Afghan Refugees in India: A Case Study of Bhogal

Abstract

The tumultuous context of unending-violence and war in Afghanistan has thrown the life of its citizens into quagmire. In search of safety, approximately half of Afghanistan's population has migrated to different countries across the globe. In the aftermath of Soviet-sponsored Saur Revolution in 1978, maximum Afghan refugees sought asylum in Pakistan followed by Iran; while India stands at 12th position in becoming home to thousands of them. All the countries who are signatory to the International Refugee Convention of 1952 and International Refugee Protocol of 1967 are obliged to treat refugees through the concept of non-refoulement. Since India is not a signatory to any of these international conventions, it do not have any explicit refugee policy and hence no clarity on the concept of nonrefoulement. While on the other hand, one can see a huge chunk of refugees from Afghanistan seeking shelter in India rightly from late 1970s. Likewise, after the recent Taliban take-over of Afghanistan in 2021, Afghan refugees had flown to India in abundance after India's announcement to grant emergency e-Visas to them. Despite these efforts by India to provide support and assistance to Afghan refugees, there is a common narrative among the scholarships in India that they feel alienated, uncertain and unsafe in the country; reason being India's lack of any codified refugee policy. Given this background, the present paper aims to testify this widely-believed narrative by reexamining India's treatment towards Afghan refugees and, to analyze the life of these refugees on the ground. In doing so, the research takes a case study of Bhogal area located in South of New-Delhi, which houses thousands of Afghan refugees. Employing an ethnographic case study, the research finds that despite the lack of any codified refugee policy in India, the refugees are being aided in many possible ways. The paper, thus, concludes that Afghan refugees do live a quality life in Delhi's Bhogal.