{"id":35219,"date":"2018-10-31T15:50:12","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T10:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=35219"},"modified":"2018-10-31T15:50:12","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T10:20:12","slug":"the-disaster-next-door","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-disaster-next-door\/","title":{"rendered":"The disaster next door:\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/todays-paper\/tp-opinion\/the-disaster-next-door\/article19657443.ece\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The disaster next door<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Context: <\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India\u2019s stand on Rohingya refugees\u2019 issues and its implications. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>How India\u2019s stance undermines its ties with Bangladesh and its regional leadership?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rohingya refugees from the Rakhine state in Myanmar has put Bangladesh in a difficult situation.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Almost 300,000 refugees have taken shelter in squalid, unsanitary camps scattered along Myanmar-Bangladesh border in a span of two weeks.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Myanmar authorities claim that 400 lives have been lost due to military action. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Where is India\u2019s century old policy of Atithi Devo Bhava? <\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Rohingya refugees have been shunned, denied basic public services in India where they have sought refuge in India. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The government has called them to be illegal immigrants and trespassers.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India has been generously accommodative towards refugees in the neighborhood fleeing persecution in the past.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India accommodated Parsis, Tibetans, Afghans, Sri Lankan Tamils, and Bangladeshis during the war of liberation in 1971. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India has prided itself in its tradition of Atithi Devo Bhava. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India\u2019s stance on the Rohingya has been disappointing and is contradictory to the values of hospitality and inclusiveness.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India has overlooked the atrocities on Rakhine in the India-Myanmar joint statement.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Being a resource-constrained country, Bangladesh is badly impacted due to the refugee crisis. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What is the current situation in Bangladesh? <\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bangladesh has been a role model of friendship in India&#8217;s neighborhood.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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. \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bangladesh, itself one of the world\u2019s most densely populated nations.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has hosted more than 600,000 Rohingya compared to 40,000 by India. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has plans of making another 607 hectares of land available near the Myanmar border for camps. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has also urged the international community to put pressure on Myanmar to take back the refugees and stop the violence against them.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What are the implications?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India\u2019s move to dissociate itself from the Bali Declaration puts into question its respect for human rights and the treatment of minorities.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The declaration claims to respect human rights of all people in Rakhine state. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It weakens India&#8217;s moral authority to speak for minorities in other parts of its neighborhood.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Small nations like Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka joined the declaration.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Since 2009, Bangladesh has been addressing almost all security concerns of India and proved itself as a trusted neighbor.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The India-Bangladesh border today is one of the safest for India, enabling massive redeployment of its vital border resources for other purposes.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bangladesh has neither received water from the Teesta or support in times of humanitarian crisis from its biggest neighbor.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The promptness is missing when it comes to supporting Bangladesh in distress situation. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Being the largest democracy in the region, India has can play an important role in resolving the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Although Myanmar is an important stakeholder of India\u2019s \u2018Look East Policy\u2019, its stand on the Rohingya crisis reflects lack of moral leadership.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India has failed to rise the occasion in extending its influence in the region. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Why has India failed in generating confidence in the region?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The disaster next door:\u00a0 Context: India\u2019s stand on Rohingya refugees\u2019 issues and its implications. How India\u2019s 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&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-disaster-next-door\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The disaster next door:\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704426304},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}