Refugee Crisis — UNHCR, International Framework & India's Policy

Key Concepts

A refugee is a person who has crossed an international border and is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin due to a well-founded fear of persecution on grounds of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion. This definition is enshrined in Article 1 of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

The distinction between a refugee (fleeing persecution) and an economic migrant (seeking better economic conditions) is critical both legally and politically. Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) — those forced to flee within their own country — are not covered under the 1951 Convention, though they are the larger group: 68.7 million of the 117.8 million forcibly displaced people at the end of 2025 were IDPs (UNHCR Global Trends 2025, published 11 June 2026).

The 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol

1951 Convention

The Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees was adopted on 28 July 1951 in Geneva. It was initially limited to persons displaced by events occurring before 1 January 1951 in Europe, reflecting the post-World War II context.

Definition (Article 1): A refugee is someone who, "owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country."

Exclusions: Article 1(F) excludes persons who have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, or serious non-political crimes before seeking refuge.

Non-Refoulement — Article 33

The cornerstone of international refugee law is the principle of non-refoulement (Article 33(1)): "No Contracting State shall expel or return ('refouler') a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion."

Non-refoulement is also recognised as a norm of customary international law, binding on all states, including those not party to the 1951 Convention.

1967 Protocol

The Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (1967) removed the temporal and geographic limitations of the 1951 Convention, making it universally applicable. States that accede to the Protocol are bound by the Convention's substantive obligations. Accession is not all-or-nothing in practice: Iran, for example, acceded to both instruments in July 1976 but entered reservations to Articles 17, 23, 24 and 26, and today hosts one of the world's largest refugee populations.

UNHCR — Mandate and Role

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was established on 14 December 1950 by the UN General Assembly (Resolution 428/V) and became operational on 1 January 1951.

Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.

High Commissioner: Barham Ahmed Salih of Iraq, the former Iraqi President, whom the General Assembly elected by acclamation on 18 December 2025 for a five-year term running from 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2030. He succeeded Filippo Grandi of Italy, who served two five-year terms (2016–2025).

Mandate:

• Protect refugees, stateless persons, and internally displaced persons (IDPs, by extension).
• Seek durable solutions: voluntary repatriation, local integration, or resettlement in a third country.
• Support and monitor implementation of the 1951 Convention.
• Coordinate emergency humanitarian response.

Global Displacement Statistics (end-2025)

According to UNHCR's Global Trends 2025 report, published on 11 June 2026:

• 117.8 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide at the end of 2025, the first annual decline in a decade (the end-2024 figure reported in Global Trends 2024 was 123.2 million). UNHCR states that one in every 70 people, or 1.4 per cent of the world's population, is now forcibly displaced.
• The breakdown: 41.6 million refugees (including refugees under UNHCR's mandate, people in refugee-like situations, others in need of international protection, and Palestine refugees under UNRWA's mandate), 9 million asylum-seekers awaiting a decision, and 68.7 million IDPs displaced by conflict or violence.
• Refugee numbers fell 3 per cent and IDP numbers 7 per cent, driven by large-scale returns to Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• Seven in ten refugees under UNHCR's mandate and others in need of international protection originate from just six countries: Afghanistan, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela. The five largest single origins are Venezuela (6.5 million), Ukraine (5.2 million), Syria (4.9 million), Afghanistan (3.7 million) and Sudan (2.8 million).
• The largest hosts are Colombia, Germany, Türkiye, Uganda, Iran, Chad and Pakistan. 65 per cent of refugees are hosted in neighbouring countries and 68 per cent in low- and middle-income countries: the burden sits overwhelmingly with the countries least able to carry it.
• Sudan remains the largest internal displacement crisis globally, with 9.1 million people displaced inside the country at end-2025; refugees from Sudan rose 35 per cent to 2.8 million. Forty-six per cent of the world's IDPs are in just five countries: Sudan, Colombia, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan.
• An estimated 45 million (38 per cent) of the 117.8 million forcibly displaced are children below 18. Measured against refugees alone, the child share is 39 per cent. Between 2018 and 2025, an average of 305,000 children a year were born as refugees.
• Data on some 4.5 million stateless people in 100 countries was reported at end-2025; UNHCR estimates the true figure is significantly higher.

UNHCR's interim snapshot for mid-2025 (Mid-Year Trends 2025, 4 November 2025) put the total at 117.3 million as at 30 June 2025, with 42.5 million refugees, 67.8 million IDPs and 8.42 million asylum-seekers. Mid-year figures are preliminary; the final count for a year appears in the following June's Global Trends report, so the end-2025 numbers above supersede them.

Returns and Resettlement in 2025

The fall in the global total is not a peace dividend. It is the arithmetic of return, and the returns were largely not free choices. 14.7 million people went home during 2025, comprising 4.4 million refugees and 10.3 million IDPs, a 49 per cent increase over 2024 and the second-highest refugee return figure since UNHCR began reporting returns in 1965. UNHCR attributes 92 per cent of all returns to "just seven countries" and then names six: the Democratic Republic of the Congo (3.6 million), Sudan (3.5 million), Syria (3.3 million), Afghanistan (2 million), Ukraine (718,300) and Myanmar (415,200). UNHCR's own caution is the analytical key: "most returns in 2025 occurred under adverse circumstances or to extremely fragile contexts." Afghan returns it describes as involuntary in nature because of host-country policy changes; Congolese IDPs moved after forced settlement closures.

Against those 14.7 million returns, resettlement or sponsorship arrivals more than halved year-on-year to just 81,800 in 2025, with a further 93,500 refugees naturalised or granted permanent residency (UNHCR Global Trends 2025, 11 June 2026). The two figures together describe the state of international burden-sharing: the durable solution that requires rich states to act has collapsed, while the solution that depends on refugees going back to fragile places has surged. For a country like India, which hosts substantially and resettles almost not at all, the collapse of third-country resettlement removes the exit route that makes hosting politically sustainable.

UNHCR's Finances and the "50 by 35" Vision

In a letter to member states dated 15 May 2026, reported by Reuters on 18 May 2026, High Commissioner Barham Salih said UNHCR expected available funds in 2026 to reach just over USD 3 billion, about 15 per cent lower than in 2025, after a roughly 30 per cent drop in 2025 compared with 2024 as the United States and other donors cut contributions. The agency had "no choice" but to cut more jobs: after reducing international staff positions by 33 per cent during 2025, it had about 3,000 international staff for only 1,800 positions, and the contracts of staff without positions were to be terminated by end-September 2026. Tightly earmarked donations, which restrict how money can be spent, rose from 24 per cent of income in 2024 to 44 per cent in 2025 and were expected to exceed 50 per cent in 2026.

Salih's stated response is the "50 by 35" vision: UNHCR aims to support states and partners in halving, by 2035, the number of refugees and others in need of international protection in protracted displacement who cannot meet their basic needs without external support. Launching Global Trends 2025, he argued that humanitarian aid alone is no longer sufficient and noted that 70 per cent of refugees remain trapped in exile for years. The route he proposes is expanded voluntary return, humanitarian visas and relocation, plus a shift from aid dependency to self-reliance through access to education, healthcare, financial services and labour markets.

India's Position — Not a Signatory

India is not a signatory to either the 1951 Refugee Convention or the 1967 Protocol. India has also not enacted a domestic refugee protection law.

The official position has been that the Convention's definition is narrow and Eurocentric, and that India's refugee situation, primarily involving persons from neighbouring countries, requires a different, bilateral and regional approach.

In the absence of a national refugee law, refugees in India are governed by general immigration law:

• Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 (Act No. 13 of 2025). The Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha on 11 March 2025, passed by the Lok Sabha on 27 March 2025 and the Rajya Sabha on 2 April 2025, received presidential assent on 4 April 2025 and was brought into force from 1 September 2025 by a Ministry of Home Affairs notification of 31 August 2025. It repealed and replaced four statutes: the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920, the Registration of Foreigners Act, 1939, the Foreigners Act, 1946, and the Immigration (Carriers' Liability) Act, 2000. It creates a statutory Bureau of Immigration, requires foreigners to register with a Registration Officer on arrival, places reporting duties on keepers of accommodation (non-commercial residential premises exempted), educational institutions admitting foreigners and medical facilities treating foreign in-patients, allows entry to be refused on grounds of national security, sovereignty, integrity or public health, and empowers police officers of and above the rank of Head Constable to arrest without warrant. Immigration officers may seize passports believed to be lost, stolen, forged or fraudulently obtained. Entry without a valid passport or travel document is punishable with up to five years' imprisonment and a fine of up to Rs 5 lakh; the imprisonment ceiling is carried over from the 1920 Act, while the fine ceiling rises from Rs 50,000.
• Until 31 August 2025, the governing statutes were the Foreigners Act, 1946 and the Foreigners Order, 1948, which treated all non-citizens, refugees included, as "foreigners" liable to detention and deportation. Conduct before that date, including the deportations and expulsions of 2025, falls under the old law, and Supreme Court proceedings arising from it still refer to the Foreigners Act.
• The government's ad hoc, discretionary grants of "Long-Term Visa" or "Stay Orders" to specific refugee groups.

The consolidation changed the statute book but not the underlying position: the 2025 Act contains no refugee-specific protection. A person fleeing persecution and a person overstaying a business visa are, in Indian law, the same category of "foreigner". The Act consolidates immigration control; it does not create a refugee category, a status-determination procedure, or any protection against return to persecution. For exam purposes the assent date (4 April 2025) and the commencement date (1 September 2025) are separate facts, and the gap between them matters legally.

Enforcement in Practice — the 2025 Expulsions and the Push-Back Doctrine

Human Rights Watch reported that in May 2025 the Ministry of Home Affairs set a 30-day deadline for states to "detect, identify, and deport illegal immigrants" and directed local authorities to "establish adequate holding centers in each district to detain" them. Border Guard Bangladesh reported that India expelled more than 1,500 men, women and children to Bangladesh between 7 May and 15 June 2025, including about 100 Rohingya refugees. The Ministry of External Affairs said it had sent the names of over 2,360 people to Bangladeshi authorities for nationality verification. Dozens of those expelled eventually proved Indian citizenship and had to be readmitted.

State-level enforcement figures compiled by HRW (23 July 2025): Gujarat claimed nearly 6,500 detained across the state, including 890 in Ahmedabad of whom 219 were women and 214 children; Rajasthan reportedly detained over 1,000 people across 17 districts, with at least 148 expelled to Bangladesh; Odisha rounded up 444 people in Jharsuguda district. On 28 August 2025 HRW reported that those expelled to Bangladesh included at least 192 Rohingya refugees despite being registered with UNHCR, that several hundred more were arbitrarily detained, and that in Jammu authorities vandalised refugee shelters and arrested at least 30 refugees. HRW's World Report 2026 (16 January 2026) repeated the 192 figure and added that Gujarat demolished over 10,000 structures claiming they housed "illegal Bangladeshi immigrants", contrary to the Supreme Court's November 2024 ruling against punitive demolitions, and that Assam conducted at least seven demolition drives in July and August 2025 displacing over 5,000 families.

The due-process objection was stated most bluntly by the state itself. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said in May 2025 that authorities had "pushed back" 330 alleged illegal immigrants and that the process would now bypass adjudication entirely: "if someone is identified as a foreigner, we won't send them to a tribunal; we will just keep pushing them back." Assam's Foreigners Tribunals had declared 165,992 people to be irregular immigrants as of January 2025 (against 63,959 between 1985 and February 2019), and the 2019 NRC left out over 1.9 million people. HRW documented several people with appeals pending before the Supreme Court or the Gauhati High Court who were expelled regardless.

The international response came from the Special Rapporteur, not from UNHCR. On 15 May 2025 Tom Andrews, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, announced an inquiry into "unconscionable, unacceptable acts" after credible reports that Indian authorities had detained dozens of Rohingya in Delhi, many holding refugee identification documents, blindfolded about 40 of them, flown them to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, transferred them to an Indian naval ship and, after crossing the Andaman Sea, given them life jackets and forced them into the water to swim to an island in Myanmar territory. He reported that roughly 100 Rohingya were also removed from a detention centre in Assam to the Bangladesh border, and recalled his communication to the Government of India of 3 March 2025 on arbitrary and indefinite detention and alleged refoulement. He called the conduct "a serious violation of the principle of non-refoulment, a fundamental tenet of international law."

Dhaka objected as well. Bangladesh's Foreign Ministry wrote to India on 8 May 2025 calling the expulsions "push-ins" and "unacceptable", stating that it would "only accept individuals confirmed as Bangladeshi citizens and repatriated through proper channels." A border managed through push-backs rather than verification produces friction in both directions: India readmitting its own citizens who had been expelled, and Dhaka refusing to accept people whose nationality has not been established.

The Courts — Detention, Deportation and the Status Question

The courts have pushed in both directions. On 22 January 2025 a Bench of Justices A.S. Oka and N. Kotiswar Singh held that Assam's affidavit on the detention of 270 declared foreigners at the Matia transit camp was "defective" and a "gross violation" of the Court's orders, observing that "the affidavit does not give any justification for detaining... steps taken to deport are not set out," and summoned the Chief Secretary. The underlying petition seeks a direction that no person declared a foreigner be detained unless the state can show a realistic prospect of deportation, an Article 21 limit on indefinite detention. The Court had in May 2024 directed the Centre to take immediate steps to deport 17 foreigners held at Matia, prioritising four who had spent over two years there.

On 8 May 2025, however, a three-judge Bench of Justices Surya Kant, Dipankar Datta and N. Kotiswar Singh declined to interfere with the reported deportation of Rohingya from Delhi, in view of the Solicitor General's statement that the Union was bound by an earlier order of the Court to deport foreigners in accordance with law. Justice Surya Kant said that "if they have a right to stay here, that should be acknowledged, and if they don't have a right to stay here, then they will follow the procedure and deport as per law." On 16 May 2025 a two-judge Bench of Justices Surya Kant and N. Kotiswar Singh dismissed the account of Rohingya being abandoned at sea near Myanmar as a "beautifully crafted story", and posted the matter to 31 July 2025.

On 31 August 2026 a three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant agreed to hear in detail the "core issue" of whether the Rohingya in India can be classified as refugees or must be treated as illegal immigrants. "Yes, that will be the core issue. Prima facie, it appears that as a refugee, someone would have a legal status," the CJI remarked. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta again argued that India is not a signatory to the Refugee Convention, told the Bench that the legal questions in the case "were already prepared", and read out three of them, asking that the hearing be restricted to them: whether the Rohingya are illegal entrants rather than refugees; whether deportation by the Union or a State is justified; and whether, even if held to be illegal entrants, they can be detained indefinitely. The petitions, filed by Rohingya living in camps in Delhi and argued by Prashant Bhushan and Colin Gonsalves, date back to 2013. As of 22 September 2026 the question is pending and no judgment has been delivered.

The CAA Overlay

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 intersects with refugee policy by offering expedited citizenship to non-Muslim religious minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, a religiously differentiated approach to forced migration from India's neighbourhood. The Citizenship (Amendment) Rules were notified on 11 March 2024, but the Government has not disclosed how many people have benefited: the Ministry of Home Affairs has refused RTI requests, and on 2 April 2025 Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai told the Rajya Sabha only that "thousands were granted citizenship", responding to Sushmita Dev's assertion that merely 350 people had been granted citizenship under the Act. The Intelligence Bureau had deposed before a parliamentary committee in 2018 that around 31,000 people would be the immediate beneficiaries.

On 19 February 2026 a Bench headed by CJI Surya Kant listed the final hearing of the challenge to the Act's constitutional validity, brought in over 250 petitions, to begin on 5 May 2026, continue on 7 May and take rejoinders on 12 May 2026, and considered whether the Assam and Tripura issues should be heard separately. As of 22 September 2026 the case is still shown as pending on the Supreme Court Observer case page, with no judgment delivered.

The CAA's relevance is sharpened by events across the eastern border. Following Sheikh Hasina's fall in August 2024, attacks on Hindu minorities and their properties in Bangladesh were reported, raising concerns about displacement flows into India. India's northeastern states, particularly Tripura, Assam and West Bengal, border Bangladesh and have historically seen cross-border migration. The Home Ministry put border security on heightened alert and the Border Security Force increased patrolling. Because India has no refugee law and has not signed the 1951 Convention, any displaced Hindus arriving from Bangladesh would be treated as irregular migrants under general immigration law, which is the policy gap the CAA was presented as answering.

Refugee Groups in India

Tibetan Refugees

Following the 1959 Tibetan uprising and the Dalai Lama's flight to India, approximately 1 lakh Tibetan refugees were granted asylum. They are accommodated in settlements across Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttarakhand, and Sikkim. India issues them Registration Certificates (RCs), not formal refugee status. Their presence is diplomatically sensitive given India-China relations.

That sensitivity sharpened on 2 July 2025, days before his 90th birthday, when the Dalai Lama said in a video message from Dharamshala, "I am affirming that the institution of the Dalai Lama will continue," and stated that the Gaden Phodrang Trust, the non-profit he established, has sole authority to recognise his reincarnation in consultation with the heads of Tibetan Buddhist traditions, adding that "no one else has any such authority to interfere in this matter." Beijing responded the same day that it must approve the reincarnation and that the process must take place in China through a centuries-old ritual. The Dalai Lama has said his successor will be born outside China. For India, the succession question turns a refugee community it has hosted for over six decades into a live bilateral issue with China.

Sri Lankan Tamil Refugees

Around 89,000 to 90,000 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, predominantly displaced by the civil war (1983–2009), live in and outside camps in Tamil Nadu (M.K. Stalin's letter to the Prime Minister, 15 February 2026; PTI, 22 August 2026). Nearly 40 per cent of them were born in India, which is the core of the problem: a second generation holds refugee status in the only country it has known.

The file moved in 2026 after years of stasis. On 10 August 2026 the Sri Lankan Cabinet decided to facilitate immigration clearance for people who left the country during the war without using an approved port of departure or a formal passport, sought refuge in India, have proved Sri Lankan nationality and are returning voluntarily. The procedure requires verification of identity, clearance from Sri Lanka's State Intelligence Service, authentication of nationality through Sri Lankan missions in India for those displaced before 1 August 2006, and confirmation that the person has not committed murder, treason or other specified offences. The decision followed the arrest in May 2025 of a 75-year-old returning refugee for having left the island without a valid passport, the precise obstacle the new procedure removes.

The scale of return remains small against the caseload: around 18,000 refugees returned between 2002 and 2022, and 246 people from 46 families returned between July 2025 and February 2026, with no arrests reported. The United Nations welcomed the Cabinet decision on 22 August 2026, with UN Resident Coordinator in Sri Lanka Marc-André Franche calling it "a key step towards a safe & dignified return after years of displacement" and saying the UN would continue to facilitate return and resettlement through UNHCR.

Afghan Refugees

Post the Taliban takeover in August 2021, a new wave of Afghan refugees arrived in India. UNHCR India registered thousands of Afghan asylum seekers in Delhi. Many are professionals, including journalists, former government officials and academics, facing specific persecution risk. India's response has been primarily through case-by-case UNHCR registration, not a formal governmental scheme. Afghanistan remains the second-largest country of origin in UNHCR India's registered caseload (8,248 persons) after Myanmar (31,151), per the UNHCR India factsheet for May–June 2026.

Globally, the Afghan picture changed more sharply than any other during 2025. At end-2025 there were some 3.7 million Afghan refugees or others in need of international protection, a fall of 36 per cent in a year, with four in five hosted by just two countries: Iran (1.6 million) and Pakistan (1.3 million). Around 2.9 million Afghans returned during 2025, and UNHCR records that most of those returns were involuntary in nature, driven by changes in host-country policies rather than by improved conditions at home. Returnees face severely limited infrastructure and economic opportunity, and returnee children, girls especially, have less access to education than Afghans who never left. This is the sharpest live illustration that "voluntary repatriation", the first of the three durable solutions, can be coercive in practice.

Rohingya Refugees

The Rohingya crisis intensified dramatically in August 2017, when a military crackdown in Myanmar's Rakhine State led to the mass exodus of Rohingya to Bangladesh; UNHCR puts that largest single influx at around 750,000 people. The Rohingya refugee population in Bangladesh now stands at 1.2 million, most of them in the Cox's Bazar camps, including around 150,000 new arrivals who have fled renewed violence in Rakhine since early 2024.

Funding has moved in the opposite direction to need. In May 2026 the UN and its partners, working with the Government of Bangladesh, launched an appeal for USD 710.5 million for 2026, 26 per cent lower than the previous year's request and described as a "hyper-prioritised" response, a direct reflection of the agency's own shrinking income. UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch appealed in Geneva on 2 June 2026 for continued support. The consequence is visible at sea: UNHCR says 2025 was the deadliest year on record for Rohingya sea crossings, with nearly 900 refugees dead or missing in the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal, waters India patrols.

In India, an estimated 40,000 Rohingya live in the country, at least 20,000 of them registered with UNHCR (Human Rights Watch, 28 August 2025), concentrated in Jammu, Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur and West Bengal. Two separate UNHCR India figures should not be confused: 48,302 refugees and asylum-seekers of all nationalities were registered directly with UNHCR India as of 30 June 2026, mainly from Myanmar, Afghanistan, Sudan and Somalia; the much larger total of more than 240,000 that UNHCR reports for India (end-2024) covers persons "identified and registered by UNHCR in collaboration with the Government" and includes government-assisted groups such as Sri Lankan Tamils and Tibetans.

The Government treats Rohingya as illegal migrants liable to removal under India's immigration law: the Foreigners Act, 1946 until 31 August 2025 and the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 thereafter.

Supreme Court position: In April 2021, in Mohammad Salimullah v. Union of India, the Supreme Court declined to grant relief to Rohingya petitioners challenging deportation orders, ruling that since "India is not a signatory either to the United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees 1951 or to the Protocol of the year 1967," the principle of non-refoulement is inapplicable in Indian domestic law. Human rights organisations argue that non-refoulement's status as customary international law means India retains obligations regardless of treaty ratification. The position has moved twice since: in May 2025 the Court refused to block deportations, and on 31 August 2026 it agreed to decide the status question itself.

Myanmar Border Arrivals and the End of the Free Movement Regime

India announced in February 2024 its decision to end the open Free Movement Regime (FMR) along the Myanmar border and to fence the 1,643 km boundary, a decision driven in part by the influx of people fleeing Myanmar's civil war. Myanmar remains the single largest country of origin in UNHCR India's registered caseload, and Mizoram and Manipur continue to host arrivals whom state authorities, not UNHCR, count. India's approach remains ad hoc: UNHCR registration is permitted but confers no legal status under Indian law.

Internal displacement compounds the picture in the same states. HRW's World Report 2026 records that the ethnic violence in Manipur since May 2023 had claimed at least 260 lives and displaced more than 60,000 people, with President's Rule imposed in February 2025. These are IDPs, outside the 1951 Convention and outside UNHCR's registered caseload, and they are a reminder that displacement in India's northeast is not only a cross-border phenomenon.

Iran 2026 — Displacement in a Convention State, and India's Consular Response

Coordinated US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran's military, nuclear and strategic infrastructure began on 28 February 2026. UNHCR reported on 12 March 2026 that, on preliminary assessments and government estimates, between 600,000 and one million Iranian households, representing up to 3.2 million people, had been temporarily displaced inside Iran, moving mainly from Tehran and other major cities to northern and rural areas; more than 100,000 people left Tehran city in the first two days. By 9 March 2026 the strikes had killed over 1,255 civilians and injured more than 12,000, with more than 25 hospitals damaged and nine out of service (ACAPS). Iran was already hosting around 1.65 million forcibly displaced people of different documentation statuses, including some 770,000 refugees holding Amayesh cards (758,000 Afghans) and Hoviat cards (12,000 Iraqis).

India's response was consular rather than humanitarian in form and, unlike the June 2025 Israel-Iran conflict, carried no named operation. Answering Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question No. 602 on 23 July 2026, the Ministry of External Affairs said that as on 17 July 2026 a total of 2,557 Indian nationals, including 1,091 students and 657 fishermen, had been facilitated to cross out of Iran by the land route via Armenia and Azerbaijan. India also sent several consignments of medical aid, facilitated supplies of food and medicines, and permitted the emergency docking of the Iranian Navy ship IRIS Lavan from March 2026 as a humanitarian gesture; the Prime Minister spoke to the Iranian President three times and the External Affairs Minister to the Iranian Foreign Minister eight times. Answering Unstarred Question No. 1363 on 30 July 2026, the Ministry estimated that about 7,000 Indian nationals remained in Iran, including seminary students, medical students, workers, seafarers and fishermen, down from approximately 9,000 estimated on 19 March 2026; an advisory of 19 July 2026 asked those already in Iran to consider temporarily exiting using available flight options and those planning travel to postpone it. When asked directly on 19 March 2026 (Unstarred Question No. 3128) for the "operation name, timeline and coordination mechanisms", the Government described embassy-facilitated relocation and border crossings and named no operation; Operation Sindhu was the June 2025 evacuation, not this one.

The contrast is the exam point. Iran, a party to the 1951 Convention since July 1976 with reservations, hosts around 1.65 million forcibly displaced people while being bombed; India, a non-party, evacuates its own nationals efficiently and has no legal framework for anyone else's.

Gap in SAARC Framework

SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) has no regional refugee protection framework. Unlike the OAU/AU Refugee Convention (1969) for Africa or the Cartagena Declaration (1984) for Latin America, South Asia lacks a regional compact on refugees and displacement. This leaves SAARC states, including India, managing cross-border displacement entirely through bilateral agreements and domestic law.

India's Ad Hoc Approach — Evaluation

Strengths:

• India has historically shown generosity toward specific refugee groups (Tibetans, Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis in 1971) on humanitarian and strategic grounds.
• Flexibility allows India to tailor responses to strategic and diplomatic realities.

Weaknesses:

• No uniform legal framework leads to differential and often discriminatory treatment of refugee groups.
• Lack of legal clarity creates vulnerability to exploitation, detention, and deportation, including indefinite detention where deportation is not actually achievable.
• Criminalisation of refugees under general immigration law denies them the right to work, healthcare, and education.
• India's non-ratification constrains its international influence in refugee policy debates.

The contradiction is visible in enforcement itself. India's National Investigation Agency has continued prosecuting cases involving the trafficking of Rohingya and Bangladeshi nationals into India, including a Bengaluru case that exposed a transnational network trafficking Rohingya from Bangladesh into India using false identity documents, with victims forced into exploitative labour. The enforcement frame and the protection frame pull in opposite directions: the same person may be a trafficking victim in one proceeding and an illegal entrant liable to removal in another.

Cross-paper relevance

• GS2 (primary) — India's non-ratification of 1951 Refugee Convention; Rohingya refugees; Sri Lankan Tamils; Tibetan refugees; CAA context; Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 and statelessness
• GS1 — Society — Forced displacement; migration; communal dimensions of refugee hosting
• GS4 (Ethics) — Humanitarian obligation vs. national security; non-refoulement as ethical principle; dignity of refugees
• Essay — "Refugees in India: a humanitarian and legal vacuum"; "Global forced displacement fell for the first time in a decade to 117.8 million at end-2025, but most of the 14.7 million returns happened under adverse circumstances. Is a falling number the same as a solved crisis?"

What Changed in 2025–26

For the first time in a decade the direction of travel reversed. UNHCR's Global Trends 2025, published on 11 June 2026 and launched in Geneva by the new High Commissioner Barham Salih, recorded a fall in the global forcibly displaced total. The fall is not evidence that the crises ended. It is the arithmetic of return, and UNHCR's own language, that most returns occurred under adverse circumstances or to extremely fragile contexts, is what an answer should carry rather than the headline. Afghanistan is the clearest case: people went home because host-country policy pushed them, not because Afghanistan became safe. "Voluntary repatriation", the first of the three durable solutions, can be coercive in practice, and a falling number is not the same as a solved crisis.

The composition of the caseload shifted with it. Sudan is now described as the largest internal displacement crisis rather than the largest displacement crisis outright; Myanmar has dropped out of the top origin countries while Venezuela and Sudan have entered. An aspirant who memorised the end-2024 picture is carrying a superseded map.

Burden-sharing moved the wrong way in the same year. Returns surged while third-country resettlement more than halved: the durable solution that requires wealthy states to act contracted, while the one that depends on refugees going back to fragile places expanded. For India, which hosts substantially and resettles almost not at all, that is not an abstraction. The resettlement route is what makes long-term hosting politically sustainable, and it is closing.

UNHCR's own capacity contracted alongside it, as donor contributions fell, posts were cut and donations became more tightly earmarked. Salih's "50 by 35" vision, announced with Global Trends 2025, is the institutional answer: a pivot from indefinite humanitarian assistance towards self-reliance, expanded legal pathways and return. The smaller "hyper-prioritised" appeal for the Rohingya response in Cox's Bazar, launched in May 2026, and the deadliest year on record for Rohingya sea crossings in 2025 are the same story told from two ends, and the sea in question is one India patrols.

In India the statute book was consolidated without the position changing. The Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 received assent on 4 April 2025 and came into force on 1 September 2025, sweeping away four colonial-era and post-colonial statutes including the Foreigners Act, 1946. It creates no refugee category, no status-determination procedure and no protection against return to persecution, so the chapter's central argument survives the change: India's refugees are governed by a law written for the management of foreigners, not for the protection of the persecuted. The commencement date also matters legally, because the expulsions of May to August 2025 happened while the 1946 Act was still in force.

Enforcement, meanwhile, hardened. The Ministry of Home Affairs drive of May 2025, the state-level detention and demolition campaigns documented by Human Rights Watch through 2025 and repeated in its World Report 2026 of 16 January 2026, and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma's open statement that identified foreigners would be pushed back rather than sent to a tribunal, together describe a doctrine of removal without adjudication. Two features are worth noting for an answer. First, UNHCR registration gave Rohingya refugees no practical protection during the drive. Second, the international objection came from Tom Andrews, the UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, on 15 May 2025, not from UNHCR, which illustrates what a non-signatory relationship actually looks like in practice. Dhaka's protest of 8 May 2025 showed the same friction running the other way, with Bangladesh refusing people whose nationality had not been established and India readmitting citizens it had expelled by mistake.

The courts are where the question now sits, and they have moved in both directions. Having refused to interfere with deportations on 8 May 2025 and dismissed the sea-abandonment account on 16 May 2025, a Bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant agreed on 31 August 2026 to decide the core issue itself: whether the Rohingya in India are refugees or illegal entrants, whether deportation is justified, and whether indefinite detention is permissible if they are held to be illegal entrants. This is the most consequential live legal question in the chapter. A ruling that refugee status carries legal consequences in India notwithstanding non-ratification would do by judgment what Parliament has declined to do by statute, and it would connect directly to the Article 21 argument against indefinite detention that the Matia proceedings of January 2025 opened. The parallel constitutional challenge to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, listed for final hearing in May 2026, remains undecided.

Two regional developments cut the other way. Sri Lanka's Cabinet decision of 10 August 2026, welcomed by the United Nations on 22 August 2026, opened a verified voluntary-return route for Tamil refugees who had left without a valid passport, removing the precise obstacle that had led to a returning refugee's arrest in May 2025. It is the one door in the chapter that opened rather than closed, though the caseload it addresses is far larger than the number returning. In the opposite direction, the Dalai Lama's statement of 2 July 2025 that the institution will continue and that the Gaden Phodrang Trust alone may recognise his reincarnation, and Beijing's same-day insistence on approving it, turned a community India has hosted for six decades into a live bilateral question with China.

Finally, the Iran conflict of 2026 supplied the sharpest contrast available. A state party to the 1951 Convention hosted a large refugee population while under bombardment and while its own citizens were displaced internally; India, a non-party, ran an efficient consular evacuation of its own nationals without a named operation and had no legal framework for anyone else's.

What to watch: the Supreme Court's ruling on Rohingya status and on indefinite detention; whether the CAA judgment arrives and how it treats the religious classification; whether the Sri Lankan return framework produces returns at scale; whether UNHCR's funding contraction reduces registration and assistance for the caseload it maintains in India; and whether global returns continue at the 2025 pace or reverse as the contexts people returned to fail.

PYQ Relevance

• Refugee policy, UNHCR mandate, and India's approach to Rohingya are recurring GS2 Mains themes under India's foreign policy and social justice. Prepare: "India is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention. Does this absolve India of obligations toward refugees? Discuss."
• The Rohingya crisis and India's deportation policy have appeared in GS2 questions on foreign policy and bilateral relations (India-Myanmar, India-Bangladesh context).
• Prelims: UNHCR founding year (1950), non-refoulement definition, India's non-signatory status to 1951 Convention — frequently tested.
• The distinction between refugees (persecuted persons) and economic migrants, and between refoulement (sending back to persecution) and deportation (removing illegal migrants), is a high-value Prelims and GS2 concept.

Exam Strategy

Approach: Distinguish between international law (what the parties to the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol have agreed to) and India's domestic legal position (no dedicated refugee law; the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 governs since 1 September 2025). Then analyse the gap and its humanitarian and strategic implications.

Key distinctions to know:

Link to current affairs: The Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA) intersects with refugee policy by offering expedited citizenship to non-Muslim religious minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Its Rules were notified on 11 March 2024, beneficiary numbers have not been disclosed, and the constitutional challenge was listed for final hearing on 5-12 May 2026 and remains pending.

For latest UNHCR global displacement data and Indian refugee policy updates, visit Ujiyari.com.

Key Terms

Non-Refoulement Principle

• Definition: Non-refoulement is the principle of international law that prohibits a State from expelling, returning ("refouler"), or extraditing a person to a territory where their life or freedom would be threatened, or where they face a real risk of persecution, torture, or other serious human rights violations. It is codified in Article 33(1) of the 1951 Refugee Convention and is widely regarded as a norm of customary international law binding on all States.
• Context: The principle is the cornerstone of international refugee protection, articulated in Article 33(1) of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, of which UNHCR is the guardian. Beyond refugee law, it is reinforced by Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture (CAT), which makes the prohibition absolute and non-derogable, and is read into Article 7 of the ICCPR. India is not a party to the 1951 Convention or its 1967 Protocol, so the obligation, if any, rests on customary international law and on Article 21 of the Constitution. Indian High Courts (notably the Gujarat High Court in Ktaer Abbas Habib Al Qutaifi v. Union of India, 1998) have read non-refoulement into Article 21, though the Supreme Court's stance on Rohingya deportations (the 2021 and May 2025 orders, and the pending 2026 proceedings) has been far more restrictive. On 31 August 2026 the Court agreed to decide the core issue of whether the Rohingya are refugees or illegal entrants, with the Union pressing three pre-framed questions on status, deportation and indefinite detention.
• UPSC Relevance: This is a foundational GS2 concept under India and the World, International Treaties/Bodies, and Effect of Policies of Developed and Developing Countries on India's Interests. It underpins recurring questions on refugee protection, the 1951 Refugee Convention and UNHCR, statelessness, and the Rohingya issue, and overlaps with GS2 Polity through Article 21 (right to life of "any person", not just citizens). For Mains, examiners typically test the tension between humanitarian obligations and national-security/sovereignty arguments, and India's lack of a domestic refugee law. No direct PYQ exists for the exact term, but it is the analytical backbone for any answer on India's refugee policy and obligations under international law.

Sources & Verification

Global displacement data (UNHCR Global Trends 2025)

• UNHCR — Global Trends (published 11 June 2026)
• UNHCR — Refugee Population Statistics, key indicators (end-2025 data, 11 June 2026)
• UN News — Record returns, resettlement more than halved (10 June 2026)
• UNHCR — Figures at a Glance, carrying Mid-Year Trends 2025 data (page last updated 4 November 2025)

UNHCR leadership and finances

• UN General Assembly — GA/12747, election of Barham Ahmed Salih as High Commissioner (18 December 2025)
• Reuters wire copy via Internazionale — Cash-strapped UN refugee agency to cut more jobs (18 May 2026)

India's immigration law

• PRS Legislative Research — The Immigration and Foreigners Bill, 2025
• SCC Online — Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 comes into force (1 September 2025)

Expulsions, detention and the courts (2025–2026)

• Human Rights Watch — India: Hundreds of Muslims Unlawfully Expelled to Bangladesh (23 July 2025)
• Human Rights Watch — India: Scores of Rohingya Refugees Expelled (28 August 2025)
• Human Rights Watch — World Report 2026, India chapter (16 January 2026)
• OHCHR — UN expert launches inquiry into reports of Rohingya cast into the sea (15 May 2025)
• LiveLaw — Supreme Court on the plea against Rohingya deportation (May 2025 orders)
• The Tribune — Supreme Court summons Assam Chief Secretary over Matia detentions (22 January 2025)
• The Hindu — Supreme Court says core issue is whether Rohingya are refugees or illegal immigrants (31 August 2026)

CAA status

• The Hindu — Supreme Court hearing on CAA petitions, live updates (19 February 2026)
• Supreme Court Observer — Constitutionality of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (case page, last updated 22 September 2026)

Refugee groups in India

• UNHCR India — Factsheet, May–June 2026 (data as of 30 June 2026)
• UNHCR India — Factsheet, February 2025 (2025 funding requirement and NGO partnerships)
• UNHCR — India country page (end-2024 registration total)
• The Hindu — Sri Lanka allows immigration clearance for refugees returning from India (12 August 2026)
• The Hindu — UN welcomes Sri Lanka's efforts to bring back refugees from India (22 August 2026)
• Central Tibetan Administration — Dalai Lama says he will be reincarnated, Trust will identify successor (2 July 2025)

Rohingya in Bangladesh

• UN News — UNHCR appeals for support for 1.2 million Rohingya in Bangladesh (2 June 2026)

Iran 2026 and India's consular response

• UNHCR — Up to 3.2 million Iranians temporarily displaced (12 March 2026)
• ACAPS — Iran country page (casualty and displacement updates, March–April 2026)
• MEA — Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question No. 602, Support to Iran (23 July 2026)
• MEA — Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question No. 1363, Evacuation of Indian Nationals from Iran (30 July 2026)
• MEA — Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question No. 3128, Evacuation of Indians from Iran (19 March 2026)