India's uneven refugee policy plays favourites

News analysis

- Rohini Mohan India Correspondent

A new Indian government order that aims to curb illegal immigration will admit refugees fleeing religious persecution in three neighbouring countries but exclude Muslims, stoking fears that it will legitimise the harsher treatment of Muslim immigrants.

The government, which is led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), issued the Immigration and Foreigners (Exemption) Order on Sept 1, which will effectively be India's refugee framework.

It strikes hard against undocumented immigrants, but allows some people without passports or valid visas to enter, stay in and leave the country on humanitarian grounds.

Under this new ruling, all exempted groups are non-Muslim. They include nationals of Nepal and Bhutan; Tibetan refugees who came before 2003; Sri Lankan Tamils who came before 2015; and Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan "who were compelled to seek shelter in India due to religious persecution or fear of religious persecution and entered into India on or before Dec 31, 2024".

Those not exempted will be treated as "illegal migrants" or undocumented foreigners and face penalties of up to five years' imprisonment, fines of 500,000 rupees (S$7,300) and deportation.

In effect, the order introduces a liberal and lenient approach to certain categories of people who enter the country without appropriate documents, and stringent mechanisms for detention and deportation of all other illegal migrants.

"The Indian government does not seem to have offered a justification for this differentiation in immigrant groups. Why extend protection to some and not others?" asked Ms Purvi Patel, a lawyer and expert in international migration frameworks.

The directive's stated reason is religious persecution, or fear of it. But people from the favoured groups will not have to prove it, and Muslims are deemed unlikely to face persecution.