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Accepted Paper:

Burmese refugees in Delhi  
Anne-Sophie Bentz (University Paris Diderot)

Paper short abstract:

The present study is based on fieldwork conducted in November 2013 with thirty Burmese refugees living in Delhi. It addresses the following questions: reasons why these refugees have left Burma and gone to India; living conditions in Delhi; the refugees’ future prospects.

Paper long abstract:

Burmese refugees have started to take refuge in Thailand and India at the end of 1988, following the suppression of pro-democracy movements by the military junta. They have been welcomed by India: refugee camps were rapidly set up to accommodate Burmese dissidents, notably in Manipur, Mizoram, and Nagaland. But relations with the local population were tense and some Burmese dissidents were even forcefully repatriated to Burma. This led Burmese refugees to leave the camps and find refuge in India's cities, such as Imphal (Manipur), Aizawl (Mizoram) and New Delhi (where they looked for support from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees).

The present study is based on fieldwork conducted in November 2013 with thirty Burmese refugees living in Delhi. It addresses the following questions: Why did they leave Burma? Why are they still in India in 2013? Why are they still coming to India? How do they live in India? How do they like living in India? What is India doing for them, if anything? What do they want to do in the future? Stay in India? Go back to Burma? Or pursue their journey to the West?

We will first look at the reasons why Burmese refugees have left Burma and gone to India. We will then focus on the living conditions of Burmese refugees in Delhi. And we will eventually look at the refugees' future prospects, whether real or idealized by the refugees themselves.

Panel P34
Mobility and belonging in South Asia
  Session 1