Borders Without Belonging

On September 2, 2025, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) removed the tag of an “illegal migrant” from registered Sri Lankan Tamil nationals who entered India before January 9, 2015. But they are not eligible to apply for long-term visas (LTV). LTVs — a precursor to citizenship are issued for a period of one to five years. The September 2 notification also exempted undocumented members of six minority communities (Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians — from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan) from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan from penal provisions and possible deportation if they entered India without passports or visas, or with expired travel documents, before December 31, 2024. While the six communities will be able to apply for LTVs, making them eligible to apply for citizenship after at least 11 years of continuous stay in India, Sri Lankan Tamils will not be eligible for the same.

According to the MHA’s annual report of 2023-24, a total of 304,269 Sri Lankan refugees entered India in various phases between July 1983 and August 2012. The annual report claimed that 99,469 refugees were repatriated to Sri Lanka up to March 1995, and there has been no organised repatriation since then. However, some refugees had gone back to Sri Lanka or left for other countries on their own. As of June 1, 2024, 90,603 Sri Lankan refugees were living in 105 camps and elsewhere in Tamil Nadu, and 19 refugees were living in Odisha.

Unlike Bengal and Punjab, Tamil Nadu was not divided and separated from India by the British Raj. But till now, refugee issues have troubled Tamils. When the British ruled the subcontinent, Tamils from India were recruited in large numbers to work in tea, coffee, and coconut plantations of Ceylon (Sri Lanka since 1972). After the British left in 1948, there were nearly 975,000 people classified by Ceylon as “Indian nationals” and by India as “stateless”. In 1964, India and Sri Lanka signed a pact granting Ceylonese citizenship to 300,000 people, while 525,000 would be repatriated to India. The fate of the 150,000 Tamils in Ceylon was in limbo.

Since Tamils of India and Sri Lanka shared a culture, language and history, it was natural for Sri Lankan Tamils to seek refuge in India when the island country was engulfed in the civil war in the 1980s and 1990s. Then a new wave of Sri Lankan refugees has streamed into India after that country’s bankruptcy in 2022, but they face the same statelessness as thousands who came before them, escaping war and discrimination. The children of those refugees— unless they undergo the complicated process of getting their citizenship from the Sri Lankan embassy- are essentially ‘stateless’. It is reported that during the last few decades, more than 35,000 children were born in India.

The 1964 and 1974 repatriation agreements on Sri Lankan Tamils were imposed by governments without consulting those affected, forcing families into painful choices and separations on “wailing trains.” Though India agreed to take back over five lakh people, poor implementation and neglect left many in limbo. Later, the 1987 pact also failed to resolve their plight. Today, over generations, these refugees remain stateless, with Tamil Nadu and the Union government offering little clarity. The 2021 Citizenship Amendment Act added to their exclusion, extending pathways to citizenship for migrants from neighbouring countries but pointedly excluding Sri Lankan Tamils.

Commenting on their expectation from the Indian government, the well-known Sri Lankan Tamil writer K. Sachchidanandan once said in an interview: “We do not want Indian citizenship nor do we want dual citizenship. What we expect is the same status accorded to the Nepalese in India, so that we can move freely in the country, we can pursue higher education, and we can engage in any vocation that we like”, wrote Sri Lanka Guardian.

Though on November 10, 2024, Sri Lanka’s new President Anura Kumara Dissanayake assured Tamils that their land —currently held by state agencies — would be returned by his government, Sri Lanka’s Tamil parties seek India’s continued role in ensuring a political solution. Leaders of Sri Lanka’s Tamil parties met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (on April 5, 2025) during his recent visit to Sri Lanka and reminded him that the historic Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987 remained the only instrument to achieve a political solution for the Tamils of the island, and India’s “legitimate involvement” would be important to reach this goal. However, Sri Lanka opposes international action on human rights and urges support for the domestic justice process.

On September 8, 2025, Sri Lanka opposed international intervention on its human rights situation at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, asserting that such actions undermine the ongoing domestic efforts to ensure justice and reconciliation. In his report, the U.N. rights chief urged Sri Lanka to accede to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which establishes the ICC’s jurisdiction over grave crimes of international concern, including genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The report also urged the island nation to apply a moratorium on the use of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), repeal or amend laws that curtail freedom of expression, such as the Online Safety Act, issue public instructions to the security forces that all extrajudicial methods are banned, and order an end to surveillance of individuals, among other things. Sri Lanka has come under international scrutiny over alleged human rights violations, particularly during the final stages of its decades-long civil war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which ended in 2009.

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), a Dravidian party, formed the government in Tamil Nadu in 1967 and urgently addressed the Tamil refugee issue. In 1968, a separate Department was established for the welfare of Tamils who had returned to their motherland from Sri Lanka, Burma, and Vietnam, for the betterment of their livelihood. Since then, this Department has been working towards the welfare and relief of the Sri Lankan Tamils. It may be recalled that in 2009, the then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Karunanidhi, speaking on the legal status and living conditions of the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, proclaimed that the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees living in and outside the camps would be granted Indian citizenship. The Chief Minister announced that Rs 12 crores would be spent to improve the living conditions of the refugee camps. In his role as the “champion” and “saviour” of the Tamils, living in different parts of the world, Karunanidhi declared that they are “Tamils, not refugees”. Since 2010, this Department has also been looking after the welfare activities for Non–Resident Tamil people who live abroad. On August 28, 2021, the present Tamil Nadu Chief Minister announced on the floor of the Legislative Assembly to change the nomenclature from “Sri Lankan Refugee camp” to ‘Sri Lankan Tamils Rehabilitation Camps’.

India does not have a domestic refugee law, nor has it signed the UN Refugee Convention of 1951. In the absence of a refugee law, the Union government of India deals with its asylum seekers and refugees on a case-by-case basis. However, the Tamil Nadu government has seriously taken up the issue of Tamil refugees and has been trying to address the problem from a long-term perspective of rehabilitation, not repatriation of the ‘stateless Tamils’.

Views expressed are personal. The writer is a professor of Business Administration who primarily writes on political economy, global trade, and sustainable development