On February 20, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) received information that a vessel with Rohingya refugees was in distress on the Andaman Sea, having no food or water, leading to the death of a few onboard. On February 26, the Indian Coast Guard found this vessel, which had 81 Rohingyas aboard, while eight were dead and one was missing. This incident again brought forward the issue of India’s stance on the Rohingya issue as India was not ready to accept these 81 refugees into its territory. Reuters reported that while India fixed the vessel and provided these refugees food and water and even clothes, authorities did not allow them to enter Indian waters, but were preparing to send them back to Bangladesh, despite civil society organizations urging the government to do otherwise.

When India’s Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar visited Bangladesh, ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Bangladesh, it was anticipated that the two countries would also discuss the fate of these 81 refugees. The meeting did not result in any concrete decision. Moreover, there have been no updates on the situation of these refugees, even today. The last piece of information on this matter was provided by Sabber Kyaw Min – founder of the Rohingya Human Rights Initiative – via a tweet that mentioned how neither of the countries had accepted the refugees.

A similar incident occurred back in 2011 when 91 Rohingya refugees were stuck on the Andaman Sea after being sent back by Thai naval officers on an engineless boat. During this incident, one different thing was that the 91 refugees were not kept in their boat at sea but instead, they were at least taken to Port Blair, to prepare them for repatriation to Bangladesh. While India, in 2011, did not intend to keep the refugees on Indian soil for long, the treatment then was more humane than the recent incident.

Another common aspect to note about both these incidents is that after initial reports were shared on the status of the refugees, what followed later was never made public. To date, no one knows where the refugees ended up, be it the 91 in 2011, or the 81 in 2021.

Despite incidents like these taking place wherein no updates about the fate of Rohingya refugees who reached India are shared, the Indian delegation at the United Nations went on to say several positive things that the country has done for the Rohingya community.

A lot was said by the deputy permanent representative of India at the United Nations, Nagaraj Naidu, on the Rohingya matter in a UNSC ARRIA meet that was held on April 9 to discuss the Myanmar issue. During this meeting, Naidu appreciated the efforts of Bangladesh in assisting the Rohingya refugees living in Cox’s Bazar. At the same time, he also noted that India has been providing on-ground support to Bangladesh to assist these refugees, calling on other member states to also assist it, financially or otherwise.

Matters, however, are more complicated.