The struggle to stay: Afghans demand dignity in Pakistan and India

Absence of legal protection, difficulty in finding well-paid work, and the fear of being expelled: Afghan refugees face several challenges in both Pakistan and India, where they hope to start new lives after escaping military conflicts in their home nation.

 

By Fatima Razzaq, from Lahore, and Shriya Roy, from New Delhi (edited by Rogerio Simoes)

In Lahore, Pakistan, 38-year-old Faiz Ullah cannot access state services, acquire a driving license, or enroll his children in a school.  On the other side of the Eastern border, in Trivandrum, India, 33-year-old Rashid Gurbaz (not his real name, for security reasons), a PhD student at the University of Kerala, struggles to lead a normal life. Separated by 3,000 kilometers and a conflict-ridden international border, Faiz and Rashid face similar challenges for the same reason: in the eyes of their governments, and regardless of where each of them was born, they are mere Afghan refugees who should not be fully integrated with their societies.

Faiz Ullah was born and raised in Pakistan. He lives in Sanda, a working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of Lahore, and works as a laborer. Walking around, one can see that the area is populated mostly by people from his community, many of whom are living in makeshift tents. He says he fears that, despite living in the country all his life, he is still made to feel like an alien. Meanwhile, Afghanistan-born Rashid constantly worries about the sword of uncertainty that hangs on top of his head the moment he submits his thesis. Despite the degree and his previous work experiences, he struggles to make sense of his basic rights, make a home, and make a living in a foreign land.

Approximately 1.4 million registered Afghan refugees and asylum seekers live in Pakistan. In India, the much smaller Afghan community of nearly 19,000, according to the latest data by UNHCR, represents the first generations to have escaped the hardships of their nation and found a new home elsewhere. Although the diplomatic relationship between Pakistan and India has remained sour for over a decade, and the two countries rarely see eye to eye on many issues issue, they find themselves in a similar boat when it comes to their treatment of refugees from the region.

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United in persecution

Neither India nor Pakistan is a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention, signed in Geneva (Switzerland), so there is no refugee protection law in place. The convention defines a refugee and sets out the rights of individuals who are granted asylum and the responsibilities of nations where they settle. The lack of a legal framework on the subject means foreign nationals are governed by a mix of laws that limit access to welfare, employment, support, and documentation – which in turn makes them subject to prosecution at the state’s behest. With India and Pakistan having been founded on the backbone of the forced displacement of half of their populations, the lack of a common refugee policy strikes as a bit of an irony.

Pakistan is one of the countries with the largest refugee populations in the world, mainly Afghans, a trend that started more than 40 years ago,  with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, in 1979. As a result of these waves of migration, second and third generations of Afghans live in protracted displacement, with Pakistan providing refuge to some 1.35 million registered Afghan women, children, and men.

For some of these refugees, though, their chosen final destination lay beyond the Pakistani borders. Afghan Hindus, Sikhs, and those from the Hazara community, in particular, chose to move to India in the hope of better connecting with their communities there as, unlike Pakistan, India is a Hindu-majority country with a sizable population of Sikhs. The Hazaras, a Shia ethnic minority, have historically found themselves persecuted in Pakistan by Sunni extremist groups.

The India option has turned out to be challenging as well.  India’s treatment of refugees seeking asylum – and its policies – adopts not a humanitarian focus but rather a socio-political and diplomatic one. This means the affected refugees are not at the center of the decision-making, and that is where things fall short.

No protection

Both Pakistan and India rely on legislation from their time as a British colony – the 1946 Foreigners Act – to govern the handling of not just refugees but any and every non-citizen. Without a distinct category for refugees, which could highlight their rights, the legal framework gives authorities a free pass, which often leads to violations of their human rights –  with little to no judicial intervention.

In October 2023, Pakistan announced the mass deportation of Afghan refugees, even those holding Proof of Residence (PoR) cards. “Refugees are being loaded in buses like cattle and sent back without any regard for the consequences that they will have to face in Afghanistan,” said Farah Zia, chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. “This is against basic human dignity and a massive human rights violation.”

The Afghans who have settled in India have had varying relationships with the government when it comes to citizenship and asylum. While in the 1990s and early 2000s a large number of refugees from Afghanistan received citizenship and made India their home for the next 2-3 generations, over the past decade and more attaining citizenship has become a harrowing task. For people from Afghanistan who came to India after the 2021 Taliban takeover of the country, the situation is not what they hoped for.

The absence of proper Indian legislation has allowed political parties to use refugee communities as a means of political weaponry often treating them as national security threats. With the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) passed by the current Narendra Modi-led government, the situation has worsened. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the majority ruling party in India, has not hidden its Hindutva ideology. Laws have pointed in that direction, and the passing of the CAA confirms the trend. The Act particularly excludes Muslims from a fast-tracked citizenship system for refugees, with a huge brunt of the new legislation being borne by the Muslim refugees from Afghanistan and the Rohingya refugees from Myanmar.

The Government of Pakistan estimates a further 600,000 have sought refuge in the country after the Taliban returned to power in Kabul, in August 2021.  In November 2022, Pakistan launched a widely criticised repatriation programme aimed at returning millions of Afghans, regardless of their legal status.

According to the government, Pakistan currently hosts nearly 3 million Afghans, with close to 2.4 million possessing some form of legal documentation. Of these, almost 1.5 million hold a UNHCR Proof of Residence card, and another 800,000 possess an Afghan Citizenship Card (ACC).

‘Listen to our story’

The number of asylum seekers in India is not precisely known. “Although India has a large population of stateless people, no accurate estimates of the number are available,” the UNHCR said in a 2011 report. The gaps in India’s refugee policy have isolated a large section of Afghan refugees, who now, despite being skilled, struggle to find avenues of employment in a straightforward and legal manner. Most of them are forced to take up odd jobs and are paid minimum wages. Many of them work in smaller shops and are engaged in unskilled labor – a different reality from the one they had in their home country, where many were business owners, skilled workers with well-paying jobs, civil servants, and traders.

Refugees from Afghanistan have long sought asylum in foreign nations, as the country reeled under multiple waves of conflict over the past three decades. But at every step of the way they have been reminded that they are on their own.

As an Afghan refugee in India, Rashid voices his frustration that even if he managed to secure a visa to go and attend the conference outside of India, returning to the country would be a problem, as there is no formal channel to facilitate that. “All we ask is for you to show us basic humanity and just listen to our story. It does not take a lot to treat someone as a human first,” says Rashid. “ “Is it too much to ask?”

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