By T. Ramakrishnan
The Hindu
With their children
enrolled in a panchayat school and access to healthcare, the 19 families have
blended into the community
Far away from their
troubled villages in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, Rohingya Muslim refugees have found
an unlikely new home in the Chennai suburb of Kelambakkam.
Here, 94 of them —
young and old, men and women — live in a decrepit building close to the sea,
safe but uprooted from their traditional way of life, learning to adjust to an
alien culture.
This little-known
corner on the Kelambakkam-Vandalur road, close to a corporate hospital, hosts
19 families including 52 children. The open space surrounding the building is
crowded with ramshackle sheds of wood, plastic and cloth. Fifteen refugees stay
in these sheds, with one corner serving as a community kitchen for the whole
group.
“We definitely need
alternative accommodation, but we request the authorities to allow us to remain
in Kelambakkam,” says Mohammad Yosuf, a 28-year-old with two children.
Most Rohingya
residents use basic Hindi for communication though the children and a few adults
have picked up a smattering of Tamil. Rohingya, their mother tongue, does not
have a script.
For almost two years
now, the refugees have lived in the 35-year-old building. “This place has
become familiar to us. You have a market nearby. A primary health centre is
just across the road and all our children go to the Kelambakkam Panchayat
Primary School, hardly half-a-kilometre away,” Mr. Yosuf explains.
He is delighted that
all the children got free educational kits from the school.
What the Rohingyas
appreciate the most is the safety of their environment. “If my neighbours find
any child belonging to the camp alone on the road, they bring the child back to
the camp,” Mr Yousuf says.
The young man
collects and recycles waste for a living. Other men in the camp work at odd
jobs in the many eateries that line the road or with butchers. The women in the
camp do not go out for work.
It used to be
impossible for the refugees to get driving licenses, but sources say the policy
has recently been changed and authorities have discretion to grant licenses.
Issued Aadhaar cards
Most camp residents
have Aadhaar cards but they do not have bank accounts. As a result, some of the
refugees who send money home to parents and siblings in Myanmar resort to
informal channels. In one case, it is routed through the border State of
Manipur.
Mr. Yosuf and his
family were forced out of Mungdaw town in Rakhine province of Myanmar in 2012.
He and his younger brother recall the shooting when they were praying at a
mosque and armed men drove away the people of his community. Those who fled got
to Bangladesh by boat, and then reached Kolkata by road. “An agent put us on a
train to Chennai,” he says for a sum of one lakh Kyat, the Myanmarese currency
(about ₹4,800).
The Chennai office
of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is involved in resettling the
Rohingyas, and has intervened to ensure them shelter. For about three years
before they registered with the UNHCR, the refugees were scattered in and
around Chennai. In 2015, the agency intervened and approached the Tamil Nadu
government for support. Since then, Kelambakkam and its unremarkable building
became their camp.
Long-stay visas
There are 14,000
Rohingyas registered with the UNHCR in India. The UN agency told The Hindu that
refugees and asylum-seekers are registered through long-stay visas, “which,
while legalising their stay in India, also eases their access to higher education
and private sector jobs.” The registration process protects the vulnerable from
“harassment, arbitrary arrest, detention, deportation, and facilitates
employment and access to public services.” The visas, granted through the
Kancheepuram Superintendent of Police and the UN agency’s facilitation, has
helped them get Aadhaar numbers.
The UNHCR also
supports the refugees “to the extent possible in collaboration with
governmental, NGO and other partners. [The] UNHCR works closely with the
government to ensure [that] refugees are able to live a life of dignity in
asylum,” it said.
Mr. Yousuf and
others turn nostalgic about Mungdaw. “So long as the Indian government wants us
to be here, we will remain,” he says. The UNHCR tells them that there is no
resettlement policy for Rohingyas. Would Mr. Yousuf like to go back? “Yes, but
only after peace is established.”