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”!ེད་%ི་ཡིག་ཆ་འ+ིག་སོང་ངམ།•
Documentation, Legal Status, Migration and Identity Construction of
Tibetan refugees in India
Master Thesis
University of Amsterdam Contemporary Asian Studies Supervisor: Dr. Tina HarrisGedun Gyatso ID: 10862145
Pic. No: 1 (The Multi documents held by Tibetan refugees in India. This shows the importance of political identity construction through paperwork and what this thesis will be exploring is the difficulties of documentation and legal status of Tibetan refugees in India. Tibetan Green Book, Registration Certificates, Identity Certificate and Chinese travel documents. Photographed by Gedun Gyatso, 2015)
ABSTRACT
According to the Tibetan Demographic Survey of 2009, there are more than ten thousand “Tibetan Refugees” residing in India today and these refugees have unique characteristics compare to other refugees in the world. They are both stateless and document-‐less, which I call “Double less-‐ness”. Tibetan refugees in India do not hold any legal status. However, they are labeled according to different criteria: “Tibetan Citizens” in the eyes of Central Tibetan Administration in India (an unrecognized political community), “Refugees” in the eyes of many western countries, “Foreign Guests” in the eyes of Indian state, and “Overseas Chinese” in the eyes of Chinese government. In this context refugees are referred as political refugees, the foreign guest should understand as foreign residents according to Indian state and the overseas Chinese are referred as Chinese Citizens from the time when Tibetan refugees have family registration records in China (McConnell: 2011: 968). Based on ethnographic research on Tibetan refugees in India, this thesis discusses the legal status, difficulties of documentation, its processes, expectations of Tibetan migrants and different concepts regarding state, citizen, migration, status, mobility and documentation among three different generations of Tibetans in the exile communities.
During the research, data was collected by the methods of (1) informal conversations with Tibetan refugees of different generations, backgrounds and life styles, (2) observations with Tibetan refugees planning to migrate from India to the west or return back to Tibet, (3) structured interviews with Tibetans come from Tibet and born in India,(4) formal interviews with Indian and Tibetan officials regarding legal status and rights of Tibetan refugees in India. The results show that Tibetan refugees in India do not hold any legal statuses except for being labeled as “foreign Resident” and there is no uniform or standardized policy towards Tibetan refugees from the government of India. There are thousands of Tibetan refugees residing in India, as foreigners by holding false documents, making them feel insecure and excluded from Indian societies. This unfitting or outcast feeling from Indian societies becomes the push factors for Tibetan refugees to migrate from the exile communities in India to another place again for a better life. This chain of outflowing Tibetans from India generates a new migration approach: migration is not always the case of high valued wages, regional development and natural disasters. It is a result of difficulties of documentation in the exile communities where people migrate in order to get proper credentials and legal status. The processes of documentation of stateless people create a new concept that is of a “citizen” and it challenges the theory of national citizen, of which we generally understand as citizens within a bounded territory that legitimated to only one sovereign state. However, in contrast, Tibetan refugees are holding different documents and carrying multiple labels out of fear and insecurity within the host state. More surprisingly, it is argued that citizenship and commitment to a state is not about geographic territory, but it is about the security and safety of people.
Key words: Legal status, difficulties of documentation, citizen, refugee, state, migration and mobility
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Tina Harris. I appreciate your seemingly endless patience and support during the many rewrites of this thesis. Your countless comments and ideas are adding immeasurable values to my research. I could have not done this research without your genuine encouragement, advices and emails. You have helped me beyond your role as a supervisor. I am very grateful to you from bottom of my heart. Secondly, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the Erasmus Mundus scholarship for my master studies and given me this golden opportunity to study and explore the outside world. Without this scholarship I would never have made this far. I also would like to thank deeply to all my informants and all other people who I talked to in India and abroad. I felt extremely special to be let into your life stories of sweet and sour. Lastly, I would like to thank to my second reader Dr. Gerben Nooteboom and Dr. Barak Kalir for their precious time.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract………2 List of Tables and Pictures………6
1. Introduction………6-‐8 1.1 Research Question and Objectives……….8-‐9 1.2 Motivation and Relevance………..9-‐10 1.3 Thesis Outline……….10
2. Theoretical Framework
2.1 The roles of documentation in migrants’ lives……….10-‐12 2.2 Difficulties of documentation and state-‐citizen theory ………...12-‐14 2.3. Roles of difficulties of documentation in migration ……….14-‐16
Chapter 1:
Indian Policy toward Three Major Tibetan Migration Waves
1.1 Migration1959-‐1987……….16-‐18 1.2Migration 1987-‐2003……….18-‐19 1.3Migration 2003-‐2015……….19-‐23
Chapter 2:
Difficulties and processes of obtaining documentation
2.1 Registration Certificates (RCs)………23-‐28 -‐ 1959-‐1987 -‐1987-‐2003
-‐ 2003-‐2015
Special Entry Permit (SEP) -‐ Students
-‐ Pilgrimage -‐ Others
2.2 Identity Certificates (ICs)………28-‐29
Chapter 3:
Indian Citizenship and Deportation
3.1 Citizenship: a legal battle for Tibetan refugees………29-‐33
Chapter 4:
Expectations of Tibetan Returnees to Tibet and Migrants to the West 4.1Tibetans who are migrating to the west.………33-‐38 4.2Tibetans who are returning back to Tibet………38-‐43 5.Chapter 5: Conclusion………...43-‐44 6.Bibliography………..44-‐48 7. Appendix……….48-‐50
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGTURES
Table
2.1 Categories of RC holders, published by FRROs/FROs for various visa related services: 16th September 2014)
Pictures
1. Pic. No: 1 The Multi documents held by Tibetan refugees in India………..2
2. Pic. No: 2 Tibetan Registration Certificates………25
3. Pic. No: 3 Registration Certificates Extension Form………29 4.Pic. No: 4 Tibetans born in India and stayed 20 over years in India are given 5 years “Stay Visa”………32
5. Pic. No: 5 Tibetan new arrivals have to extend their Registration Certificates every year………..33
6. Pic. No: 6 Tibetan political prisoners are allowed to stay for a longer term on SEPS “others” but they are not given refugee status………...35 7. Pic. No: 7 Identity Certificate “ An Indian travel document issued by the Indian government for foreign residents in India”………..36 8. Pic. No: 8 Chinese Travel document issued by Chinese government for the Tibetan Returnees. ………...45 9. Pic. No: 9 the application Receipt from Chinese Embassy for Tibetan returnees………45 10. Pic. No: 10 Current Situation of Tibetan refugees in India 2015. Published on Arunachal Times by AAPSU………..51
1. Introduction
“Tibetans are issued Foreign Registration Certificates not Refugee Certificates in India. ” Tibetan Parliament Speaker Penpa Tsering: (17/03/2015)
There are nearly one hundred thousand Tibetan refugees living in forty five formal settlements, in ten different states including Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh, Delhi, Sikim, Ladakh and many others living outside of these settlements in India (TDS: 2009). All these Tibetan refugees entered into India during three major waves of Tibetan migration1. Tibetans in India do not hold any legal status. “They are living in a state of legal limbo and do not qualify as refugees in any legal sense” (TJC: 2011: P 12, Moynihan: 2012: P 4). They are facing immense difficulties in India regarding legal status and documentation, majority of them are either undocumented or illegally over staying on false documents with multiple identities. The difficulties of documentation and legal status introduce the main aspects of the Tibetan refugees in India, which will be the focus of this thesis. This thesis is based on three months of qualitative fieldwork in Tibetan exile community in Dharamshala HP2 and Delhi, during which twenty-‐two members of Tibetan refugees were interviewed.
In this thesis, I will show how difficulties of documentation and lack of legal status are related to Indian foreign policies towards Tibetan refugees, the processes of illegal documentation activities, Tibetans’ notions of regarding state and citizenship theory and finally expectations of Tibetans who are migrating from the exile communities either to the west or China.
All the difficulties and complexities of documentation for Tibetan refugees in India are caused by the uncertain foreign policies of the government of India. The government of India does not have any standardized or written policies for Tibetan refugees up until 2003 and 2014.3 The processes of documentation and legal labeling are different from every group of entrants during the three major waves of Tibetan migration. Tibetans migrated to India during the first wave, were issued temporary registration certificates (RCs) and provided basic humanitarian support by the Indian government while the Tibetan migrants from the second wave were completely ignored without any documents and aids until a new policy called Special Entry Permit was implemented for third wave of Tibetan migrants in 2003.
1 Three Major Tibetan Migration waves: between 1959-‐1987, 1987-‐2003 and 2003-‐2015
2Since 1960 Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh became headquarter of Tibetans in exile and
2Since 1960 Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh became headquarter of Tibetans in exile and
thousands of Tibetans including H.H Dalai Lama are living at this place.
3 In 2003 government of India applied Special Entry Policy and in 2014 published Tibetan
The uncertain foreign policies of the Government of India (GOI) towards Tibetan refugees and difficulties of documentations facilitated to label Tibetans into different categories of political status by different political entities based on their national interests and laws. Tibetan refugees in exile are labeled as “Tibetan Citizens” by the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), “Refugees” by the international communities, “Overseas Chinese” by the Chinese government and “Foreign Guest” by Indian state (McConnell: 2011 P 986). These unclear or imprecise statuses make Tibetan refugees feel insecure and confused about their political identity. Hence, the uncertain Indian policies of the GOI towards Tibetan refugees are one of my focuses in this research.
The processes of documentation for Tibetans in India are very complicated and difficult. Tibetan refugees are registered as foreign residents in India, where they must hold a Registration Certificates (RCs) at the age of 16 in order to reside in India legally for a short amount of time without being harassed by the Indian authorities, which must be renewed every twelve months if they are from Tibet and five years for those who were born in India and have stayed in India for twenty years (TJC: 2011). RCs are issued to Tibetans under the various acts mentioned hereafter “Foreigners Act 1939, 1946, Foreigners Order 1948 and Indian Citizenship Amendment Act 2003” (Wabern: 2013:15 (TJC: 2011 P12). However, it is not guaranteed that all new Tibetans who arrive India can obtain RCs easily. There is no “national wide uniformity for the issuance of RCs to Tibetan refugees” (McConnell: 2011: P971). Hence, the processes of creating RCs differ from each province, this is the reason why Tibetan refugees have to get documents through binary ways (legal and illicit) ways. For instance, one of my informants did not get RCs in Himachal Pradesh because he lost his Special Entry Permit card. Hence, he applied in Karnataka state in south India and obtained it within a month (Tashi: 2008). It is not the state monolithic entity but individual state officials who are using the powers of issuing, extensions, retaining and reinforces of RCs for Tibetans. For example, most Tibetan new arrivals buy their RCs from the Foreign Registration Officials by paying around “twenty to twenty five thousand Rupees” (Adu: 06/01/2015, McConnell: 2011). This document characterizes Tibetans simply as “foreigners” in India. A valid RC does not provide Tibetans to work legally, own properties and travel freely within India, but an RC is required particularly concerning on residency rights and to get international travel documents. The majority of the Tibetan refugees feel insecure, excluded, discriminated and isolated from Indian society. To avoid this insecure environment of exile community, Tibetan refugees are trying to construct a “new political identify ”(Citizen, permanent resident) through paperwork to reach the higher levels of state recognition in order to enjoy basic political and economic rights. Thus, the issue of whether to take the Indian citizenship or migrate to the west and even as far as going back to Tibet, just to obtain a better documentation are the daily topics among refugees in the exile communities.
However, changing the Tibetan nationality in order to get a secure life is becoming an intensive debate among Tibetan refugees in exile community, and the notions of Tibetans regarding state and citizen relationship is producing a new political
identity approach. Majority of the younger generation of Tibetans in exile communities think that taking the Indian citizenship benefits both politically and economically. They argue that Sino-‐Indo relationship keeps on growing smoothly and the probability that India’s policy towards Tibetans may change sooner or later. India may question or shut down the political activities of the central administration of Tibet in India, which according to the Indian state is run by a group of stateless foreigners. There are also chances that Tibetans in India may be asked by the Indian government to leave at any time, as Tibetans are uniformly recognized as “foreigners” or “guests” in India. The younger generations think that it is safer for CTA to be run by Tibetans who hold Indian citizenship in order to promote Tibetan political issues and protect Tibetans in exile community (Moynihan, 2012). Additionally, Indian citizenship will benefit Tibetans both politically and economically. Tibetans will no longer be treated as foreigners or informal refugees and be used as a political tool to pursuit Indian national interests. On the other hand, the older generations of Tibetans argue that if Tibetans in India obtained Indian citizenship their primary legal obligations, as citizens will be towards India; which will disintegrate unity of Tibetans in exile and affect on Tibetan political struggle. It may bring negative impacts in the minds of both international supporters and Tibetans inside Tibet. As one Tibetan political activist called Tenzin Tsondue said; “When you change your nationality, you are changing your loyalty. You are choosing certain privileges”4 (Soumya: 2014 p1). This raises questions such as, “does changing of nationality make someone less Tibetan and why should Tibetans in India refuse Indian citizenship when Tibetans in the west are enjoying political and economic benefits of citizenship while still considering themselves as Tibetans and fighting for the Tibetan political issues?” At this turning point of the argument I will discuss later in my thesis chapter three, of which makes Tibetans feel themselves “Tibetan citizens” when there is no such territory and legal recognition called “Tibetan State”, where this strong sense of belongingness to an imagined place obtained from and what are the factors making Tibetans to think contrary to the general understanding of state and citizen relationship.
Not all the Tibetans in India can obtain Indian Citizenship. Only the descendants of the first wave of Tibetan migrants who were born in India between 1959 and 1987 are eligible to obtain Indian citizenship. However, according to Tibetan demographic survey of 2009, “eighty percent” of Tibetans in India are migrants from the second and third migration waves (DST: 2009 P16). These Tibetans and their generations are not eligible for Indian citizenship and they have to remain as stateless foreigners in India. This research population is my main focus of this thesis and the characteristics of this research population will be discussed in chapter four, with reference to the difficulties of documentation and lack of legal status. The Tibetans who are not eligible for Indian citizenship feeling insecure without basic civil and economic rights on Indian soil; they do not want to be excluded, discriminated and neglected from rest of the society. Hence, the difficulties of
4 Soumya: 2014 Tibetan exiles prepare to vote in India-‐ published on Al Jazeera 07/04/2014
documentation and refugee identity becomes a threat and a push factor for Tibetan refugees in the exile communities to migrate either to the west or to China in order to obtain a better life. Additionally, they are try to obtain a “new political identity” (Citizen or Permanent Resident) and in doing so constructs through binary (legal or illicit) ways. For instances, fake transnational marriage is a common route for Tibetan refugees to migrate to the west. Those Tibetan refugees who have family members in the west and economically strong are migrating to the west through different channels (transnational marriage, student visa, false documents etc.) for the asylum purposes by paying huge amount of money. For instance, in 2014 the Tibetan visa brokers in India were charging twenty-‐five thousand Euros for Tibetan refugees who desire to migrate to Europe and fifty thousand US dollars for those who want to migrate to the United States of America. (Dhondhup: 28/01/2015) However, it is not guaranteed that every Tibetan migrant can get asylum in the west. For instance, Tashi (a Tibetan resident in Brussels in Belgium) said that there are approximately two hundreds Tibetan refugees on Belgium’s blacklist for deportation and due to triple illegalness (illegal to enter, illegal to reside and illegal to work) most of them are facing insecurity and exploitation, such as no social security, no government assistance, inaccessibility to hospitals, illegal employment with extremely low wages and no permanent address. He said that the reason of them not gaining asylum is suspicion that these Tibetans came from India and that they already taken asylum in India.
On other hand, Tibetans who are economically weak and have family members in Tibet are migrating back to China in order to get Chinese documents and later to take advantages of the Chinese economic development. This option of returning back to China is one method for Tibetans to get rid of labels such as ‘stateless’, ‘refugee’ and ‘foreigner’. Additionally, it is true that Chinese economic development has become one of the pull factors for Tibetans from exile communities to return back to China but the first priority of Tibetan returnees is still to get documents and legal status in China and not necessarily economic capital accumulation.
However, it is not guaranteed that every Tibetan in exile can get temporary travel documents from the Chinese embassy to return back to China. Tibetan returnees are political refugees who escaped from Tibet to India for their safety and now to surrender and confess for involving Tibetan politics to the Chinese government is not an easy task. Tibetans who are active in Tibetan political issues are not permitted to return back to China and they are recorded in China’s black list group. For instance, on April 29th 2012 china implemented passport regulations to impose significant restrictions on the ability of Tibetans to obtain passports to travel abroad in order to stop the connections between Tibetan political activities and Tibetans inside Tibet 5(Yangchen: 07/05/2015). From both examples aforementioned, migrants in exile communities can conclude that difficulties of documentation and its processes are playing significant roles in their lives and there is no way to
5 Phayul.com (Discriminatory Chinese passport regulations violate Tibetans’ right to travel: TCHRD)
separate this problem from their daily living.
Since difficulties of documentation is such a common problem for migrants in the world, the question arises of how problems of documentation is related to migration studies and challenges theory of state and citizen relationship. In general, migration is understood as movement of people in to an alien place from their native place and motivated to move by lack of access to resources at home, desire for economic prosperity, family reunion, and to escape from political persecution, or even natural disasters or simply a wish to change environments (Asian Development Bank: 2012, Williams and Pradhan: 2009, Ong: 1992). However, it is very significant to see how difficulties of documentation are playing a major push factor for stateless people in the processes of migration, which is rarely found the migration studies and I will discuss later in my thesis.
1.1 Research question and objectives
Initially, I began the research by gathering life stories of Tibetan refugees in India and abroad to find out the differences by comparing with other migrants in the world. Since the difficulties of documentation and its processes for Tibetan refugees in India is the core topic of my thesis, it is very important to focus on the roles of paperwork and to investigate how difficulties of documentation, its binary processes (legal and illicit) are impacting on personal life stories and daily activities of Tibetans refugees. I found out quickly that paperwork plays a major role in the lives of Tibetan refugees. The difficulties of documentation and lack of legal status are the root cause for Tibetan refugees to migrate to the west, return back to China or to change nationality in the exile communities. Additionally, the fear, insecurity, frustration and exclusion from societies of host countries made Tibetans produce a new notion about state and citizen relationship theory, as Tibetans refugees consider themselves citizens of a place called Tibet without territory and recognition.
As the focus of the thesis developed during the research period, so did the central research question. In order to cover the whole scope of the research, the central research question is formulated as follows; “ How do Tibetan migrants make documents in India and what are the difficulties, goals and process of making
documents as a stateless person?” To answer this question and to meet the objectives of the thesis, the following sub-‐questions provide the guideline of research.
1. What is the legal status of Tibetan refugees in India? 2. What are the processes of making documents?
3. What are the different notions of Tibetans regarding changing of nationality? 4. What are the challenges of making documents and how do they face it? 5. How difficulties of documentation in exile impacts on migration of Tibetans
6. What are the goals of Tibetan migrants?
Based on these research questions, the main objectives are: (1) to expose the notions of Tibetan refugees in India regarding difficulties of documentation, (2) to show through empirical data that Tibetans in India do not hold any legal status, (3) to understand how paperwork is playing a big role in Tibetan refugees’ lives and to present how illicit documents are made by Tibetan refugees in India. (4) Lastly, this research intends to reveal the general circumstances of Tibetan refugees regarding construction of political identity (citizenship) and migration. This research provides a good insight into the Tibetan refugee experiences with documentation in India and it should be treated as exploration of the topic.
1.2 Motivation and relevance
I was motivated to choose the difficulties of documentation and legal status of Tibetan refugees in India as my research topic after I have been through various experiences of discrimination and difficulties of documentation in the exile communities in India and abroad. For instance, I was stopped at the immigration when I arrived in Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam on the 3rd September 2014 for my masters’ study. The immigration officials looked at my Identity Card and asked me, “ Where is your passport? Do you want to take asylum?” I explained to them that Identity Certificate is my passport and I have a valid student visa on IC, which was issued by Netherlands embassy in Delhi, but they did not listen to me. They said, “ this is not a passport, this is a family document”. I told them that I came for study and showed all my papers from University of Amsterdam as proof but still they stopped me for few hours to check my visa and passport. Finally, the officials allowed to me to get out of airport, but I could not get any money from exchange agencies, they did not accept my Identity Card as a passport though I was holding a valid student visa. From that moment onward I came to realize that something is wrong with my political identity and documents. I determined to find out what is the legal status of Tibetan refugees in India and difficulties of documentation.
I found out that there are nearly one hundred thousand Tibetan refugees in India who are living in a state of legal limbo and have been facing similar problems I had experienced. Hence, this research intends to explain the legal status and circumstances of their life regarding documentation, migration and Indian foreign policies in exile community. These factors are relevant for Tibetan asylum seeker facing the legal bar of firm resettlement in west (Europe, United States) and this research will reflect on how it is that Tibetans in India do not hold any legal status and there is no formal law that governs Tibetan refugees in India. This may help for immigrant officials of western countries to reconsider about granting of asylum to Tibetan refugees.
documentation and legal status in exile community. By studying Tibetan refugees and their lives, I believe that one can better understand circumstances of Tibetan refugees as a whole. My personal motivation to study Tibetan refugees in India and their difficulties of documentation reflects my interest in studying how paperwork is playing a role in the lives of stateless people and what are the impacts on their daily activities. This research can also represents the conditions of stateless people and migrants in the world, who are facing difficulties of documentation in the processes of migration and how they over come these challenges. Furthermore, from this research I am also motivated to evaluate how Tibetan refugees are challenging the theory of economic migration and state and citizen relationship theory. Hence, it should not be underestimate that Tibetans refugees are important for migration studies.
Lastly, my research on difficulties of documentation and its processes reflect my belief in importance of documents for stateless people and it is contributing to the general theories and debate on migration studies about Tibetan refugees in exile community.
1.3 Thesis Outline
This thesis consists of five chapters including conclusion and the readers should keep in mind that there are two distinctive parts in this thesis. The first part includes general introduction, theoretical framework and historical background of Tibetan refugees with different policies of Indian government regarding documentation of Tibetan refugees. These three chapters will serve to understand the Tibetan refugees in India as a whole. In second part, I will present and discuss the difficulties and processes of documentation in India, its impacts on legal status whether Tibetans should change their nationality or not and how the feeling of insecurity in the exile community and difficulties of documents motivated Tibetans to migrate from the exile communities to different places. These chapters will generate the roles of documents or paperwork in the lives of Tibetan refugees and reflects on the theories as discussed in the first part of thesis. In this thesis I will use my research findings to support my arguments and at last I will conclude the thesis by my recommendations.
2. Theoretical Framework
There are a number of good literature on Tibetan migration, but less literature critiques on the processes of documentation of stateless foreigners and specially, on the difficulties of acquiring legal status, passport, visa and citizenship in India. Most of the literatures focus on the politic, history, trade and journey of Tibetan refugees over the Himalayan Mountains and how they suffered during their movement (Bruan: 1980, Johnson: 2007, Todd: 199, Harris: 2013 McConnell: 2011, etc.). However, in this thesis Tibetan refugees are characterized as a form of “statelessness and document-‐lessness”, which I call “double-‐lessness” and I will mainly discuss this concept in the theoretical framework. I consider that the difficulty of documentation for stateless people is a global phenomenon and they are trying to over come this problem by obtaining new political identity (citizen) and documents. The literature I present in this chapter discusses the difficulties of documentation, binary processes and its impacts on the lives of Tibetan refugees in India. I begin by explaining the concept and roles of documents or paperwork in general, followed by relating theory of state and citizen relationship to difficulties of documentation. After that, I will discuss the relationship between migration and difficulties of documentation.
2.1 The roles of documentation in migrants’ lives
A Russian expression states, “ A man consist of a body, a soul and a passport.”
“The passport not only prompts questions of immigration, nationality, globalization, travel and belonging but also connects individual to the realm of the International politic and economy” (Salter 2003:40). This is reason why state is using documentation as a tool to regulate its citizens. States issue documents to citizens to facilitate trade, international movement and security that domestic space is safe and the outside is dangerous. The passport or documents illustrates the relation between the individual and the state to regulate international law along with the individual’s movement (McConnell: 2001). In this twenty first century, document is one of the central to political identity categories and the notion of state is codified in documents rather than merely imagined (Torpey: 2000). Hence, advancement in systematic bureaucracies and documentation are helping state to decide who should be excluded or included within its bounded territory. The documentation is the one of the key factors for creation of state and citizen relationship.
However, advancement in systematic documentation and bureaucracies become a big threat to migrant people in general and it is playing a significant role in their life. There are numbers of people who are trapped between the distinctions of legitimated and illegitimated based on documentation. For instance, the Filipino economic migrants (women) who are running away from Japanese husbands are facing extremely difficulties of documentation in Japan. “Filipino women could not renew their spousal visas without support of their Japanese husbands, women who ran away would lose their visas and remained unground without security” (Faier:
2008:645). They are working without documentations and becoming the victims for exploitations and deportation. Similarly, because of restriction on foreign residents in China, Nigerian economic migrants are facing triple-‐illegalness (illegal to enter, illegal to reside and illegal to work) and over stayed on visas without resident permission is a life threat to these migrants. For these Nigerian migrants police and immigration raids become daily subjects due to lack of proper documents. “They are chasing Africans like sheep without shepherd” (Osnos: 2009:7). These examples well-‐defined how significant documentation is in the lives of migrants and presents how state policies of documentation for excluding from and including in is making migrants to live in a state of legal limbo.
In this thesis, I am taking Tibetan refugees as an empirical research population, specifically focus on the roles of documentation in their lives and uncover the blurred processes of paperwork in binary (legal and illicit) ways in the exile community. There are nearly one hundred thousand stateless and document less Tibetans, which I call “double lessness” all over the world and documentation is playing a significant role in their lives. It is fascinating to see how Tibetan migrants discuss the paperwork in Tibetan society, whether it is in a café, restaurant and office or on the street, often the first thing they ask each other after greeting is “How are your Papers (a common Tibetan saying)?” I personally encountered this question more than hundred times and this question is embedded in the minds of Tibetan people after facing so many difficulties of documentation and legal status as stateless refugees. For instance, I know a Tibetan man in England and he is currently in an in-‐house Centre for migrants, which limits his movements and political rights. He migrated from India to England in 2001. He did not receive asylum status in England. Therefore, he illegally migrated to France via ship in hopes for receiving asylum. Unfortunately, his fingerprints and eye scanning that showed he had already applied for asylum in England and caught him. According to the refuge law, a person has no right to seek asylum for second time. Then he escaped to Switzerland and Austria for another opportunity to take asylum by using different names, unfortunately he was caught again and Austrian police deported him to England. This is reason why the question “how are your papers?” is so significant that it generates relationship between documents, stateless people, migrants and its roles in their lives.
This thesis is focused on the difficulties of Tibetans in the processes of documentation and it will contribute to the existing knowledge on roles of paperwork in migrants’ lives. Additionally, I will represent that the advancement in state techniques of documentation and labeling people like electronic chips in the passport, fingerprint, eye scanning and interviews became a big threat to migrants’ mobility and it is also creating a big gap between state and individual (stateless and migrants) regarding citizenship and labeling, which will discuss in the following arguments.
2.2 Difficulties of documentation and state-‐citizen theory
Two different approaches to political identity or citizenship construction are well defined within geography and cultural studies. Geographers are trying to construct a political identity or citizenship based on the connections between territory and statehood (Marston and Mitchell: 2004). The citizenship is understood as a member within the bounded territory and sovereign state has monopoly power over its members within domestic space (Salter: 2003). This concept divided global space in to states based on territories, population and authorities. This concept started from Medieval Ages that domestic space is safe and outside is dangerous. Hence, the sovereign state began to identify its citizens through documentation and control their movement to keep them within the bounded territory (Torpey: 2000). It also shows the power of state sovereignty toward other states and how a political identity is constructed based on territory. The monopoly power of the state over its citizens is more less like the monopoly power of Medieval Kings toward their subjects within his territory. For instance, the doctrine of “ Ne Exeat Regno” (Salter: 2003: 12) is the English common law to mean that no subjects may leave the territory without special permission from the king. Hence, the king and his territory are central to political identity construction for his subjects. Like wise, in modern time state is acting monopoly power over its citizens within the bounded territory by labeling them through documentation and state is the central to political identities for its citizens.
On other hand, the anthropologies of globalization and transnationalism argue that political identity is not single dimension. It is multiple and fluid (Brah: 1996). This concept of identity construction and formation of citizen disrupt the general understanding theory of state and citizen relationship. It generated new approaches of political identity formation that is more flexible rather than systematic of state territory forms the citizenship and political identity. For instance, the literatures like flexible citizenship (Ong: 1999) and Post-‐national citizenship (Soysal: 1994) offer challenges with state formation of citizenship and state as the constructor of political identity. However, the political identity formed through globalization and transnationalism has problematically ignored the state roles in the construction of identity, citizenship, etc.
However, following empirical research made it clear that it is not always the case. This thesis hopes to generate a new political approach toward the formation of citizenship or identity apart from aforementioned theories about construction of political identity. This research aims to conceptualize citizenship without state monopoly power as an identity constructor by using the empirical case of Tibetan refugees in India. Tibetans born in India and obtained Indian Citizenship do not consider themselves as Indians. According to them, though they have grown up and settled in India, they feel like outsiders or guests. The different expression such as “guests”, “outsiders” and “foreigners” living in India are used to underline their attitude toward Indian Citizenship is not being their real identity (Tibetan Citizen). It is because of uncertain policies of the Indian government toward Tibetan
refugees. Tibetans are living in a state of legal limbo in India. They do not hold any legal status. They are stateless and undocumented. However, turning a critical spotlight onto the notion of Tibetans toward identity, Tibetans born in India are obtaining their real identity (Tibetan Citizen) from a political community without sovereignty and territory. The Central Tibetan Administration is not a “State”, but functioning as a state within the territorial jurisdiction of host country. Tibetan central administration has drafted its constitution in 1963 and Tibetan Charter in 1991. It identifies, labels and documents Tibetans as its citizens. All the Tibetans born in Tibet and outside of Tibet shall be a Tibetan Citizen and any person whose either of parents are Tibetan eligible for Tibetan Citizenship. The construction and meaning of identity is focused here that the Central Tibetan administration issues a document called “Green Book” to every Tibetan, which functions like a citizenship certificate. Without “green book”, Tibetans are excluded from Tibetan political and social processes. Tibetans cannot vote, get financial aids and support letters from the Central Tibetan Administration to process any other documents. A citizenship is created and managed by an unrecognized and territory-‐less political community in exile, this opens up questions regarding the relationship among citizenship, territory and legitimacy normally we understand (McConnell: 2011). This empirical case disrupt theory of state and citizen relationship that state plays the main role in possession of people’s political identity (Torpey: 2002) and its presence at central to recognize or label its citizens within the bounded territory (Salter: 2000).
On other hand, Tibetans who are changing their nationality as Tibetan to Indian is contrary to the concept of transnational citizenship. In general, transnational citizenship is understood as individual’s ability to belong to multiple national states and build social fields that links together their country of origin and their country of settlement (Fitzpatrick: 2014). They make it visible in the political, cultural, social and economic realms. It is not like national citizenship, where individuals are only legitimated to one sovereign state. However, Tibetans in the exile communities are stateless and they do not hold any legal status of origin country. In the processes of changing nationality they are taking citizenship as a political privilege and right, which will decide who would be excluded from and included to. Hence, the nationality obtained through documentation is for political rights and social security rather than changing their real identity (Tibetan Citizen). The exclusion, fear, insecurity, and discrimination in the exile communities become the source of energy to cling on a “real identity” (Tibetan Citizen) and these feelings of insecurity in the host country constructed a citizenship, which is beyond theory of territory bounded state-‐citizenship and transnational citizenship through globalization. This new citizenship approach is the contribution of my research to the existing literatures on construction of citizenship and political identity.
2.3 Roles of difficulties of documentation in migration.
In general, migration is understood as movement of people from their native place to an alien location and the migrants are motivated to move by lack of access to
