THE “ILLEGAL MIGRANT” AND “REFUGEE” STATUS DILEMMA: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE ROHINGYA MUSLIMS IN INDIA
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Abstract
It took a writ petition under Art.21 of the Constitution of India presented before the apex court by two Rohingya Muslims namely Mohammad Salimullah and Mohammad Shaqir to bring the plight of refugees into focus and make it national news. However, the constitutional conscience of the Indian polity has never been awakened even though 70 years ago 20 million people became refugees on either side of the Indo-Pak border. Legally speaking, not being a party to the UN Refugee Convention of 1951 and its Additional Protocol of 1967 has hurt India badly in terms of granting refugee status to illegal migrants and in understanding that the transition from illegal migrant status to citizenship status is basically a step by step process. However, the major question that one may ask is “Whether the successive Indian governments over the years have ever bothered to think about illegal migrants and grant them refugee status?”. The answer unfortunately is in the negative. However, before understanding the issue and trying to search for solutions, it is imperative that one delves into the background of this menace by looking at both the international and domestic perspectives.
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