Sri Lankan refugees are returning home from India in bigger numbers than ever, but they face an uphill battle to resettle, dealing with fines, administrative bottle-necks and a lack of access to livelihood and education
Mr. Balendran fled to India by boat in 1990 with one bag, a little money and barely any documentation. He returned in February 2018 with one bag, a little money, barely any documentation and three children to start his life not as a refugee, but a returnee.
Earlier this month, the Tamil Nadu Government in India said more than 3000 Sri Lankan refugees had returned to the island since 2015. The year 2017 marked the largest number of returnees, with 1520 leaving India to go home to Sri Lanka, a policy note by the Public Department tabled in the State Assembly noted. In 2018 alone, 557 Sri Lankan refugees had been repatriated, the policy note said. Tamil Nadu Government statistics as of November 2016 estimate that 101, 219 Sri Lankan refugees are still living in India both inside and out of refugee camps.
But while the desire to come home is strong for refugees from Sri Lanka who fled ethnic violence and vicious fighting between Government troops and the LTTE, for many returning families the journey is daunting. Beset by financial and administrative problems as they apply for citizenship in their home country – some of them third generation Sri Lankans who have been born in camps in India – the first months and years back home can be a huge challenge.
Since 1987, Sri Lankan refugees have been returning home from India. Then and again in 1994 many Sri Lankans returned through bilateral agreements between the Governments of India and Sri Lanka. Some others returned with assistance from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and still more by making personal arrangements of their own. When a Sri Lankan refugee in India returns to the island through the UNHCR, their flight ticket is paid for and a UNHCR referral letter is granted. But the process for obtaining an exit permit and a one way travel document from the Sri Lankan High Commission is slow and requires a trip to the Lankan Mission in Chennai. Upon arrival in Sri Lanka, with a 30 kilogram baggage allowance, as a family they receive a shelter and livelihood grant of about Rs. 38,000 from the Ministry of Resettlement. Armed with their belongings they embark on the journey to their homeland and a new life.
S.C.C. Elankovan who is a consultant to NGOs working in Sri Lanka, is a returnee himself. In an interview with the Sunday Observer, Elankovan explained the struggles of obtaining documentation on the Indian end.
“There are 10000 pending citizenship cases at the Sri Lankan High Commission in India” he said, “progress is extremely slow.”
Returnees must find and fix documents and travel to Chennai, a long journey for some and a costly one for all.
Although returnees are Sri Lankans by right, obtaining official citizenship documents in Sri Lanka is an arduous and expensive process.
Shalini Gnanapragasam left Sri Lanka when she was just 2 years old and returned to Sri Lanka with help from the UNHCR. She is now 32 years old and is not a citizen of any country. Since her parents failed to obtain citizenship for her before she was 22 years of age she is forced to pay a fine.
“My family could have managed Rs 25000 for my brother. But they had to get citizenship for both me and my brother. That was Rs 50,000 and my family did not have that money,” she explained.
OfERR, largely funded by international donors, has been helping to pay this fee. But they cannot cover everyone. Speaking to the Sunday Observer, the President of OfERR, Sri Lanka, Sinnathamby Suriyakumari explained: “Our funds are also limited. Actually, this is the Government’s responsibility, we are only helping.” OfERR, UNHCR and other organisations have been pushing the Government of Sri Lanka to waive this fine. In 2015, the Ministry of Resettlement proposed the waiver for Sri Lankan refugees returning from India, but it has taken three years to get moving. A Resettlement Ministry official said they had been holding regular meetings with the Finance Ministry and the Department of Immigration and were likely to implement the waiver soon. On applicants below the age of 22, the Government imposes a different penalty for delaying the citizenship application. For returnees with UNHCR referrals or those who possess their original refugee camp card to prove refugee status, this penalty is waived.
But there are thousands of returnees who left camps years ago and return to Sri Lanka of their own accord. This additional payment is another burden for independent returnees.
Suriyakumari explained other hardships of obtaining citizenship. “It can take up to one or one and a half years. Often formal marriage certificates are not there because people married at a young age to avoid conscription”, she said, “Many parents do not have their birth certificates or there are some minor mistakes.”
Take the case of Mary Selvaraj, a 16 year old Indian born Sri Lankan who returned in 2014. Her father’s name on his birth certificate and marriage certificate are different. One has his household name and the other his formal name. Her mother complained that “rich people will give money and get this changed in three months. We have been waiting for four years.”
Recently the Ministry of Resettlement conducted two day mobile clinics, to file over 200 citizenship applications. But over 1000 Sri Lankans remain non citizens in Sri Lanka. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs says it is trying hard to remedy the situation.
“On the first and second of July we held a mobile consular service in Kilinochchi. It was very successful. We registered 61 births and 201 citizenship certificates were given. We also gave 2 death certificates. We will have one of these again because it was successful,” a Foreign Ministry official told Sunday Observer. The Rs 25,000 late citizenship application is also under discussion, the official noted. “We know the issue, we know it’s very unfair so we are addressing that,” the official added.
The lack of citizenship papers causes a host of problems. Returnees cannot obtain a NIC without which persons cannot apply for driving licences, open bank accounts, get passports, get access to welfare schemes and generally function as a citizen. Getting employment and getting children into school will be difficult. Without National IDs, student returnees are not permitted to apply to sit their Ordinary Level and Advanced Level exams.
Suriyakumari pointed out that this was illegal. “Education cannot be denied like this” she said, “officials are not educated about these special cases and are afraid, that is part of the problem.” She also noted that due to the delay in issuing equivalence certificates for the 10th and 12th Standards ( Grades) many students are forced to repeat a grade when they return to Sri Lanka.
Most returnees stay with family members until they build their own houses. Almost all of them struggle to obtain employment. “People who stayed back in Sri Lanka know each other and they know the officers. For us, coming back after so many years, it is really hard to get a job” said Thiagarajah Arudselvam, a returnee and community organiser in Mullaitivu. The money given by the Ministry of Resettlement is used to sustain families in the first few months rather than to build shelters. Arudselvam said that the UNHCR promised they would provide some housing and livelihood support, but like many families he never received anything in the first few months back at home in Sri Lanka. “I think there is a coordination problem with the UNHCR in India and in Sri Lanka,” he said, “to date we have not even received a grain of rice.”
Elankovan explained that recognising the special needs of returnees, there was a World Food Programme package of dry rations for the first six months. But this was stopped. “If someone can provide this again I think it will be very helpful” he said, “that way families can focus on using their money to build their lives rather than for survival.”
Balendran’s family and some other returnee relatives - a combined total of 10 people - have all been living with his uncle in mainland Mannar. Balendran explained the cost of trying to move into his land. “We spent Rs 15,000 to clear the forest that had grown there and another Rs 10,000 to build a fence. But we could not complete it.” Others face issues with ownership, returning after many years to find that their land has been given to someone else.
Fortunately, the Government has now included Indian returnees as a special group and has a quota for them in housing schemes. But still it can take years for these schemes to materialise and even then only if the beneficiary owns a piece of land. The Rs. 38,000 provided by the Ministry of Resettlement is hardly enough to construct temporary shelters or start careers.
After spending years and sometimes decades in India returnees must leave everything behind to make the journey to Sri Lanka. Livelihood tools such as sewing machines, carpentry tools and motorbikes with which income could have been earned once in Sir Lanka must often be left behind. Returnees are exploring the option of shipping material to Trincomalee and Mannar, but many simply hope the that the ferry connecting Mannar and India will soon become operational. Mohammed Fatima Noor, who returned in 2016 has warned her sister to wait until the ferry comes. “If she waits she can bring her machine and do stitching work at least” she said, “see, I am simply a burden since I got back here.”
A lot of discouragement is making its way around camps in India. It is true that the support system in Sri Lanka is far from perfect, but for many Sri Lankan refugees, staying in India is not sustainable.
With the exception of a few very unique cases, Sri Lankan refugees will never obtain Indian citizenship: they will never own land, they cannot move freely, they will never vote. For the sake of its citizens’ well being, Sri Lanka must make the right of return more than a theoretical option. It must become a reasonable goal. Besides, for most people returning to their homeland is more than a matter of improving their material circumstances: “We came prepared for the hardship” says Shalini smiling, “but this is our homeland and at least we have made it back!”
(Names have been changed on request).