By the end of 2018 about 26 million had fled across international borders as refugees, including 3 million Afghans now in Pakistan. The question whether or not India will persevere in its anti-Muslim designs has an easy answer: it is quite likely given major powers’ indifference to prime minister Narendra Modi’s genocidal mindset. The Modi establishment is all set to ‘purify’ India by asking its 200 million Muslims either to convert to Hinduism or leave India, starting from Occupied Kashmir. Noted India’s journalist Saba Naqvi, for example, has raised a profound question: “How much time do I have?” While some two million Muslims in Assam are now on notice also to leave India because their faith forfeits their right to be its citizens. These illegal and unilateral actions can lead to a conflict between two nuclear-armed countries. “We are worried there not only could be a refugee crisis, we are worried it could lead to a conflict between two nuclear-armed countries,” Prime Minister Imran Khan told the Global Forum on Refugees in Geneva on Tuesday. Pakistan cannot accommodate more refugees, he said, urging the world to “step in now”. But given the current international practice to treat influx of refugees only as collateral aftermath of inter-state conflicts or genocidal exercises as nurtured by New Delhi, his call is likely to remain un-responded unless the issue is raised at the UN Security Council forum after a debate at Geneva. About 80 percent of world’s refugees are hosted by poor and developing countries (although this burden is productivity of major powers) and they are left to bear alone its economic and societal costs. “We would be naïve if we ignored the reality,” says UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi. But this reality has been grossly ignored. It was only last year that the UN General Assembly adopted a framework aimed at creating a more “predictable and equitable approach” to provide assistance to refugees and host communities.
Since it is there now the international community is expected to tune on to what is happening in India where no less than 200 million Muslims are being forced to visualize their future out of India, more likely in neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh. Azad Kashmir and districts of Punjab and KP are the expected destinations of Kashmiris, who are under siege laid by India on August 5. “Whenever curfew is lifted, there are 900,000 Indian troops. They will try to change the demography by settling in Hindu population in Kashmir,” Prime Minister Khan told the Forum, urging the world community, “it is time to act.” Equally disturbing is the passage of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill by Indian parliament. Not only are Muslims who entered Assam in 1971 from the then East Pakistan are being denied their Indian citizenship, India-born Muslims also face the spectre of deportation. In neighbouring Myanmar, Muslims’ ethnic cleansing has also started, and ironically it is defended by Aung San Suu Kyi, once herself prisoner of the military junta and now its defender at the International Court of Justice.
The world community must not lose sight of the fact that for as many as 40 years, Pakistan is hosting three million Afghan refugees. Pakistan is therefore not in position to take more refugees. Although Pakistan is deeply concerned about the cruel fate of Muslims in India, it just cannot be their host. The current situation in India is fraught with grave dangers for its neighbours, particularly Pakistan. It is about time the UN successfully persuaded India under Modi 2.0 to rescind its anti-Muslim decisions with a view to averting a humongous refugee crisis. Last but not least, West Bengal chief minister Mamta Banerjee has dared New Delhi to go for a UN-monitored referendum on the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Registry of Citizens!
