Meher Ali for TwoCircles.net
Aligarh:-– Guran Miya (30), a Rohingya refugee, returned with his family to Aligarh in mid-2018, just nine months after he had left.
During this time, he lived in Bangalore and then Hyderabad. It was a struggle, especially in Hyderabad, where he lived in a refugee camp. He says that people had to get in line to use the toilet and there was also a lack of privacy, especially for his wife, when she went to take a bath.
Though he lived rent-free in both the cities, he says that he prefers to pay Rs 1200 per month for a room that he rents in Aligarh.
“Wahaan izzat nahi hai,” (There was no sense of dignity living there), he says.
Guran Miya left Aligarh in 2017.
He was part of the biggest refugee migration from Aligarh that started post-demonetisation, says Mohammad Bilal (35), another Rohingya refugee who has lived in Aligarh since 2012. Most refugees at that time were employed at Allana meat factory, located on the outskirts of the city.
They found that their wages were no longer guaranteed and had to look for other work. When they did find it, their new employer, like Guran Miya’s, started asking them to submit identification, such as an Aadhar card, which, being refugees, they did not have.
About 80 of the tota 180 Rohingya refugee families left for larger cities such as Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Jammu. But since last year, some have started to trickle back.
One of the most common reasons they give for coming back is that, unlike other cities, in Aligarh they don’t have to live in refugee camps. Instead, they can rent rooms.
Rohingya refugees started coming to Aligarh in 2010 to work at the Allana meat factory, says Bilal, who came here for the same reason.
They earned an average monthly wage of Rs 5000 per month, he says, because of which they were able to afford to rent rooms near the factory.
This initial group then called their relatives who called others. Now, there are about 100 refugee families living in Aligarh, Bilal says. Of these, about 10 families are those who have returned.
When these returnees compare their life in camps to that in their own private rooms, one word they frequently use is “izzat” or dignity.
Kushida Begum connected the lack of “izzat” with the lack of basic facilities, specifically a toilet, in the camp in Bangalore where she lived for just a year before coming back. To make matters worse, they got water every 3-4 days and had to pay Rs 50 for each bucket.
Arifa Begum (20), a Rohingya refugee, migrated with her family to Jammu and then, like Kushida, to Bangalore. She says that in both places, instead of a toilet, there was just a plastic sheet covering the area.
The two women now live in rented rooms with their families. Both have toilets that, though still shared with other families, are, as Arifa points out, proper ones: solid and covered.
The reason that refugees can afford to pay rent is that, at about Rs 1200 per month, it is comparatively lower than in other cities.
Aligarh also has a lower cost of living, says Jannat Ali (35), who previously lived in Pune and then Hyderabad.
Firewood, which is what the refugees, like the urban poor, commonly use for cooking, is easily available in Aligarh, unlike in bigger cities such as Hyderabad, he says. Drinking water in Aligarh can be accessed through borewells and is free of cost, unlike in Hyderabad where he had to pay for it. The cost of vegetables is also lower.
But it is not just that Aligarh is cheaper; refugees say that it is also safer.
Mohammad Amir* (24) was in Jammu when seven jhuggis, including five belonging to Rohingya refugees, were burned down in April of 2017. The police said it was a short circuit, but the refugees suspected arson. His landlord warned him that if he did not leave, the culprits would burn down his jhuggi as well.
He moved with his family to Bangalore, but there too they were harassed by locals. He worked as a ragpicker and was severely beaten up once by the police for working late into the night.
He returned to Aligarh four months ago where he lives with his wife and three children in a single rented room. “Yahaan maar-peet nahi hai (There is no threat of violence here).”
One of the reasons for this could be that renting a room means that refugees are scattered throughout different neighbourhoods rather than concentrated in a camp. This makes it difficult for them to become easy targets unlike refugees in Jammu, for instance. As Mohammad Bilal puts it, “Nigraani mein mushkil se aa rahe hai,” (We are not coming under observation.)
Landlord in Aligarh also readily let out their rooms to refugees and are only concerned that the rent gets paid, says Aamir.
Still, conflicts do arise with the host community. For instance, Bilal says that a fortnight ago, some locals robbed two refugees of their money and mobile phones.
Also, since most refugees are daily-wage labourers, the rent is still high enough that they have to make cuts elsewhere. Kushida Begum, for instance, is unable to save enough to get her children educated. Mohammad Amir* says that renting a room itself becomes precarious as a daily wager. He says that he has to dodge the supervisor whenever the latter visits so that he will not ask him for identification.
Yet, Ali observes that, unlike in camps, where refugees are living in such close quarters, fights rarely break out in Aligarh because rooms give people their personal space. “Sukoon zyadaa hai,” he says–there is more peace of mind here.
*Name changed on request to protect the refugee’s identity.
Meher Ali is an independent journalist based in Aligarh. She reports on refugees and human-rights related issues. You can also read her blog on the culture and heritage of Aligarh and western Uttar Pradesh here. Follow her on Twitter @aashi310 .