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The Wire
17 hours ago
- Politics
- The Wire
Refuge Without a Name: South Asia's Architecture of Statelessness
Across South Asia, refugee movements have become one of the quietest yet most consequential forces shaping the region's political and security terrain. From Assam to the Arakan, from the Himalayan ridges of Bhutan to the shrinking mangroves of Bengal, people have crossed borders not in pursuit of safety but in search of recognition. Displacement here is not the residue of war, it is often the intention of peace. Bureaucratically crafted, legally disguised, rhetorically justified. The blueprint of this architecture was drawn in 1947. But its foundations were laid long before. The colonial state had already tested the logic of exclusion: pass laws, criminal tribe registries, vagrancy codes. It taught the postcolonial state how to document without protection, to survey without rights, to govern through absence. uprooted over 15 million people in a frenzy of postcolonial violence. That rupture did not end with the ceasefires; it rehearsed, refined, and rehearsed again, until exclusion became policy masquerading as nationhood. It institutionalised the belief that borders could manufacture belonging through exclusion, that citizenship could be both inherited and revoked. What began as a line across a subcontinent became a template for expulsion. Since then, South Asia's map has been redrawn repeatedly, through secession, civil war, monarchy's fall, proxy insurgencies, demographic engineering. Each upheaval displaced its own cast of undesirables. The birth of sent ten million refugees into India. Bhutan's campaign of national purification expelled the Lhotshampa. The Sri Lankan scattered Tamils from Tamil Nadu to Toronto. turned Pakistan into a refugee depot. Myanmar's were erased from citizenship and hunted by their state. India's National Register of Citizens (NRC) sought to vanish the undocumented by redefining who had the right to exist, on paper. Every decade, a new group of refugees joins the ledger Every decade, a new group joins the ledger. Their languages differ. The cause of exile changes. But the experience remains the same: move, wait, disappear. These are not episodic tragedies. They are the architecture of exclusion, calibrated, systemic, and sanctioned. Today, an estimated 3.5 million refugees live in South Asia, just 0.18% of its population. But numbers miss the point. The real story lies in the normalisation of statelessness: how expulsion becomes policy, how documentation becomes a weapon, how silence becomes law. Nowhere is this more visible than in Assam, where the past returned with . India's Home Minister called undocumented Bangladeshis '.' The metaphor was not casual. It naturalised exclusion, turned people into pests, and made denial feel like hygiene. The NRC asked people to prove, with brittle papers, that they were Indian. Nearly two million could not. Among them, many had never known any other home. But even as the state prepared to unwrite them, something softer but no less stubborn emerged: a quiet resistance. In villages across Assam, neighbours pooled documents, drafted affidavits, shared what proof they could find. Volunteers taught the elderly how to speak for themselves before tribunals. Lawyers filed petitions not to win, but to delay erasure. It wasn't enough. But for a moment, it was refusal. The law offered no clarity on what would happen next, only that something would. Entire families, by a signature. The question was never really about borders. It was about belonging. of the Nepali-speaking Lhotshampas, once woven into its agricultural spine, followed a similar logic. The state decided it needed to look more like itself. Ethnic Nepalis who had lived there for generations were asked to prove loyalty with papers few possessed. When they failed, they were declared alien. The language was legal. The motive, demographic. The method: cultural cleansing through policy. Camps took root in eastern Nepal. They lingered for two decades, until foreign planes carried many away. The region moved on, leaving its displaced to histories few would remember and fewer still would write down. Not all displacement is marked by tents. In Myanmar, the Rohingya were removed not just from land, but from law. The 1982 Citizenship Act left them stateless. The military's 2017 campaign drove 700,000 into Bangladesh. became a city of waiting; a million people with nowhere to go, and no way to belong. The world flew drones, delivered aid, hosted conferences. The camps grew, hemmed by wire. The tarpaulin roofs became symbols of permanence. In one of the camps, where the tarpaulin walls pulsed with heat by day and damp by dawn, a girl knelt in the corner of her shelter and traced her name into the fabric. Over and over, she pressed her finger into the weave, as if to keep it from slipping. She had never seen it written. Her name lived in breath, recited at checkpoints, repeated for clerks, forgotten in silence. In a place built from waiting, this was the only record she could make: a movement, a murmur, gone with the morning damp. South Asia does not declare its expulsions, it enacts them, quietly Sri Lanka's civil war drove tens of thousands of Tamils into India. Many still remain in limbo, neither citizens of Sri Lanka nor fully recognised by India. They inhabit the fault lines of memory, war, and neglect. Even in Tamil Nadu, the state most sympathetic to their cause, the word 'citizenship' catches in the throat. Others moved further still. In Canada, in the UK, in Australia, fragments of that exile found new ground. Statelessness dispersed into diaspora, sometimes remembered, sometimes ritualised, sometimes recast. Some funded movements. Others tried to forget. A few carried the war within them: across borders, into basements, through births and funerals, across decades. Pakistan's Afghan hosting has turned from geopolitical leverage to domestic burden. In Karachi, Afghan families who arrived in the 1980s still live in the shadows, on the margins of neighborhoods built by others. Their names are absent from the census. Their children inherit liminality like property. Some fought Pakistan's wars. Others built shops and futures on borrowed ground. South Asia does not declare its expulsions. It enacts them, quietly, bureaucratically, sometimes with courtesy, more often with silence. The refugee is rarely called one. He is an infiltrator in one country, a voter in another, a ghost in records that were never digitised. In Delhi, Tibetan flags hang from second-story windows, folded, cautious, half-visible. The refugee here is suspended in plain sight, not unseen, but unclaimed, between exile and embrace, between hospitality and the hush of hesitation. Across the region, borders have become mirrors, each reflecting stories the state would rather forget. Words follow policy. The vocabulary of welcome has expiry built in. And the words that remain - alien, illegal, suspect - shape what follows: detention, denial, disappearance. The refugee becomes shorthand for disorder. For dilution. For danger. Rarely for history. Rarely for justice. Also Read: From Balochistan to Kashmir, the Region's Unresolved Grievances Refuse To Stay Buried Language is never neutral. It becomes architecture, brick by bureaucratic brick, affidavit by affidavit, silence by silence. In speeches and televised declarations, the refugee shifts from someone who lost protection to someone who must be monitored. In India, the term – intruder - echoes through everyday speech. 'Each is a threat to the nation,' the Home Minister thundered in 2018, drawing applause and lines deeper than any border wall. Even South Asia's moments of magnanimity have not translated into permanence. India's hospitality to Tibetans has endured, but few have been offered citizenship. Bangladesh shelters over a million Rohingya, but the political vocabulary frames them as guests overstaying their welcome. Pakistan's have become political flashpoints. The language of protection erodes with each electoral cycle. South Asia has no refugee convention. No regional asylum framework. No mutual recognition system. Protection is not a right, it is a favour. Refugees are logistical problems, not political subjects. None of the region's principal states are signatories to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its . The UNHCR is allowed to operate, not empowered to enforce. Statelessness becomes a feature of sovereignty, not a failure of it. Laws shape the absence of rights as much as their presence. In leaving them behind, the region sketches a different kind of map, one where citizenship is conditional, belonging revocable, protection dictated by whim. The refugee is not the exception. He is the evidence. What happens at the border does not begin there. It begins in speech, in silence, in statute. What begins in silence ends in disappearance. The crisis ahead And the tide is rising. The crisis ahead will not be driven by war alone. Environmental degradation will multiply displacement. Rivers swell. Coasts recede. The are becoming a geography of waiting. They retreat inland, inch by inch. Communities follow. Villages drown, slowly, bureaucratically. Himalayan melt and glacier ruptures threaten entire valleys. This isn't tomorrow's crisis. It is today's reality. The land is sinking while policy treads water. These people are not yet called refugees. But they will be. In the Maldives, the a little more each year. No refugee camps have formed, yet. Only models, projections, and a growing fear that someday soon, even the memory of return will feel fictional. The region's smallest state may soon become its loudest metaphor. To watch this region is to witness a quiet reconstitution of belonging. Citizenship is redrawn by ancestry. Rights are filtered through religion. Bureaucracy the border. Today, exclusion is no longer stamped, it is scanned. In places like India, the Aadhaar system has made identity digital, and disappearance easier. Refugees are not simply those who have lost a country. They are reminders that nations can also lose their people, one document, one silence at a time. Global comparisons do little to flatter South Asia. The EU's asylum system is contested but codified. Africa's Kampala Convention acknowledges the displaced within borders. Latin America's Cartagena Declaration expands protections. South Asia has no such moral vocabulary, only the grammar of delay. Also Read: Fighting Terrorism Demands Partnership, Not Primacy The international community treats this displacement as static. The world has grown accustomed to the camp, but not to the cause. It funds containment as if mercy were enough, and forgets that recognition, not rations, is the measure of justice. Aid flows. Resettlement trickles. The architecture endures. Host states perform hospitality but deny permanence. Across South Asia, refugee governance is not built for permanence. This is not a failure of resources. It is a blueprint. It is a waiting room with no exit, where time is suspended and return is myth. Refugees are not the fallout of collapse alone, but of intent, of someone deciding who belonged, and who did not. Displacement here is not a crisis. It is a . The refugee is not the aberration; he is not the exception, but the system's most faithful creation. For too long, the region has redrawn its maps, of territory, memory, citizenship, while erasing those it first cast out. When return is impossible, memory becomes the last homeland: fragile, portable, and haunted. Refugees carry their histories. Sometimes, they carry their wars. They may leave the battlefield, but the battle does not leave them. Wounds travel. And where they are ignored, they deepen. They are not stranded between countries; they are disowned by the very lands that once claimed them, named, then unmade. That alone should remind us that displacement begins not with movement, but with abandonment. If the world is serious about reducing forced migration, it must do more than feed the symptom. It must confront the sovereign impulse to erase. What's needed is a politics that names the displaced not as burden, but as evidence, of what states deny, and what justice demands. Statelessness is not sovereignty's accident. It is its design, and its deepest cruelty. Until that is reversed, borders will remain: not as protections, but as the quiet scars of decisions made, and never confessed. Somewhere, another border will be drawn. And somewhere else, someone will vanish into it. Shyam Tekwani is a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of DKI APCSS, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. The appearance of external hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the United States Department of Defense (DoD) of the linked websites, or the information, products, or services contained therein. DoD does not exercise any editorial, security, or other control over the information you may find at these sites. The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
E&E News
2 days ago
- Politics
- E&E News
White House nominates NRC Chair David Wright to new term
The White House on Monday renominated Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair David Wright to a new term on the commission through June 2030, two weeks before the South Carolina Republican's current term would have expired. Assuming Wright wins Senate confirmation and is reappointed commission chair by President Donald Trump, the NRC would have leadership in place to undertake a comprehensive review of its reactor licensing processes ordered by Trump last month. Trump's 'energy dominance' strategy gives a top priority to a quadrupling of U.S. nuclear power capacity by 2050, with an essential role given to small modular reactors with new operating technologies that are awaiting NRC safety reviews. Advertisement The White House confirmed on Tuesday morning that it had sent the reappointment to the Senate. The action had not been formally announced. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has not yet set a schedule for Wright's confirmation hearing.
Newsweek
2 days ago
- Politics
- Newsweek
Justice Gorsuch Accuses Supreme Court of Indulging 'Fantasies'
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing in his dissenting opinion in Nuclear Regulatory Commission v. Texas, accused the court's majority of indulging in "fantasies" by dismissing the challengers' access to judicial review. Why It Matters In a 6-3 decision Wednesday, the Supreme Court reversed a lower-court ruling that had struck down a federal license for a temporary nuclear waste storage site in Texas. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion, while Gorsuch filed the dissent. The Supreme Court has the authority to overturn lower court rulings, and in this case, it reversed a decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. More than 50 nuclear power plants operate across the United States, generating electricity for homes, businesses and other uses. Those facilities also produce highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel, which must be carefully stored. What To Know The case centers on Interim Storage Partners' effort to build a facility in West Texas to store spent nuclear fuel. To do so, the private company needed approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which granted the license despite the proposed site being hundreds of miles from the nearest nuclear reactor. The decision drew objections from the State of Texas and a nearby landowner, Fasken Land and Minerals, who argued that the plan was potentially dangerous and in violation of federal law. A lower court struck down the NRC's federal license for the nuclear waste storage site. The majority opinion claimed that neither Texas nor Fasken Land and Minerals were official parties "eligible to obtain judicial review in the Fifth Circuit," and "For that reason, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and do not decide the underlying statutory dispute over whether the Nuclear Regulatory Commission possesses authority to license private off-site storage facilities," Kavanaugh wrote. Therefore, Texas and Fasken cannot sue over the NRC license, as federal law, specifically the Hobbs Act, allows only a "party aggrieved" to seek judicial review. The ruling did not address the actual nuclear waste site or licensing. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch at his confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on March 21, 2017. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch at his confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on March 21, 2017. AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais In the dissenting opinion, in which Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito joined, Gorsuch claimed that the NRC's licensing decision was "unlawful." He added that both the state and the landowners are "aggrieved" by the NRC's decision, because "radioactive waste poses risks to the State, its citizens, its lands, air, and waters, and it poses dangers as well to a neighbor and its employees." He continued, "Both Texas and Fasken participated actively in other aspects of the NRC's licensing proceeding. No more is required for them to qualify as 'parties aggrieved' by the NRC's licensing decision. Both are entitled to their day in court—and both are entitled to prevail." Gorsuch argued the NRC violated the law, and the courts should hear the challenge. He concluded the opinion, writing, "Because nothing in the law requires us to indulge any of those fantasies, I respectfully dissent." What Happens Next The Supreme Court is expected to release a slew of opinions in the coming weeks, with the term scheduled to end in late June.
2 days ago
- Politics
Supreme Court clears way for temporary nuclear waste storage in Texas, New Mexico
WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday restarted plans to temporarily store nuclear waste at sites in rural Texas and New Mexico, even as the nation is at an impasse over a permanent solution. The justices, by a 6-3 vote, reversed a federal appeals court ruling that invalidated the license granted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to a private company for the facility in southwest Texas. The outcome should also reinvigorate plans for a similar facility in New Mexico roughly 40 miles (65 kilometers) away. The federal appeals court in New Orleans had ruled in favor of the opponents of the facilities. The licenses would allow the companies to operate the facilities for 40 years, with the possibility of a 40-year renewal. The court's decision is not a final ruling in favor of the licenses, but it removes a major roadblock. Roughly 100,000 tons (90,000 metric tons) of spent fuel, some of it dating from the 1980s, is piling up at current and former nuclear plant sites nationwide and growing by more than 2,000 tons (1,800 metric tons) a year. The waste was meant to be kept there temporarily before being deposited deep underground. The NRC has said that the temporary storage sites are needed because existing nuclear plants are running out of room. The presence of the spent fuel also complicates plans to decommission some plants, the Justice Department said in court papers. Plans for a permanent underground storage facility at Yucca Mountain, northwest of Las Vegas, are stalled because of staunch opposition from most Nevada residents and officials. The NRC's appeal was filed by the Biden administration and maintained by the Trump administration. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, are leading bipartisan opposition to the facilities in their states. The NRC granted the Texas license to Interim Storage Partners, based in Andrews, Texas, for a facility that could take up to 5,500 tons (5,000 metric tons) of spent nuclear fuel rods from power plants and 231 million tons (210 million metric tons) of other radioactive waste. The facility would be built next to an existing dump site in Andrews County for low-level waste such as protective clothing and other material that has been exposed to radioactivity. The Andrews County site is about 350 miles (560 kilometers) west of Dallas, near the Texas-New Mexico state line. The New Mexico facility would be in Lea County, in the southeastern part of the state near Carlsbad. The NRC gave a license for the site to Holtec International, based in Jupiter, Florida.
Reuters
2 days ago
- Politics
- Reuters
US Supreme Court sides with federal agency on nuclear waste facility license
WASHINGTON, June 18 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday against the state of Texas and oil industry interests in their challenge to Nuclear Regulatory Commission authority to license certain nuclear waste storage facilities. The 6-3 ruling, authored by conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh, reversed a lower court's decision declaring a license awarded by the NRC to a company called Interim Storage Partners to operate a nuclear waste storage in western Texas unlawful. The NRC is the federal agency that regulates nuclear energy in the United States. The NRC issued a license in 2021 to Interim Storage Partners - a joint venture of France-based Orano and Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists - to build a nuclear waste storage facility in Andrews County in Texas, near the New Mexico border. The U.S. government and the company had appealed the decision by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the NRC lacked authority to issue the license based on a law called the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. The appeal was brought under Democratic former President Joe Biden and was continued under Republican President Donald Trump. The government argued that Congress gave the NRC the authority to license temporary off-site nuclear waste storage facilities. The Interim Storage Partners license was challenged by Fasken Land and Minerals, a Texas-based oil and gas extraction organization, and the nonprofit Permian Basin Coalition of Land and Royalty Owners and Operators. Texas and New Mexico later joined the challenge, arguing the facility posed environmental risks to the states. The case brought by New Mexico subsequently was dismissed. "To qualify as a party to a licensing proceeding, the Atomic Energy Act requires that one either be a license applicant or have successfully intervened in the licensing proceeding," Kavanaugh wrote in the ruling. "In this case, however, Texas and Fasken are not license applicants, and they did not successfully intervene in the licensing proceeding. So neither was a party eligible to obtain judicial review in the 5th Circuit," he wrote. During March 5 arguments in the case, some of the Supreme Court's conservative justices seemed wary of the NRC's claim that the licensing arrangements at issue would be temporary. The license issued to Interim Storage Partners was set to last for 40 years, with the possibility of being renewed. A proposal to permanently store the nation's spent nuclear fuel at a federal facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada has been stalled following decades of opposition in that state. The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has limited the authority of various federal agencies including the Environment Protection Agency and Securities and Exchange Commission in various rulings in recent years. The court last year overturned its own 1984 precedent that had given deference to government agencies in interpreting laws they administer. Since returning to the presidency in January, Trump has moved to dismantle various agencies as part of his campaign to slash the federal workforce and remake the government.
