Scores of Afghan refugees, women, and children alike, have marched repeatedly into the streets of central New Delhi to demand basic human rights and acknowledgment. Their protests outside the UNHCR office are indicative of their desperation, disillusionment, and frustration over the years. While the UNHCR’s inefficiency ineffective processing asylum petitions has drawn much publicity, the more deplorable and underlying concern is the Indian government’s unhelpful, unresponsive, and sometimes belligerent approach toward the dilemma of Afghan refugees. These refugees are not just waiting for papers; they are waiting for rights, dignity, and a terror-free and poverty-free life. The episode points to a larger contradiction in India’s South Asian diplomacy: in its professions of solidarity with the Afghan people, the country lets them down when they arrive at its borders to take refuge.
These refugees are not just waiting for papers; they are waiting for rights, respect, and a poverty-free, terror-free life. The episode points to a greater contradiction in India’s regional foreign policy: that even when it proclaims solidarity with the Afghan people, the country lets them down when they arrive at its doorstep seeking shelter. The Indian government lacks a national asylum law and has never ratified the UN Refugee Convention of 1951 or its 1967 Protocol. As a result, refugees’ status in India remains uncertain and fully reliant on the UNHCR, whose budget and limited mandate are inadequate to cope with the growing number of asylum seekers.
Afghan refugees find themselves in a void of both social and legal status because there is no coherent refugee policy. Many Afghans cannot obtain job licenses without formal state recognition and, as a result, cannot work and earn a living. Children cannot be educated due to the lack of proper documents. The majority of individuals remain unable to access healthcare, and elementary services such as social security and housing are completely out of their reach. Individuals have been immensely suffered due to this systemic neglect. Afghan families in Delhi and elsewhere barely manage to pay for a single meal a day, are cramped together in small spaces, and are constantly threatened with eviction. In refugee camps, women, who often head families, suffer doubly in terms of marginalization as they are socially excluded and economically insecure.
These refugees exist in a hostile and discriminatory atmosphere in addition to being ignored. Afghan immigrants report that they are often subject to police intimidation, landlord harassment, and xenophobia by locals. They cannot legally fight back or even report assault due to their liminal legal status. They are on all sides open to exploitation as they have no official protections. The picture of regional unity which Indian diplomacy projects on the world stage is much more different from reality.
The failure of India becomes even more glaring compared with Pakistan’s treatment of Afghan refugees. Millions of Afghans have resided in Pakistan for over 40 years, often at substantial cost to the nation in terms of money and society. At the minimum, Pakistan has recognized Afghan refugees as a special category in need of state-level support, notwithstanding its flawed policies and recent censure of repatriation efforts. India, however, has defaulted, delegating every responsibility to the UNHCR and thus placing refugees into limbo for decades. This inconsistency raises doubts as to which South Asian nation has indeed discharged its humanitarian obligations.
The fault is both in moral obligation and policy. Perhaps one of the most basic human rights provided for under international law is being denied to Afghan children born in India: the right to an education. Families who fled tyranny and war are now ensnared in another kind of violence: the violence of social erasure and bureaucratic indifference. They are not economic migrants; notwithstanding their experience of tragedy and conflict, they are dealt with as if they do not deserve sympathy. Demonstrating outside the UNHCR office is an existential choice for many, rather than a political one. They have no alternative but to demand recognition openly because there are no other means to seek justice.
India’s policy is even more disturbing due to the hypocrisy it reveals. Indian politicians speak of “regional peace” and project their nation as a benevolent power within South Asia, yet the government provides no more than minimal security for refugees within its own borders. Poverty-stricken Afghan refugees in Kabul are being neglected by the very government that once took in Afghan students and collaborated with them on development activities. This duplicity betrays a disturbing truth: India’s foreign policy is as much about image as it is about ethics, diluting the country’s moral voice in the region.
Accepting responsibility is the first step towards a real solution to this situation. India needs to understand that it cannot continue to rely on the UNHCR to provide refugee protection. A vital first step is to create a thorough national asylum strategy. An unambiguous legal structure for the registration of refugees, healthcare access, schooling, and work permits and against arbitrary detention or deportation should all be provided under such a program. Instead of living in the shadows, refugees should be able to live with dignity.
Rather than isolating refugees, India needs to concurrently create institutional mechanisms for integrating them into society. Social cohesion and refugee welfare are both reliant on community initiatives, legal support, language training, and employment help. Refugee voices being heard in the policy space is also important. Those who have experienced life as a refugee understand it best. Afghan women and youth refugees, in particular, ought to not merely be considered victims but also as contributing members in shaping the very laws that govern their lives.
India must ponder what it is to lead its neighborhood. Diplomatic relations and profit are not the only measures for assessing leadership. It is established by the way a country treats its most vulnerable populations. India’s commitment to justice, compassion, and world responsibility is tested by how it treats Afghan refugees.
The Delhi UNHCR office protests are not isolated incidents, but a call for help that betrays a more unfortunate shortcoming on the part of the Indian government. These are humanitarian concerns unfolding in real time, not merely policy-related gaps. A country that wants to be a world leader cannot stay quiet. To overlook Afghan refugees now will hurt India’s reputation and wreck its vision of becoming a truly open-hearted and compassionate nation. India must either remain neutral or be the friend it proclaims to be in this judgment hour.
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