Refugees and the State: Practices of Asylum and Care in India, 1947-2000 Edited by Ranabir Samaddar, Sage, Rs 595

A refugee is a person compelled to flee from one state to another, seeking the protection of the government of the receiving state. The dawn of independence in India was greeted with vicious communal violence and massive migrations. The influx continues till date. The essays in this volume analyse and reconstruct the refugee problem in India through different historical periods.

Paula Banerjee?s essay shows how the raj legislated to control the entry and exit of subject populations in territories under it. However, the law was unclear about the treatment of refugees. The post-colonial state inherited this confusion. Banerjee stresses on the need for a moral and humanitarian perspective.

The essays by Samir Kumar Das, Ritu Menon, Subir Bhaumik and K.C. Saha focus on relief and rehabilitation of refugees ? the planning and implementation of reconstruction programmes and the constraints faced by the government. A little over a decade after Partition, India faced the influx from Tibet. It received the Tibetan refugees primarily on humanitarian grounds, but their continued stay in India has been influenced by Sino-Indian relations. Rajesh Kharat?s article discusses the impact of the refugee issue on the Indo-China conflict of 1962.

Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury?s essay centres around the refugees from the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a people who have been uprooted twice ? first in the Sixties, when the government of undivided Pakistan decided to construct a dam in the region, and then in the Eighties, when military regimes in Bangladesh encouraged people from the plains to settle in the hill areas. The issue of the Sri Lankan Tamils is yet another area of worry for India. V. Suryanarayan writes about this unique problem.

The gender dimensions of the refugee problem are probed by Asha Hans, who asserts that the Indian government has not been sensitive to the special needs of women and children. Sarbani Sen?s article traces the history of presence of the UNHRC in India. B.S. Chimni thinks a humane treatment of refugees has to be undertaken simultaneously with the maintenance of a democratic and responsible socio-political order. This volume combines analysis with detailed narrative.