Refugees, stateless people and global citizenship

Detail

1. Universal citizenship: the ideal and the limits

• Universal citizenship is a democratic ideal. It says that everyone who lives and works in a country should be able to become a full member of it.
• In practice, every state limits membership:
• Each state sets its own rules for who may become a citizen.

• States use their power to keep unwanted people out. Some build walls and fences.

• Why people keep crossing borders:

• War, persecution (cruel treatment because of who you are or what you believe) and famine still force people to leave home.

• Examples: people from Darfur (Sudan), Palestinians, the Burmese, Bangladeshis, and migrants smuggled into Europe and America.

• What happens when no state accepts them:

• They become refugees or stateless people.
• They live in camps or as illegal migrants.

• They cannot legally work, send their children to school or own property.

• India's record: India is proud of giving shelter, for example to the Dalai Lama and his followers (1959). But many people who came in stay stateless for generations, and few become citizens.

2. Key terms: refugee and stateless person

• Refugee: a person forced to flee by war, persecution or famine who cannot safely go home.
• Statelessness: the condition of a person whom no state accepts as its citizen. A stateless person has no country to claim rights from.
• Scale of the problem: at the end of 2024, 123.2 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced (made to leave home). Of these, 73.5 million were displaced inside their own country and 42.7 million were refugees who had crossed a border [7].
• 73% of refugees live in low- and middle-income countries [7].
• In 2024, Sudan became the world's largest displacement crisis, with 14.3 million people displaced. This passed Syria's earlier record of 13.5 million [7].
• In 2024, 188,800 refugees were resettled in a new country. This was the highest number in 40 years [7].

3. International law on refugees and statelessness

Instrument	Year	What it does
1951 Refugee Convention (Convention relating to the Status of Refugees)	1951	Defines a refugee. Sets out refugees' rights and the duty of non-refoulement
1967 Protocol	1967	An add-on to the 1951 Convention. Widens its reach
1954 Convention (on the Status of Stateless Persons)	1954	Sets basic protections for stateless people
1961 Convention (on the Reduction of Statelessness)	1961	Asks states to prevent and reduce statelessness

• Refugee in the 1951 Convention: a person with a "well-founded fear of persecution" because of one of five grounds:
• race
• religion
• nationality
• membership of a particular social group

• political opinion

• Non-refoulement: a refugee must not be sent back to a place where their life or freedom is in danger. ("Refouler" is French for "to push back".)

• UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees):
• It is the UN agency that protects refugees and stateless people.
• The UN General Assembly set it up in 1950.
• It won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1954 and 1981.
• It publishes the yearly Global Trends report on displacement [7].

4. India's legal position

• India has signed none of these treaties. It is not party to the 1951 Convention, the 1967 Protocol, or the 1954 and 1961 conventions [5].
• India has no national refugee law. It decides each group's case separately. Legally, refugees count as "foreigners".
• The foreigners law now in force: the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 (Act No. 13 of 2025) [2]
• It replaced four laws: the Passport (Entry into India) Act 1920, the Registration of Foreigners Act 1939, the Foreigners Act 1946, and the Immigration (Carriers' Liability) Act 2000 (Section 36) [2][3].
• Passage: introduced 11 March 2025. Passed by the Lok Sabha on 27 March 2025 and the Rajya Sabha on 2 April 2025 [3]. It came into force on 1 September 2025 [4].
• Section 7: the Central Government may ban, regulate or restrict a foreigner's entry into India, exit from India, or stay in India. It can do this for all foreigners, for a class of foreigners or for one person [2].
• Section 16 (burden of proof): if a question arises about whether a person is a foreigner, that person must prove they are not one [2].
• Section 29: the Centre may order a foreigner removed from India for breaking the Act or after an adverse security report [2].
• Section 33: the Centre may exempt any person or class of persons from the Act, fully or partly [2]. This is the legal route for treating groups such as Tibetans in a special way.
• Entering India without a valid passport or visa can bring up to 5 years' jail, a fine of up to ₹5 lakh, or both [3].

• The word "refugee" does not appear anywhere in the Act [2].

• Constitutional protection for non-citizens:

• Art. 14 (equality before the law) and Art. 21 (no one can lose life or personal liberty except by a procedure set by law) apply to all persons, not only citizens [5].
• Art. 19(1)(e) (the right to live and settle anywhere in India) is for citizens only [5].
• Some High Courts have read non-refoulement into Art. 21.

5. India's practice, group by group

• Tibetans:
• The Dalai Lama and his followers came to India in 1959.

• The Tibetan Rehabilitation Policy 2014 gives them welfare and other benefits.

• Sri Lankan Tamils: they fled the Sri Lankan civil war, and many live in camps in Tamil Nadu.

• Chakmas and Hajongs (Arunachal Pradesh):
• These groups came from the Chittagong Hill Tracts of what is now Bangladesh.
• In NHRC v. State of Arunachal Pradesh (1996), the Supreme Court held that Art. 21 protects non-citizens too.

• The Court ordered the state to protect them from threats of forced eviction.

• Rohingya (from Myanmar):

• On 18 August 2017, the NHRC (National Human Rights Commission) sent the Union Home Ministry a notice about reports that it planned to deport Rohingya [6].
• On 8 August 2017, the Home Ministry asked all states to alert their police and intelligence agencies to identify illegal migrants [5].

• Mohammad Salimullah v. Union of India (order of 8 April 2021): a bench of CJI S.A. Bobde, A.S. Bopanna and V. Ramasubramanian heard the case [5].

  • The petitioners' case: about 150–170 Rohingya were held in a sub-jail in Jammu. The petitioners said non-refoulement is part of Art. 21. They also said it binds India because India is party to the UDHR 1948, the ICCPR 1966 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child [5].
  • The Union's case:
  • Non-refoulement binds only states that signed the Convention.
  • India's land borders are porous (easy to cross unchecked).
  • The influx is a threat to national security [5].
  • The Court's view (Arts. 14 and 21): Arts. 14 and 21 protect all persons [5].
  • The Court's view (deportation): the right not to be deported comes with the right to live and settle in India under Art. 19(1)(e), and that right belongs only to citizens [5].
  • The Court's view (Art. 51(c)): the Court doubted whether Art. 51(c) could be used for a treaty India has not joined. (Art. 51(c) is a Directive Principle asking the state to respect international law and treaty duties.) [5]
  • Result: no interim relief. The Jammu detainees could be deported, but only after following the procedure set for deportation [5].

• Afghans and Myanmar nationals in Mizoram and Manipur (after the 2021 military coup in Myanmar) are newer groups. India has no single policy for them.

6. The debate: should India have a refugee law?

• For a national refugee law:
• It would give fair and equal treatment instead of case-by-case decisions.
• It would give legal backing to India's long tradition of giving shelter.

• It would match what the courts already say about Art. 21.

• Against (the government's view):

• Security risks from porous borders [5].
• Demographic pressure (fear that large inflows could change a region's population mix) in border states.
• Treaty duties could bind India's hands.
• The case-by-case approach keeps foreign-policy options open.

7. Global citizenship

• Global citizenship is the idea that people are linked across borders and owe something to people beyond their own nation.
• Signs of an interconnected world:
• help across borders after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
• transnational terror networks (terror groups that work across many countries)

• joint action against bird flu

• The supporters' view: a global society is slowly forming. It could make cross-border problems easier to solve, including the rights of migrants and stateless people.

• NCERT's conclusion:
• Only national governments can fix most inequalities.
• So full national citizenship still matters most.

• Global citizenship adds to national citizenship but cannot replace it.

• Global Citizenship Education (GCED):

• It is a UNESCO programme.

• It teaches the values, knowledge and skills needed for just, peaceful and inclusive societies.

• Link to SDG target 4.7 (Sustainable Development Goals):

• The UN Summit of 25–27 September 2015 made GCED part of SDG target 4.7 when it adopted the 2030 Agenda [8].

• Target 4.7 aims that, by 2030, all learners gain the skills for sustainable development, human rights, gender equality, a culture of peace, global citizenship and respect for cultural diversity [8].

• The Indian idea: vasudhaiva kutumbakam ("the world is one family"):

• It comes from the Maha Upanishad.

• It became the G20 2023 theme (India's presidency): "One Earth, One Family, One Future".

• Recent tests of global cooperation:

• COVID-19: joint vaccine-sharing efforts competed with vaccine nationalism (rich countries keeping vaccines for themselves first).
• Climate change: no country can solve it alone.

Prelims Hooks

• The 1951 Refugee Convention lists five grounds of persecution: race, religion, nationality, social group, political opinion. Economic hardship is not one of them.
• Statelessness is covered by the 1954 and 1961 conventions, not the 1951 Convention.
• UNHCR: set up by the UN General Assembly in 1950. It won the Nobel Peace Prize twice (1954, 1981).
• India has signed neither the 1951 Convention nor the 1967 Protocol.
• NHRC v. State of Arunachal Pradesh (1996): Chakmas; Art. 21 protects non-citizens.
• Mohammad Salimullah (2021): Rohingya. Arts. 14 and 21 protect all persons, but the right not to be deported is linked to Art. 19(1)(e), which is for citizens only. Deportation is allowed after due procedure.
• The Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 replaced the Foreigners Act 1946 and three other laws. Under Section 16, a person must prove they are not a foreigner.
• GCED comes under SDG target 4.7 (Goal 4 = quality education).
• G20 2023 theme "One Earth, One Family, One Future" comes from vasudhaiva kutumbakam.

Mains Points

• The case for a national refugee law:
• India's case-by-case approach treats similar groups differently: Tibetans and Sri Lankan Tamils get help, while Rohingya face detention and deportation.

• A law would give clear status, protect against arbitrary action (as Art. 14 requires) and put the Art. 21 rulings of the courts into law.

• Security vs humanity:

• Porous borders and intelligence warnings explain the state's caution (Salimullah, 2021).
• But deporting people to places of persecution goes against India's moral record and its commitments under the UDHR and ICCPR.

• A middle path: screening refugees, giving them temporary protection, and sharing the burden with other states through regional bodies.

• The gap in universal citizenship:

• Stateless people who live in India for generations have no legal identity. They cannot work, study or own property.

• This undercuts the democratic idea that those who live and work in a country should be able to belong to it.

• Global vs national citizenship:

• COVID-19 vaccine nationalism and the struggle over climate finance support NCERT's view: rights are still delivered mainly by nation-states.
• Global citizenship, through GCED, SDG 4.7 and vasudhaiva kutumbakam, can add to national citizenship but cannot take its place.