Abandoned

Comfortable in her worn longyi and shirt on a sticky afternoon in Delhi, Nang Bawk awaits her usual meal – khao suey, a traditional Burmese broth of beef and noodles. The 60-year-old refugee from Burma is a regular customer at this establishment – a cramped room that functions as a restaurant of sorts. Between steaming mouthfuls, she talks about home – Myitkyina, a bustling port on the banks of the Irrawady and capital of Burma's Kachin state..'I miss my garden, and the fresh papayas and oranges we grew,' she says. 'I rarely get to eat anything fresh here. It's too expensive.' Back in Burma, she travelled often to Mandalay, where she sold handicrafts from Kachin. In Delhi, she makes a living off odd jobs, barely enough to pay for a decent room. Nang Bawk left when she was suspected of hiding pamphlets printed by the Kachin Independence Army, a separatist group opposed to Burma's military dictatorship, or Junta as they are known. It took her a week to trek through the remote border to reach Mizoram, where she stayed a few months before heading to Delhi. That was two years ago. 'I would love to go back, to see my children and grandchildren again but the Junta will never lose power,' she says. 'Till they do, I cannot return.'.The others, two women and a young man, are watching her. They live here, in this same room where they run the Burmese kitchen Nang frequents. Like her, they are refugees from Kachin. Unlike her, they refuse to talk..Home to more than 50 million people, Burma has been under military rule since 1962. After the pro-democracy protests in 1988, and the subsequent election in 1990 that went unrecognised, students, political activists and elected representatives were forced into exile. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Burmese have left the country since then. These men and women, and their families, make up much of the Burmese Diaspora.. Eight thousand of them now live in New Delhi, and ten times that number in the northeast. But the people pouring out of Burma are no longer young idealists fleeing repression to fight for democracy from elsewhere. They are farmers, traders and owners of small businesses, who left simply because they were scared. And they never want to go back.. Neighbourly pressure on the Burmese Junta has plummeted, meanwhile, and investments in oil and gas have picked up; but Aung San Suu Kyi carries on, and the world perhaps hopes that the country will turn to slow reform, if nothing else. But for the people scrambling across its borders, Burma has little to offer – among the world's poorest countries, it is riddled with meagre infrastructure, a weak education system and few opportunities. The preferred alternative of these refugees is resettlement to Japan, America, Australia, etc. The number of Burmese refugees in Delhi has leaped in the last few years as news of resettlement by the UNHCR has spread. A fraction of them get lucky but many more make their way to the capital. . 'I left on a clear afternoon in the monsoon when everything was greener than usual,' says Kam Lao Thung, 29 years old and a father of two boys. 'I started walking around 3 p.m. It took me two days to reach the border.' A farmer from Burma's Chin state, he has been here for nearly three years now. He had sent his wife and two-year-old son ahead of him. His younger son was born in Delhi, as a refugee. 'I knew what was coming when I heard that the army was making inquiries after me,' says Kam. The 'army' is how the Burmese refer to the Junta's military-clad watchdogs. His crime: he had collected money in his village on behalf of the Chin National Front (CNF), another ethnic armed group that is fighting the Junta. 'The army was looking for me because they thought I was helping the CNF but I had no choice,' he says. 'If I had refused to collect the money, the CNF would have killed me.'. Armed groups such as the CNF have long been accused of extortion. When the Junta comes calling, it is for the 'sympathisers' – the same people who survived being labelled 'traitors' by the CNF or KIA. The Chin state, where much of the Indo-Burma border lies, is one of Burma's poorest and least developed. It is also home to one of the world's longest conflicts – that between the CNF and the Burmese military. Ethnic communities have long been fighting for a fair share of democracy. From a young Burmese government, they demanded greater autonomy and their demands were met for the most part. When the military took over, these communities, 'minorities' now, were forced to struggle for their rights. Since then Burma has been at war with itself in Kachin, Karen, Arakan and other states too.. 'Resettlement is our best option,' says Kam, looking around at his house – a single room where he and his family cook, eat and sleep. 'We can't go back and we can't live like this forever. I am not earning enough and my son goes to a daycare centre instead of school.' . Nang and Kam are among the few who are willing to talk. The rest seem to think it's a futile exercise. Which part of Burma are they from? Why did they leave? Do they hope to return or be resettled? They don't want to answer.. The young man from the Burmese restaurant understands enough English to follow both sides of the conversation. He listens to each question, even prompts Nang when she is talking. He smiles at her answers but gives none of his own. 'People especially don't like to talk about why they left,' says Rosian. 'It's a sensitive question.' They're not scared, he says, adding that they don't like to talk about it because 'these are personal matters, after all.'. Rosian has been here for little over a year, working with Burmese Women Delhi, a local community organisation that educates women about their rights as refugees. She left when her family was forced to do manual labour. 'My family is Christian but we were forced to build Buddhist temples,' she says. 'It was so humiliating. We are farmers. We grow our own rice and vegetables. But we are being forced to build things, for which we are paid nothing.'. Investment, meanwhile, is steadily pouring into Burma's teak forests and rich deposits of oil and gas. China, which has invested up to $8 billion in 2010, is also interested in Burmese ports – a valuable access to the Indian Ocean. Dams are going up, roads are being laid and pipelines built. Villages are being cleared to make way for them. And cheap labour for these projects is coming from Burma's rural poor; from ethnic communities such as the Chin, Karen, Kachin, Mon and Shan.. 'It is no longer a question of political reform, slow or otherwise,' says Achan Mungleng, the Southasia coordinator for the Euro-Burma Office, a think-tank that is working to promote democracy in Burma. 'The ethnic communities want a federal democracy. They believe anything less than that amounts to a raw deal for them.'. Autonomy has always been a touchy topic in Burma. Like much of Southasia, Burma, as we know it today, is the product of negotiation. Colonies crumbled, brand new lines were inked onto old maps and countries were born. The result: seven ethnicities, speaking as many languages and practising three religions, became part of a largely Buddhist Bamar (or Burmese) state. The ethnic minorities, as they are sometimes known, were guaranteed a certain degree of autonomy when they joined a nascent Burma. But the mundane business of running a state soon sullied these assurances. Even as the two sides prepared to negotiate again, the army stepped in. Given the timing, and the laws that followed, the edgy relationship grew more strained.. Among the worst was the skewed decision to switch the medium of education at schools and universities to Burmese. Everyone now had to learn the new 'national' language and its script. Whereas some like the Shan had their own script, others had been attending English-medium schools until then. 'When the schools became Burmese-medium, we had to be tutored at home for six years,' says Neera, who left Burma in 1972. Her family was among the Burmese Indians who started to leave in the 1960s following the decade's nationalisation policies. 'It was the only reason we left,' she says. 'Burma was our home. My father was born and brought up there but the new socialist program hit us hard.'. Neera teaches English at Prospect Burma, a learning centre for Burmese refugees. 'The youngest students are as old as 16 but some of them have never been to school,' she says in lucid English that she learnt as a student in Burma. 'Many of them speak only their native language, not even Burmese. Learning to speak in English will help them get resettled.'. She has been teaching them English for the last 13 years. She has watched the numbers swell, and their purpose shift. They are no longer stumbling upon Delhi in search of safety. They are heading straight for the UNHCR, the only body in the world that can certify them as refugees. After they acquire refugee status, it is up to the UNHCR to offer them resettlement or turn down their request. In 2008, the UNHCR resettled 30388 Burmese refugees – the second largest nationality to benefit from the resettlement programme. But many more were turned away. Who must be resettled is a question with many answers, and the criterion varies from country to country.. 'I don't want to visit Burma unless things change,' says Neera. 'I want to remember it the way it was – peaceful and full of promise.' She has realised that her students, from 16- to 40-year-olds, are not just fleeing the Junta. They are fleeing Burma.. 'Even if there were political change, people would still leave because Burma is so poor now,' says Dr Tint Swe. 'It will take time to recover.' Dr Swe was elected to the Burmese Parliament in May 1990. Later that year, he stole across the border, in support of a parallel government in exile. He has been in India since then, part of a cabinet that is scattered across Southasia, Thailand, Norway, Netherlands, Australia and the United States.. 'My people are poor and not as concerned about political reform,' he admits. 'But wherever they are, they need to be aware. They should be able to fight for their rights, as refugees or immigrants.' Twenty years later, he still refers to them as his people. For him, the vote stands because there hasn't been an election after that. And the November poll is neither free nor fair, he says.. He believes a chance at reform will likely come when age finally catches up with the 77-year-old dictator, General Than Shwe. 'He surely has a successor in mind, whom he will groom; but transitions like these are never smooth,' says Dr Swe, confident of a brighter future. 'There are times when I feel tired, and I'm not so sure about these things. After all this time, I have grown used to these thoughts. They come and go. But we have to keep hoping.'. The Burma he speaks of so wistfully is more than two decades old. Poverty has increased, education has shrunk and with the exception of the army, every other institution is ailing. Courses have been cut short, colleges have been spread out and universities, once the flashpoint of protest, have turned limp. And neighbours no longer shun Burma. China and Thailand are now eager to be friends with the Junta. Spooked by China's interest, India too has inched closer, which explains the country's ambivalent attitude towards Burmese refugees. Though it is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, India has allowed the UNHCR to function in the capital and has left the Burmese in their charge. But the only thing the UNHCR can offer them is resettlement. . And so more Burmese make their way to west Delhi – Janakpuri, Vikapspuri, Uttam Nagar. Indians returning from Burma had headed here. When the Burmese came, they looked up old friends and settled down next door. Sombre middleclass suburbs have sprung up on what used to be agricultural land. The villages are still there, cohabiting with new multiplexes and private schools in Hasthal, Sitapuri, Asalatpur, where the poorer Burmese families live within narrow, rambling streets, in tiny rooms, where the air smells stale.. They make do with an unsteady income, poor housing, no healthcare and shabby education for their children. And they live in constant fear of being deported – a valid fear, given Thailand's decision in September to expel Burmese refugees. Far from fighting for what they are due, they would rather not talk about it. When they leave home, they wish to forget a lot more than their dread of the 'army' – the long years of a weary conflict, their ever-dipping incomes and a sluggish Burma that showed no prospect of improving. Too many of them don't think the country will change anytime soon. That's why they left. And as they await resettlement, they prefer not to ponder over such matters.. ~ Aparna Alluri is a freelance journalist based in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh.