Vol. XVI No.1, 2019 Social Change and Development Social Change and Development A JOURNAL OF OKD INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT Vol. XVI No.1 January 2019 CONTENTS Editorial Note i Articles Citizens of the World but Non-Citizens of the State: The Curious Case of Stateless People with Reference to International Refugee Law Kajori Bhatnagar 1-15 The Paradox of Autonomy in the Darjeeling Hills: A Perception Based Analysis on Autonomy Aspirations Biswanath Saha, Gorky Chakraborty 16-32 BJP and Coalition Politics: Strategic Alliances in the States of Northeast Shubhrajeet Konwer 33-50 A Study of Sub-National Finance with Reference to Mizoram State in Northeast Vanlalchhawna 51-72 MGNREGS in North Eastern States of India: An Efficiency Analysis Using Data Envelopment Analysis Pritam Bose, Indraneel Bhowmik 73-89 Tribal Politics in Assam: From line system to language problem Juri Baruah 90-100 A Situational Analysis of Multidimensional Poverty for the North Eastern States of India using Household Level Data Niranjan Debnath, Salim Shah 101-129 Swachh Vidyalaya Abhiyan: Findings from an Empirical Analysis Monjit Borthakur, Joydeep Baruah 130-144 Book Review Monastic Order: An Alternate State Regime Anisha Bordoloi 145-149 ©OKDISCD 153 Social Change and Development Vol. XVI No.1, 2019 Editorial Note For long, discussions on India’s North East seem to have revolved around three issues viz. immigration, autonomy and economic underdevelopment. Though a considerable body of literature tend to deal with the three issues separately, yet innate interconnections among them are also acknowledged and often discussed. The region has received streams of immigrants since colonial times. The partition also bore lasting consequences in the region. These have not only brought about significant changes in demography of the region but also put considerable stress on the region’s limited resources. Consequently, economic development of the region became elusive, providing a fertile ground for identity politics and autonomy movement to burgeon. The state, accordingly, responded to these tendencies through various instruments including policies, programmes, legislations, incentives, accords and also military actions. Recent one in the league is the National Register for Citizens (NRC) in Assam, which again has thrown up newer challenges. Therefore, issues related to immigration, autonomy and economic development of the region continue to invite scholars’ attention. The present issue of the Journal makes an attempt to provide a collection of papers concerning themes related to these issues. Kajori Bhatnagar’s paper has engaged with the question of refugees and refugee law. Biswanath Saha and Gorky Chakrabarty’s paper deals with the paradox of autonomy question citing the case of Darjeeling Hills, while Juri Baruah’s paper tries to understand the tribal politics in the region and Subhrajeet Konwer’s paper analyses growth of BJPs engagement in coalition politics in the region. Vanlalchhawna’s paper raises the challenges of fiscal management in the region, more so for smaller hill states like Mizoram. Pritam Bose and Indraneel Bhowmik’s paper highlights the success of Tripura in implementing the MGNRES among all the states of the region. Niranjan Debnath and Salim Shah’s paper has tried to understand poverty in the region through a multidimensional approach. Monjit Borthakur and Joydeep Baruah through their empirical study show how mode of implementation of government programmes defeats the perspective of the programmes often. 154i ©OKDISCD Vol. XVI No.1, 2019 Social Change and Development Citizens of the World but Non-Citizens of the State: The Curious Case of Stateless People with Reference to International Refugee Law Kajori Bhatnagar* Abstract A stateless person, is one who is not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law (article 1 of the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons). Here, nationality refers to the legal bond between a person and a state. This bond confers upon the national certain rights as well as duties. A person who is stateless lacks this membership and will be seen and treated as a foreigner by every country in the world. This phenomenon has also been described as “de jure statelessness”. In literature on statelessness, “citizenship” and “nationality” are usually used as interchangeable synonyms, both referring to the legal bond of membership described above. It is of interest to point out that a stateless person can also be a refugee, if in addition to not being considered as a nationality by any state they also meet the definition of Article 1 of the 1951 Refugee Convention (i.e. have fled their country due to a fear of persecution). 1. Concept of Refugee The term refugee is derived from the root word refugié, noun use of past participle of refugier ”to take shelter, protect,” from Old French refuge.1 It was first applied in English to French Huguenots who migrated after the revocation (1685) of the Edict of Nantes. The word meant “one seeking asylum” until 1914, when it evolved to mean “one fleeing home” (first applied in this sense to civilians in Flanders heading west to escape fighting in World War I).2 The main emphasis of this paper is to discuss the concern of internal refugees as for instance stateless people. It is to be noted that the Convention definition of refugee status excludes internal refugees from the scope of global protection. The strict insistence on this territorial criterion has prompted concern * Kajori Bhatnagar ([email protected]) is Assistant Professor at Institute of Legal Studies, Panjab University, Chandigarh. 1 Refugee, Online Etymology Dictionary, retrieved from: <http://www.etymonline.com/ index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=refugee>, visited on 21st September, 2017 at 2:00 pm. 2 Id. ©OKDISCD 1 Social Change and Development Vol. XVI No.1, 2019 that there is a mismatch between the definition and the human suffering consequent to involuntary migration. There has been a very practical concern that the inclusion of internal refugees in the international protection regime might prompt states to attempt to shift responsibility for the well-being of large parts of their own population to the world community. It has also been a matter of concern that any attempt to respond to the needs of internal refugees would constitute an infringement of the national sovereignty of the state within which the refugee resided. Refugee law, as a part of international human rights law, constitutes a recent and carefully constrained exception to the long-standing rule of exclusive jurisdiction of states over their inhabitants. While it was increasingly accepted in the early 1950s that the world community had a legitimate right to set standards and scrutinize the human rights record of the various countries, it was unthinkable that refugee law would intervene in the territory of a state to protect citizens from their own government. The best that could be achieved within the context of the accepted rules of international law was the sheltering of such persons as were able to liberate themselves from the territorial jurisdiction of a persecutory state. None of the factors which dictated the exclusion of internal refugees limited resources, concern about state participation, or respect for sovereignty was so much a matter of conceptual principle, as it reflected the limited reach of international law. 1.1. Analysis and Application of the Concept The most widely accepted legal definition of refugee is the one that has been provided by the Refugee Convention, which defines a refugee as: “Any person who owing to a 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/her nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country.”3. However due to inadequacy of the definition, certain legislations have been enacted which have worked as appurtenance to the original convention While analysing the definition certain pre-requisites of the definition it can be observed that with time certain nuances to the pre-existing terminologies appended to the definition have been developed. Nevertheless, certain key features so addressed by the definition have been dealt to further elaborate upon the definition such as well-founded fear of being persecuted4, 3 Who is a refugee? Refugee Council of Australia, available <https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/ getfacts/international/definitions/who-is-a-refugee/>, visited on 21st September 2017 at 2:00 pm. 4 The criteria for determining what is well founded is composed of two elements, subjective- i.e. relating to the perceptions, emotions and experiences of refugee claimant and basis of evaluation of applicant’s statements. Objective which may be assessed from the general situation of the country of origin. Trakroo, Ragini, Bhat, Aparna and others, Refugees and Law, Human Rights Network, Jangpura, New Delhi, 2006. 2 ©OKDISCD Vol. XVI No.1, 2019 Social Change and Development race5, religion, nationality6, membership of a particular social group7 and political opinion.8 1.2. General Provisions for Determining Refugee Status A person is a refugee in accordance with the 1951 Refugee convention as soon as she/ he fulfils the criteria contained in the definition with reference to the inclusion clauses. However certain exemptions are also provided under exclusion and cessation clauses. The 1951, Refugee Convention details three groups of people who while fulfilling the criteria for refugee status are not considered to be refugees under international law. These include, persons already receiving UN protection or assistance9, persons not considered to be in need of international protection10 and persons not deemed to be deserving of international protection11 5 Persecution because of race or ethnicity is a cause of refugee movement in many parts of the world. Discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, caste, colour or creed though prohibited all over the world, but its rudiments are found in one form or the other (Ugandan citizens of Indian origin).