Tales of hope, despair in Delhi’s little Myanmar

I am old and I don’t think we stand any chance of moving back to Myanmar. We have lost everything there. But I would be happy if my son and daughter could find a better future in India

Neija, 24, has not been able to contact her parents ever since she fled to India in 2009 with a group of Burmese students. “I do not know how my parents are, where they are. Ours is one of the remotest villages in Myanmar,” says Neija, her eyes almost welling up. “I do not think I can ever meet them,” she says.

Neija, who belongs to the Chin community, lives in Bodella in West Delhi, home to about 4,000 Chin refugees. She has a BA in rural development and like many other educated refugees, works as an interpreter.

Life in Delhi, she says, is tough and, given the opportunity, Neija would want to shift to the US. “I want to pursue higher education; my cousins live there, so I will have some support,” she says. “Here, I do not feel safe even in my room. Once a man tried to snatch my bag,” says Neija

What makes life difficult in Delhi is the fact that locals do not understand who refugees are. “We face discrimination on a daily basis. We are charged higher rents, shopkeepers inflate prices of everything,” says Neija.

Most Chin refugees have a story of daily struggle. Joseph Khar, 32, who lives with his wife in a cramped room in a narrow lane, suffers from Hepatitis-C. He is immobile and the family survives on a subsistence allowance of ₹3,800 from UNHCR. “The doctor prescribed a few medicines, but I do not have money. I hardly have money to pay for food and house rent,” says Khar, who came to Delhi in 2011.

As Khar talks, his wife, Ngaideilum, sitting next to him on the floor, listens, her eyes filled with hopelessness. “I wish I could have a job,” she says, stroking the hair of her five-year-old daughter.

Not far away lives Lian Khawen, 77, who came to India in 2010. He says he fled Burma after ‘facing persecution at the hands of military junta’. He lives in a tiny room with his wife, daughter and son. His son, 21, works at a hotel. “He has been suffering from pneumonia but does not get any leave. My wife has kidney problems but all we can afford are these placebos,” says Khawen, showing us some herbal medicines.