state.
• It weakens India’s moral authority to speak for minorities in other parts of its neighborhood.
• Small nations like Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka joined the declaration.
• Since 2009, Bangladesh has been addressing almost all security concerns of India and proved itself as a trusted neighbor.
• The India-Bangladesh border today is one of the safest for India, enabling massive redeployment of its vital border resources for other purposes.
• Bangladesh has neither received water from the Teesta or support in times of humanitarian crisis from its biggest neighbor.
• The promptness is missing when it comes to supporting Bangladesh in distress situation.
• Being the largest democracy in the region, India has can play an important role in resolving the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar.
• Although Myanmar is an important stakeholder of India’s ‘Look East Policy’, its stand on the Rohingya crisis reflects lack of moral leadership.
• India has failed to rise the occasion in extending its influence in the region.

Why has India failed in generating confidence in the region?

• India fails to generate confidence in the region due to its complex geopolitics based more on political opportunism and economic interests as opposed to principles and values, practiced consistently.