Refugees and Internally Displaced People in India

A Conversation with Aarti Tikoo Singh

Recorded in September 2018

Global Futures is a podcast about global politics and how rising powers like China and India are transforming it. We discuss foreign policy, economics, war and peace, and how the world is changing with experts from across the world.

Forced migration is one of the critical issues of our time. 1 in 110 people in the world is currently displaced because of conflict, violence or persecution, or natural and environmental disasters. More common among those who are already vulnerable, forced migration also often creates tensions in the countries or regions that host such migrants.

In this episode of the Global Futures podcast we talk about displacement in the South Asian region. In this age of radicalism and polarization we are seeing the religious persecution and displacement of the Rohingya from Myanmar to surrounding countries such as India, as well as increased insecurity around internally displaced people within India, such as the Kashmiri Pandits, who fled violence in the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir during the beginning of the 1990s and whose future and status remain unclear.

Our guest is journalist Aarti Tikoo Singh, senior assistant editor at the Times of India. She has worked as a reporter and editor for more than 15 years, focusing on issues of conflict, war and terror. She was born and grew up in the conflict-torn state of Jammu and Kashmir and returned many years later to report on the politics, violence, governance, and human stories that have shaped the conflict.

With her we discuss the history and the future of forced displacement in South Asia. How do questions of religion and identity come into play? And most importantly, with the rise of extreme thinking, how can we break the vicious cycle of intolerance?

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