Title: If That Door Should Shut Now
(India cannot be so opaque to history as to say no refugees will hereafter be allowed to enter its territory)
• Rohingya = Muslim minority = Stateless entities
• Not considered citizens as per Myanmar’s Citizenship Act 1982.
• They are described as ‘One of the most persecuted minorities’.
Myanmar
• Bordered with Bangladesh, India, China, Laos, Thailand.
• Capital : Naypyidaw
• Currency : Kyat
• President : Htin Kyaw
Context :
• Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta has made an important statement before the Supreme Court. “We do not want India to become the refugee capital of the world.” If the Rohingya were given refuge, “People from every other country will flood our country.” And,“This is not a matter in which we can show any leniency.”
• If refugees will hereafter be unwelcome in India. Then we have been given a major modification in the vision of ‘bahujana hitaya bahujana sukhaya’.
• It reverses the ancient tradition of the janapada being not just the home for its jana but a sanctuary for all in need of ashraya, refuge — sarva lokashrayaya.
• It is perhaps this ethos that helped persecuted Zoroastrian migrants from Central Asia settle in and around Surat around the 16th-17th centuries to maintain their religious tradition.
• Independent India’s giving ashraya in 1947 to over seven million refugees, mostly Hindu and Sikh, from the newly created state of Pakistan was wrong.
• The Dalai Lama should never have been given refuge in India nor the nearly 150,000 Tibetans who have come to India during the last 50 years.
• India should have used force, in 1971, to drive back the estimated 10 million men, women and children seeking shelter in India from genocide in East Pakistan.
• Tamils fleeing Sinhala intolerance, now said to number 100,000, should have been driven back over the Palk Strait to Sri Lanka, not offered even temporary tanjam.
• In terms of the statement of the Additional Solicitor General, sanctuary or ashraya (Sanskrit), panah (Urdu), sharan (Hindi), tanjam (Tamil) are no longer to be India’s attributes. ‘Back you go!’, ‘Out!’, are to be our answers to any refugee at our door.
Seeking Refuge
• India is in danger of being flooded with refugees “from every other country” must cause astonished disbelief.
• There is as much risk of India becoming the world’s refugee capital as there is hope of India becoming the world’s tourist capital.
• Keeping our land and sea frontiers open for massive numbers of people to cross over is hugely problematic. And terrorists sneaking in as refugees with sinister designs constitute a grim reality.
State of the day :
• Chief Minister = Nongthombam Biren Singh
• Literacy Rate = 76.9 per cent
• When it became full fledge state = 1972
• Capital city = Imphal
• Largest river in Manipur = Barak River
• National Park in Manipur = Keibul Lamjao National Park, Siroy National Park
Vocabulary words:
Opaque (adj) = Non-transparent (अस्पष्ट)
Hereafter (adv) = Henceforth, from now on (इसके पश्चात)
Solicitor (noun) = Legal practitioner, lawyer (वकील)
Refugee (noun) = Displaced person (शरणार्थी)
Leniency (noun) = Mercy, forgiveness (उदारता)
Distil (verb) = Extract the essential meaning of (अनिवार्य अर्थ निकालना)
Dictum (noun) = Saying, proverb (वाक्य)
Prerogative (noun) = Entitlement, right (विशेषाधिकार)
Dire (adj) = Extremely serious or urgent (भयानक)
Confer (verb) = Consult, converse (विचार-विमर्श करना)
Vouchsafe (verb) = Grant something to someone in a gracious manner (विभूषित करना)
Ethos (noun) = Spirit (प्रकृति)
Tenet (noun) = Principle, belief (सिद्धांत)
Genocide (noun) = The deliberate killing of a large group of people (नरसंहार)
Dissident (noun) = Protester (मतभेद करनेवाला)
Bolt out (phrasal verb) = Leave suddenly as if in a hurry
Naive (adj) = Showing a lack of experience (अनुभवहीन)
Sneaking (adj) = Secret, private, fawning (चापलूस)
Sinister (adj) = Inauspicious (अशुभ)
