Chapter 9

Chakma Refugees in Arunachal Pradesh:

Their Inclusion and Setback
Kallol Debnath and Kunal Debnath

Abstract
In 2015, the Supreme Court of India directed the Government of India to
confer the citizenship right to the Chakma refugees, who settled in North-
Eastern States in India. Arunachal Pradesh, the former North Eastern
Frontier Agency, holds a large number of Chakma refugees who had
migrated to India from the erstwhile East Pakistan during the late 1960s. The
present benevolent approach of the Government of India towards this ethno-
refugee community is having domestic as well as external implication in the
backdrop of rampant deportation of refugees from its neighbouring state,
Bangladesh. Mere citizenship right may result in the administrative inte-
gration of the Chakmas but could not resolve their crises as alien versus
indigenous debate intensifies the refugee crises today. Over the decades,
political alienation of the Chakma refugees extended their sense of depri-
vation and marginalization. A separate perspective is required to assess the
Chakmas’ claim that they are after all not alien to India since their ancestral
land Chittagong Hill Tracts were under Indian territory and they have had a
deep allegiance to this territory because of India’s accommodative pluralistic
outlook and multi-ethnic characters. Permanent means of livelihood, legal
rights over land holding and bridging social capital would help ethnic inte-
gration, not merely ‘limited’ citizenship right. This study from ethno-political
perspective would assess the crises of the Chakma refugees in Arunachal
Pradesh in India.

Keywords: Chakma; Arunachal Pradesh; migration; refugee; ethnic

integration; citizenship right; inclusion

Refugee Crises and Third-World Economies, 137–148

Copyright © 2020 Emerald Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
doi:10.1108/978-1-83982-190-520201015
138 Kallol Debnath and Kunal Debnath

Introduction
The Chakmas were the single largest tribal dwellers in the Chittagong Hill Tracts
(CHT) of the erstwhile East Pakistan. Ethnically, they belonged to Tibeto-
Burman race. Long before the creation of the East Pakistan, leaving the
Arakan kingdom they had settled in the CHT, the southern part of the present
Bangladesh. The earlier generation of the tribes of Arakan and Burma were
known by the local parlance Tsak, Shak or Thek. The Chakmas had a very strong
affinity with the tribes of the both regions as Arakanes and Burmes tribes were
connected with the Tibeto-Burman race. These ethnic tribes were called Chakmas
in the CHT. In the Indio-Bangladesh subcontinent, they are accounted as a small
minority tribe in terms of their ethno-religious character (Talukdar, 1988). Most
of them are religious pursuers of Buddhism and their social customs, adminis-
trative system were in a substantive manner differed from that of main land
population. However, when they had entered the CHT, the land was under the
undivided territory of India. As a result, the Chakmas were very much allegiant to
the Indian Territory. The partition of 1947, for the first time, resulted in the
breaching of their psychological bonding of nationhood as the CHT was brought
under the territory of the then East Pakistan.
Like many other Asian states, the creation of Pakistan was the triumph of an
ethnic model of political nationhood, which absorbs the homo-ethnic groups and
secluded the hetero-ethnic communities on the pretext of national integrity.
The Chakmas were completely different from the main land population. But the
regular intervention by the Pakistani rulers in the social and administrative affairs
of the CHT caused violation of their tribal rights. Pakistan Government’s policy
of forced migration of ethnic minorities later displaced a large number of
Chakmas from their original homeland. Most of them were settled in the erstwhile
North Eastern Frontier Agency (NEFA), which was renamed as India’s Union
Territory of Arunachal Pradesh in 1972. Since 1964, the Chakma refugees have
been residing there but having no citizenship yet. In spite of the Supreme Court
order of 1996 in support of granting them citizenship, no progressive effort was
made in this regard. As India is not the signatory to the International Refugee
Convention of 1951, it did not frame any comprehensive rehabilitation policy for
the protection of the refugees. The lack of legal responsibility of the state to the
protection of refugee rights in fact led to a mounting refugee crisis while the
legally settled refugees claimed citizenship status. No migrated people or com-
munities in India succeed in establishing their distinct ethnic identity without
citizenship. The unrelenting protest led by the All Arunachal Pradesh Student
Union (AAPSU) against the decision of granting citizenship status to the
Chakmas, and subsequent legislative resolution to prevent the registration pro-
cess, evidenced that when the indigenous ethnic identities converged towards the
power direction, the alien identity went on to resist it.
This study will be based on two basic objectives: (1) The primary objective of
this chapter is to find out the causes of current crisis for the Chakma refugees in
Arunachal Pradesh; (2) Another objective of it is to assess the impact of ethno-
political issues on the refugee problem in the state of Arunachal Pradesh.
 Chakma Refugees in Arunachal Pradesh: Their Inclusion and Setback 139

Data are mainly collected from secondary sources. The qualitative method-
ology has been followed for assessing the plight of an ethnic migrated population
with an aim of laying some valid recommendation at the end of this study. It
follows a power discourse analysis to address the present crisis of the Chakma
refugees in the state of Arunachal Pradesh.

The Saga of Migration from the Homeland

The tribal Chakma refugees were a tiny migrated ethnic group when they sought for
a settlement in the Indian Territory in around the 1960s. As per the decision of the
then Central Government of India, this foreign stranger group was given an instant
relief by settling them at the Abhyapur Block of Diyun circle in Tirap district of the
erstwhile NEFA. It was taken into account by the then Central Government that
further refugee settlement in North-Eastern states other than NEFA would create an
ethnic ruckus, because the Tirap division of the latter was much more suitable for the
rehabilitation of the Chakma refugees. As the district had enough number of vacant
lands and, additionally, on the ground of a subtle ethno-religious link between the
native ethnic groups, like Singphos and Khamtis, and the migrated Chakmas, the
latter were allowed by the government to settle in the NEFA (Chakma, 2015).
However, the NEFA was an integral part of the then composite state of Assam until
1972, when it was constitutionally recognized as a Union Territory in 1972 and
subsequently became a separate state of Arunachal Pradesh in 1987. According to
the claim of the AAPSU, during the 1960s only 57 families of Chakma and Hajongs1
sought a temporary shelter in the government camps at Ledo in Dibrugarh, Assam.
But within a couple of years, the refugee population has been largely increased
because enormous number of Chakmas left their ancestral land, the CHT, and
moved to NEFA with an intension to permanently stay there. In Arunachal Pradesh,
though their number was sharply increased, their recognition even as citizens is a
distant dream, while in the neighbouring other North-Eastern states, namely Assam,
Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Tripura, the Chakmas are recognized as Scheduled
Tribe. In the Census Report 2001, the Chakmas constitute the third largest ethnic
group in Arunachal Pradesh (Prasad, 2007). Most of them inhabit in the districts of
Lohit, Changlang and Papumpare of Arunachal Pradesh. It would be interesting to
note that until the last half of the 1970s, no radical demands for the deportation of
the illegal settlers were raised. The state reorganization issue since the last half of the
twentieth century and All Assam Student’s Union (AASU)-led campaign to expel
the illegal settlers from their land had intensified AAPSU’s claim over their territory.
Since the beginning of the later decade, the AAPSU campaigned for the permanent
solution to the Assam–Arunachal boundary conflict and political integration of the
indigenous tribes. It is worthwhile to mention that as the cultural integration of the
Arunachali identity is very much difficult to melt because of its multifarious ethnic
characters, the aim of the indigenous elites is to develop an exclusive politics of the
land in which the Chakmas are only aliens. Unlike other North-Eastern states,

1
A small group of migrated Hindus from the erstwhile East Pakistan.
140 Kallol Debnath and Kunal Debnath

where the promotion of a homogenous ethnic culture had no bar due to less number
of tribes, but in Arunachal Pradesh, the sharp rise in the number of migrant people
on the one hand, and an unsteady nature of the politics of ethnicity on the other, had
unfolded that the expulsion of the outsiders from Arunachal Pradesh became
entangled in the regional politics of the native people. It was manifested in their
claim that the development of indigenous people, poverty eradication, and the
employment generation in this state had been disrupted for long time due to the
presence of a large number of foreigners there. In Arunachal Pradesh, a common
ethnic identity in terms of linguistic or cultural uniformity was almost hard to be
grown because the state was acquainted with a deep range of linguistic and cultural
heterogeneity.
Today Arunachal Pradesh has nearly 26 major tribal communities. There are
huge dissimilarities in terms of customs, dialects and religions of these indigenous
tribes. Undoubtedly, the increase in the number of migrated population in Aru-
nachal Pradesh was resulted from its heterogeneous ethnic culture. The intrusion
of Chakma refugees in the NEFA was basically unopposed by the local inhabi-
tants during the 1960s. But when the political parties and the members of many
non-political civil organizations became keen in articulating the demands of the
indigenous community, the social milieus of the land became connected with their
political agenda. The subjugation of the independent heterogeneous cultural
orientation that the NEFA once had was begun with the process of political
integration of the native people. Consequently, it has excluded the non-
Arunachalis, especially the Chakma, and the Hajong refugees, from the whole
political process, particularly on two grounds. The first one is that they are
stateless in Arunachal Pradesh and the second ground is their population growth
which the indigenous Arunachalis deem as a threat to their existence.
In order to explore the causes of the Chakmas migration and the settlement in
the erstwhile NEFA, this chapter must have an account of the history of the
persecution in their indigenous land in the then East Pakistan. It is well known
that when the Islamic state of Pakistan was created based on the religious zeal of
some sections of the population, the emotive issues of the ethnic minorities were
never considered. Also, after the formation of Bangladesh, the Bengali ethnic
identity did not admit the separate identity of the hill-based smaller tribes.
However, in any authoritarian state it was common that the ethnic heterogeneity
or poly ethnic rights were always trampled by the majority. It was really the
mockery of the colonial legacy that the partition laid the creation of two separate
nations namely India and Pakistan, both of which retained the religious con-
sciousness of the majority of their people. The unavoidable consequence was the
constant persecution of the people in their homeland because they had distinct
ethno religious root from the rest of the society. Such irrevocable circumstance
was growing up when the CHT was brought under the erstwhile East Pakistan of
the Islamic State of Pakistan. Originally, the permanent inhabitant of the CHT
was a large number of ethnic tribes. Their culture and religion were extensively
different from the mainland people to an extent.
The largest tribe of the CHT was the Chakmas. Though there was no unan-
imous view in respect to the original ethnic origin, but observing their many
 Chakma Refugees in Arunachal Pradesh: Their Inclusion and Setback 141

similarities with the tribes of Arakan kingdom, many of the historians claimed
that the Chakmas had an ethnic affinity with Tibeto-Burman groups in the
Northeast India and also to East Asia. However, their deep allegiance to Indian
Territory was expressed long before the partition when the CHT was a part of the
Indian Territory. It can rightly be pointed out that their preference for roping the
CHT in the independent territory of India was not resulted from their ethnic root.
It seemed that their early aim at establishing Chakma nationhood could have
materialized only in territory of a multi-ethnic nation. They perceived that
the exclusive dignity of the CHT would have been protected had it brought under
the territory of independent India. Chakma (2015) points out several reasons for
quitting their indigenous land. These were multi-ethnic nature of India with a
secular, democratic Constitution, an ethno-cultural base of North-East India with
which they had many similarities. However, the Chakma refugees have been in
Arunachal Pradesh since 1964, but they have no legal identity as yet on account of
not having any ethno-social linkage with Indian Territory. Before concentrating
on their fight for legal entitlement in the state of Arunachal Pradesh, it is
worthwhile to give a brief description of causes of their migration from the
erstwhile East Pakistan.

Construction of the Kaptai Dam and Displacement

Though the Chakmas constituted a small minority group in terms of their religion
in the erstwhile East Pakistan, after the People’s Republic of Bangladesh was
born in 1971, their population strength had been constantly downsized due to
excessive number of outward migration from the CHT. It has generated a
massive refugee crisis in the neighbouring countries especially in India. Since the
early days of the formation of the then East Pakistan several rounds of
mischievous acts were triggered by the Pakistani rulers to capture the natural
resources of this hilly region. As the Chakmas were the majority in this tribal
inhabited region followed by the Marma, Tripura, Mru, amongst others, and the
most stringent task of the then Pakistan Government, having collaborated with
some social miscreants, was to radically transform the demographic structure of
the hill region. Several administrative orders, which had an adverse effect on the
livelihood of the tribal people were enforced. As the Chakmas’ dominant means
of subsistence was jhum cultivation (shifting agriculture), it needed a large chunk
of cultivable land. But the Pakistan Government in an attempt to oust them had
ordered to erect Kaptai Hydroelectricity Project on the Karnafuli River. It was
reported that while the Kaptai Dam was built up, a sizable quantity of land
(approximately 22,000 hectares of cultivable land) was inundated due to flood. As
a result, as many as 100,000 indigenous people along with their families were
forced to vacate their land. The Government of Bangladesh in its report, The
Chittagong Hill Tracts District Gazette of 1975, disclosed that the construction of
dam had resulted in the displacement of huge number of indigenous people and
among them 70% was from the Chakma tribe. In addition to it, the unwillingness
of the government to properly rehabilitate this landless people caused a great
142 Kallol Debnath and Kunal Debnath

exodus of the indigenous tribes, who leaving their ancestral land had migrated to
different countries. Chakmas entered the then NEFA where they were recognized
as ‘environmental refugees’ (Parveen & Faisal, 2002).

From a Protected Zone to an Open Tribal Land

As the undivided Pakistan was a Muslim majority country, the strategy for
controlling the CHT witnessed a massive change after the partition. In the early
era of post-partition period, the people of the CHT had expressed their dissatis-
faction over the Pakistan Government policies of administrative intervention into
the political affairs of the hill areas even though the Constitution of Pakistan of
1956 putting up the CHT as an ‘excluded area’ retained its status quo. It could be
called up that since 1900 the CHT had been ruled according to a separate
regulation in order to keep the ownership of the tribal land out of purchasing by
the mainland people (Amnesty International, 1986). However, in 1958, when
Pakistani armed forces took over the reign by declaring coup d’état, the CHT
underwent a radical change because the protected zone was renamed ‘Tribal
Area’, and finally the 1963 amendment to the 1962 Constitution resulted in the
repeal of its earlier status thereby laying it open to every non-tribal. In conse-
quence of it, Chakmas’ jhum cultivation was disrupted and a large number of
illegal settlers encroached on this area. This oriental colonization process with an
aim at ethnic cleansing forced the tribal people to quit their homeland. As the
Chakmas were over half of the total population in the CHT, their migration from
the then East Pakistan had implicitly catalyzed the formation of Bengali
nationalism in which the ethnic demand of the tribal people, including the
Chakmas, was entirely banished. The motto of Bengali nationalism led by Sheik
Mujibur Rahman was to live and die as a Bengali, leaving the other non-
contrasting identities.

Communal Violence of Majority over Minor Religious Groups

Since 1950s, a sort of communal terror had been unleashed against the members
of minority religion in the erstwhile East Pakistan. Apart from the Hindus, many
ethnic tribal groups who had separate religion were also targeted by the majority
Muslim population. The communal stir in the subsequent period was deteriorated
on account of the expulsion of many Muslim settlers from the Indian state of
Assam and that of Tripura. While both governments were very much defensive in
their respective stand, since the 1960s a large number of tribal refugees sought
political asylum to the Government of India. While arm forces of East Pakistan
were indulged in triggering heavy atrocities over the tribal men of the CHT, the
East Pakistan Government, strategically evading the issue of get back, had
labelled the charges against the Government of India. It was alleged that by
circulating the false propaganda, India had encouraged the mass exodus of
minority Hindus, Christians and Buddhists from Pakistan. In response to it, the
Ministry of External Affairs, the Government of India, emphatically denied the
 Chakma Refugees in Arunachal Pradesh: Their Inclusion and Setback 143

Pakistan Government’s allegation of the ‘exchange of population’ and asserted

that settlement to the refugees was provided only on humanitarian ground.
According to the report of the Government of India, in aggregation, 75,000 non-
Moslem tribesmen from East Pakistan intruded the state of Assam in the latter
half of January and February in 1964. Among them 20,000 were Roman Cath-
olics and 15,000 Baptist and the remaining population was either from animist or
Hindus (Rosenberger & Tobin, 1964, p. 20185).

The Fight for Legal Recognition in India

As India is not the signatory to the International Refugee Convention of 1951, the
refugee settlement issue in the country is mostly guided by the Constitutional
mechanisms of the Union itself. The country’s obligation to uphold the refugee
rights is ensured by several articles of the fundamental rights in Part III of the
Constitution and the ratification for the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, and the principle of non-refoulement. According to this principle,
the foreign country is bound to protect the human rights of the migrated people as
it does not allow the former to forcefully push back its illegal settlers to their
home country in which their lives and human rights would be jeopardized
(Chowdhory, 2013). The Indian Constitution ensures several fundamental rights
not for its citizens alone, but the foreigners who are granted asylum in the refugee
camp, are also eligible to enjoy right to equality before law (Article 14), the right
to life and personal liberty (Article 21) and the right to freedom of conscience
(Article 25). As the provisions of International Refugee Convention are inappli-
cable to India, the refugees there in this territory are often forced to seek judicial
intervention for adequate compensation and for the recognition of their legal
entitlement. However, India’s policy of refugee settlement is mostly directed by a
liberal outlook on the promotion of human rights and guided by the bilateral
relations with neighbouring countries. This could be endorsed by an agreement of
1972 between India and the newly born Bangladesh when the former was willing
to facilitate its neighbouring counterpart Bangladesh by giving some unilateral
concession. According to the provision of the treaty, India would be responsible
for all migrants who entered its territory before 25 March 1971. Apart from it, the
then Government of India admitted that the Chakmas and the Hajong refugees
deserved to be legally recognized groups in the Indian Territory. It was evidenced
that since the 1980s, the Central Government’s measure to grant citizenship to the
Chakma refugees was firmly thwarted by Arunachal Pradesh Assembly. Instead
of securing the lives and dignity of the Chakma refugees, the Arunachal Pradesh
Government, with the support of its Legislative Assembly, completely dis-
approved many government sponsored facilities, forced them to vacate the land.
As a result, a consensus was built up among the migrated Chakmas in this state
that until and unless the citizenship status would be granted, they must leave
Arunachal Pradesh. It was considered that only a judicial settlement could
absolve them from this crisis. The Supreme Court of India while delivering its
judgement in the case between the State of Arunachal Pradesh vs. Khudiram
144 Kallol Debnath and Kunal Debnath

Chakma (1993), though denied the latter’s plea for providing the citizenship to the
Chakma refugees because the claim was illegitimate in accordance with
the Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955, but indicated that no one shall be
deprived of his or her life and liberty without the due process of law. However, no
progress was observed regarding the Chakmas legal recognition in spite of the
alarming voice of the highest judiciary over the protection of their lives and
dignity.
The Arunachal Pradesh Government’s decision to stop the basic facilities for
the Chakmas like the seizure of their ration card, trade permit and the end of
providing educational scholarship, equal opportunity for their entry into the
mainland educational institutions and to the government job, is followed by a sort
of civil strife. After the 1990s, it was erupted between the Chakma, Hajong ref-
ugees and the indigenous clique led by the AAPSU. While the judicial interven-
tion would have prevented the government in carrying out many discriminatory
practices against the Chakmas, the AAPSU intending to break the government’s
present inertia with regard to refugee settlement in the state of Arunachal Pradesh
called for a ‘direct action’ plan in order to displace them away from their native
land. It resulted in bringing out the ‘quit’ land notice for the refugees and an
economic blockade by which indigenous people were asked for not being involved
in any economic or financial transactions with the members of the Chakma and
Hajong refugees. However, when the indigenous ethnic wrath was intensified by
the relentless effort of the AAPSU and with the government inaction, it panicked
the Chakmas and other migrated groups as their lives and liberty were under
constant threat. In response to their appeal before the National Human Rights
Commission (NHRC) claiming that the human rights of the migrated population
were endangered under the current situation, the former submitted a writ petition
in the Supreme Court against Arunachal Pradesh Government. Finally, on 9
January 1996, when the Supreme Court of India, pronouncing its landmark
verdict in the case of NHRC vs. the State of Arunachal Pradesh, ordered the state
government to undertake several protective measures in pursuit of the promotion
of the life and personal liberty of Chakmas who once had settled in this state
(Prasad, 2007). Apart from this, the highest judiciary also instructed the gov-
ernment to start the application process for granting them citizenship status under
Section 5(1)(a) in the Citizenship Act of 1955 (Prasad, 2006).2

Legal Fight Turns into Social Resistance

The Supreme Court’s verdict in 1996 laid the reasonable grounds for granting the
Chakma refugees citizenship status, but the reality was entirely different because

2
This Section 5 deals with the citizenship by registration. Its clause 1(a) provides the
citizenship for those persons of Indian origin, who are ordinary resident in India or have
been resident for seven years immediately before making an application for registration.
See, the Citizenship Act, 1955. Retrieved from http://legislative.gov.in/sites/default/files/
A1955-57.pdf. Accessed on April 14, 2018.
 Chakma Refugees in Arunachal Pradesh: Their Inclusion and Setback 145

between the year 1999 and 2002, almost 4,637 of the Chakma and Hajong ref-
ugees applied for citizenship right but no one was granted it (Seetharaman, 2017).
It was observed that in most cases the Chakma refugees were not allowed by the
local authorities to join the verification process. In another instance, when the
administrative order was issued by the Central Government for the collection of
citizenship application, the AAPSU with an explicit support of the state gov-
ernment, unleashed regular torture and intimidation against the tribal refugees
especially the Chakmas because in Arunachal Pradesh, only the Chakma refu-
gees, in the backdrop of their constant fight against the discriminatory policies of
the State government, were succeeded in developing a sort of counter resistance
vis-à-vis the native ethnic integration campaign of the AAPSU. Since the last half
of the twentieth century, when the AAPSU went on a mass scale anti-Chakma
movement, in 1991 the Chakma refugees formed the Committee for Citizenship
Rights of the Chakmas of Arunachal Pradesh, and in the same year, Arunachal
Pradesh Chakma Student’s Union was launched by the Chakma Students.
It means that ceaseless struggle for a judicial settlement to their crisis and tireless
effort for strengthening the social solidarity among the Chakma refugees pro-
jected them as the threat to the indigenous tribes of Arunachal Pradesh.
Most importantly, the discriminatory treatment of the government against a
particular migrated group or groups in comparison to others worsened the situ-
ation. In Arunachal Pradesh, the Tibetan refugees are not eligible for enjoying
citizenship right, but they have basic opportunities for their rehabilitation over
this land. In respect of the Chakma refugees, as their settlement process was
followed by the Indira and Mujib agreement of 1972, in which India had admitted
the legitimate claim of the Chakma and the Hajong refugees to the Indian citi-
zenship, but the successive state government denied the fundamental social rights,
which in accordance with the Indian Constitution, shall equally be enjoyed both
by the citizens and foreigners in this territory. The legal process for providing the
citizenship to the Chakmas was promoted by the highest judiciary, but the
political marginalization process threatened them to be recognized as the citizen
of India. The native vs alien contest became diluted because today Chakmas are
legally entitled to be granted the citizenship in India, but they are socially
unacceptable. It referred that an ethnic social pressure is simmering to exclude
them from the native land of the Arunachalis. The worst consequence of social
exclusion begins when the Chakmas were characterized as like as social ‘crimi-
nals’ by the indigenous student union (Parameswaran & Gaedtke, 2012). The
plight of the Chakma refugees in Arunachal Pradesh has gradually been wors-
ening because of the social discrimination policies of the state government. As
they were debarred from holding government jobs and ownership of the land in
the State of Arunachal Pradesh, it necessarily led to ethnic scuffle between the
native ethnic groups namely, the Singphos, Khamtis and Chakma refugees
regarding the ownership of the land. It was observed that a large number of
Chakma refugees in the districts of Chalang and Lohit were booked under the
criminal cases and land encroachment cases. In response to a Right to Infor-
mation application in 2014, by Rahant Chakma, the Ministry of Home Affairs,
North-East Division, the Government of India, provided the fact that apart from
146 Kallol Debnath and Kunal Debnath

a large number of land encroachment cases, there were 220 registered criminal
cases against the Chakmas and Hajongs in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. The
report further confirmed that the Chakma concentrated in Changlang and Lohit
districts were severely affected with ‘organized crime’.3 However, the ground-level
discord between the native ethnic groups and the Chakmas is mostly occurred on
account of land ownership and sharing of benefits. As the Chakmas has no
indigenous ethnic identity, it facilitates the AAPSU to articulate the demands of
the native ethnic group in the form of their marginalization and deprivation in
their own land. That is why, AAPSU’s campaign for protesting the government
decision of granting the Chakmas citizenship earned the popular support from all
the political parties of Arunachal Pradesh, and the native ethnic groups. While
entire Arunachal Pradesh pursued the ‘anthropoemic’ strategy to expulse the
Chakma refugees from their land, the approval for offering them citizenship is
mere a political euphoria especially in Arunachal Pradesh.4
The members of indigenous ethnic group have expressed utter disregard even
of the judgement of the Supreme Court, as according to their view, the verdict
ultimately break the demographic structure of the state. However, in India, the
major obstacle in granting the citizenship to the Chakmas is not the lack of stiff
legislations for the protection of refugee right because the Constitution of India
itself arranges several fundamental rights for the foreign nationals. Basically, the
crisis for the aliens and migrants in the state of Arunachal Pradesh springs from a
sort of social and cultural ‘ghettoization’ process.5 When the Chakma refugee
entered in India, they were settled by an administrative decision in Diyaun circle
of Tirap district. In later period, largest number of Chakma people built their
shelter particularly in the Tirap district followed by Lohit and Chalang. Barring
these three districts, in the rest of the part of Arunachal Pradesh the Chakma
refugees virtually has no opportunity for settlement and employment. While
spatial ghettoization process between the Chakma refugees and indigenous
natives gradually expanded the ethnic split, it ultimately benefited indigenous

3
This is based on the letter (No. 9/5/2014-NE-II, Dated 16 April 2014) consisting the report
sent by the Ministry of Home Affairs, North-East Division, the Government of India,
against the RTI request (MHO/ME/R/2014/80251) of Sri Rahant Chakma. Retrieved from
https://mha.gov.in/sites/default/files/39_RTI_NE_JPS_280714.PDF. Accessed on October
10, 2019.
4
It is the strategy to eliminate the others, as advocated by Claude Levi-Strauss. This
strategy ‘consisted in “vomiting”, spitting out the others seen as incurably strange and
alien: barring physical contact, dialogue, social intercourse and all varieties of commercium,
commensality or connubium’ (Bauman, 2000, p. 101).
5
The term ‘ghetto’ connotes a secluded area within a given territory, but it was developed as
a social engineering process through which the Jewish inhabited areas within the European
cities were compartmentalized from the rest of the territory. The aim was to thwart them
from social intercourse with mainland European people. Slavoj Žižek (1997) propounded
that this strategy is now followed by the multicultural nation, in which the racial differences
between the communities are naturalized through spatial and social ghettoization. As a
result, multiculturalism, instead of removing differences, approves the exercise of racial
characteristics from distance.
 Chakma Refugees in Arunachal Pradesh: Their Inclusion and Setback 147

ethnic backed state government because most of time, the Chakma-concentrated

district was not brought under the government social service scheme. However,
the seclusion of the Chakma population in one or two districts was one of the
major causes of their failure in forming a strong tie with the whole territory of
Arunachal Pradesh. Their deportation would be almost impossible because those
who had entered in the Indian Territory during 1964 were legally entitled for
being granted citizenship. The citizenship right is most precious for their dignity.
It approves their right to permanently stay in India, but to end the discrimination,
India needs to recognize the Chakmas as local ethnic group and as socially equal
as the other native Arunachalis.

Conclusion
Summarizing the state of the Chakma refugees in Arunachal Pradesh, it was
observed that any further legal recognition including citizenship status for them
in this territory could escalate political unrest because the political authority in
granting the citizenship status to the Chakmas cannot be exclusively defined in
terms of rational – legal character of the ruling elite. Despite their reasonable
claim in the citizenship status, the generation of ‘social capital’ at the inter-
community level of the society is required. It refers to a strong social connec-
tivity through intra- and inter-community network, trust building among the
neighbouring communities as advocated by Putnam (2000). Only some worthy
social values could break the present impasse between the native ethnic groups
and the Chakmas. Every administrative decision with regard to the refugee
settlement should be proclaimed considering that the strategy of political
assimilation, instead of bridging up the cleavages between the native and the
refugees, is quite incompatible for ending the decade-long refugee crisis in the
state of Arunachal Pradesh.

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