South Asia State of Minorities Report 2019 Buddhist Tibetans and Chakmas; Tamil Hindus from Sri Lanka; and Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar. Those being targeted for disenfranchisement in India are also religious minorities, mostly Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam and elsewhere. We studied the consequences of migration on the lives of the refugee subjects—by analysing their lived experiences of deprivation and violence, their socio-economic condition, access to basic rights, services and benefits, and their struggles for nationality and a permanent home. In doing so, we have also tried to examine the factors behind their difficulties, focusing on state responses, including the legislative framework, the role of the judiciary, state practices, and institutional mechanism and capacities as well as the role of politics in determining outcomes. The study is exploratory in nature, with the intent to connect accounts of the lived experiences of refugees and the disenfranchised with key factors that resulted in those outcomes, including the causes and drivers of the dispossession and displacement, and accounts of state responses. The methodology we use is exploratory, based mostly on desk research and supplemented by primary field exploration with select targeted groups. We reviewed the literature available on the refugees and stateless groups in India—to understand both the conditions of refugees as well as the nature of state response. This required understanding the actions of relevant stakeholders, i.e., state actors, relief and research bodies working with specific groups, and those living in refugee camps. To understand the lived experiences of the groups and state response towards them, we needed to speak to the subjects and gather first-hand data through interviews. We conducted interviews with religious minorities from Pakistan in refugee camps in Delhi through September and October 2019, and in Assam to study the deprivation of citizenship. For the latter, we relied on documentation of Misaal Foundation’s ongoing victim support work around the ongoing NRC process, supplemented by field data collection in Barpeta, Guwahati and Morigaon districts in August and October 2019. Secondary literature on refugees and migrants, including scholarly works as well as programme documents and media accounts, were also used. To be able to cover the range of cases, and for practical convenience, 34

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