Shashi Tharoor calls for a refugee policy

Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has flagged the need for India to have a legal framework to deal with refugees and asylum seekers, while urging the government to use his private member’s asylum Bill as a starting point.

“India has a respectable track record of dealing with refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tibet and Sri Lanka in the past but lacks a legal framework for the same. We need a Bill for this,” Tharoor told Business Standard.

The Congress Lok Sabha MP (Member of Parliament) from Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, who recently met Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, said he was hopeful of a forward movement on the issue. “The home secretary was receptive to my suggestions,” he said.

The issue has come into focus with Baloch leader Brahumdagh Bugti recently requesting the Centre to grant him asylum.

In the absence of a policy to deal with the request, the government is examining the grant of asylum to Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama in 1959 by then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Tharoor, who has had a long stint with the United Nations (UN), pointed out that India has not signed the UN protocol on refugees, making it a small minority among the democracies in the world.

“We are dealing with the refugee policy on an ad hoc basis. We must have a uniform policy,” said Tharoor, who had consulted an NGO (non-government organisation) Ara Trust, while framing his private member’s Bill submitted in Parliament last year.

Usually private member’s Bills are an important instrument to allow parliamentarians flag vital issues. At times, some of the Bills are discussed in the House also.