The coronavirus pandemic has further amplified the devastating consequences of India’s selective refugee policy. A majority of Afghan refugees in India are daily wage earners, and the strict lockdown during both waves of the pandemic led to their grocery stores, restaurants, and bakeries being shut for five months on end. While the New Delhi government provided rations and social protection packages to daily wage earners, only Indian citizens were eligible, leaving more than eleven thousand Afghan refugees to fend for themselves. Even the “blue card” attained by some Afghan refugees does not allow for adequate health services, affordable housing, or education, resulting in nearly eight hundred families allegedly moving back to Afghanistan during the height of the pandemic. Thus, Afghan refugees in India are stuck between a rock and a hard place, with poverty and few social protections in India, and Taliban rule, economic stress, and terrorism in Afghanistan.

India must recognize its obligations to Afghan refugees—both morally and because of its status as a signatory of the Convention Against Torture. An influx of Afghans into India is quite possible in the coming months. Not only should New Delhi be willing to take in more Afghan refugees—regardless of their religious affiliation—but it should also ease the burden of those already in India. Officials should take steps to ensure that Afghan refugees don’t have to wait so long to get their blue cards. And while they’re in that limbo of waiting, the state should ensure that their basic needs are accounted for. 

India’s footprint in Afghanistan is likely to recede in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. That makes it all the more important that it steps up efforts to help those Afghans now on its soil. 

Mahika Khosla, a Summer 2021 research intern at the Woodrow Wilson Center, is a senior at Tufts University. Michael Kugelman is Asia Program deputy director and senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center. 

Image: Reuters