South Asia Bangladesh Since its independence from Pakistan in 1971, Bangladesh has hosted refugee and stateless populations—primarily the 250,000 Urdu-speaking habitual residents of Bangladesh or so-called “stranded Pakistanis,”30 and nearly 900,000 Rohingya refugees.31 While moderate numbers of Myanmar’s ethnic Rohingya have historically sought refuge in Bangladesh from government persecution and disenfranchisement, large-scale influxes of Rohingya refugees occurred in 1978, 1992 (250,000 people), 2016, and most recently in August 2017, when over 800,000 people fled following waves of generalized military-backed violence in Myanmar.32 Despite Bangladesh’s history as a de facto refugee-hosting state, the reception and treatment of refugees by the government of Bangladesh has been largely ad hoc and discretionary in nature, determined primarily by the central government rather than prescribed by legislation. In the absence of a legislative framework recognizing refugees as a distinct class that should be guaranteed a set of fundamental rights and freedoms, refugees’ presence in Bangladesh is governed primarily by the Foreigners Act of 1946, a vestige of colonial law common to Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. As a result, individuals seeking asylum in Bangladesh fall within the general legal category of “foreigner,” although Bangladesh’s Supreme Court has recognized some obligations of the state toward non-citizens with protection needs.33 There are also several protections under domestic law that should apply equally to citizens and foreigners, although in practice many of them are not being extended to refugee groups.34 The two central authorities primarily responsible for governing refugee populations are the Foreign Ministry and the Office of the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner. Invoking the humanitarian imperative, these administrations issue policies that govern the everyday lives of refugee populations in Bangladesh, including the establishment and governance of refugee camps and interactions with UNHCR and other nongovernmental humanitarian assistance providers. Still, the protections afforded under such discretionary policies are subject to politicization, and Rohingya populations in Bangladesh have variously been portrayed as a community with an acute need for humanitarian assistance and as illicit “foreign infiltrators” seeking out economic opportunities. The latter narrative, however, is being challenged, often though court judgments that recognize the fundamental rights of Rohingya persons, including the right to life and liberty, the right to be released from detention after completion of a sentence or term of imprisonment, and the right to be protected against return to Myanmar based on the international law principle of non-refoulement.35 Overall, Bangladesh’s approach toward the newest influx of Rohingya refugees can be described as a generous yet cautious grant of humanitarian aid, couched in terms of temporality. India India has hosted multiple refugee populations throughout its independent history, including some 150,000 Tibetan refugees, an estimated 80,000 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, and approximately 14,000 Rohingya refugees.36 This rich history does not lend itself to concise summary, nor can contemporary India be regarded as a positive example to draw from, given the negative trend of rolling back protections for refugees since 2017-18, as exemplified by the stated policy of “detect and deport.”37 11 UND OING PRECARIT Y: ELE VATING P OSITIVE PR ACTICES FOR REFU GEE PROTECTION IN SO U TH AND SO U THE AST ASIA