Context: Recently, Union Minister Hardeep Singh Purihad remarked  that developments in Afghanistan are the reason why the enactment of the citizenship Amendment Act is necessary.
Who is a refuge?

• Under the 1951 UN Convention on the Status of Refugees and the subsequent 1967 Protocol, the word refugee pertains to any person who is outside their country of origin and unable or unwilling to return owing to well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.
• Stateless persons may also be refugees in this sense, where country of origin (citizenship) is understood as ‘country of former habitual residence’.

India’s Refugee policy

• India is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention on the Status of Refugees and the subsequent 1967 Protocol.
• Nor does India have a refugee policy or a refugee law of its own.
• In the absence of refugee-specific legislation, the reception, admittance and treatment of refugees in India is conditioned by ad hoc policies adopted by the government to deal with specific circumstances.

Thus, among several communities, we have hosted Tibetans, Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka, persecuted Chin and Afghan refugees and the minority Chakmas from the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). India had received worldwide admiration for its singular support to the huge numbers of people fleeing violence and persecution from then East Pakistan in 1970-71.