Mawi Daw has been living in India with his family for the past 11 years and he belongs to the Chin community. Chins are a Christian minority community that fled Myanmar fearing army persecution. They have been living in Delhi as refugees since. The troubles of this family are clear from the fact that they had to change 13 houses in the 11 years that they have been living in India.
Mawi Daw has a wife, two daughters and a son in the family. The eldest daughter, Esther was just six years old when the family fled Myanmar. They are currently living in New Delhi’s Chanakya Place. These people have gone through a major cultural change. Although, Mawi cannot speak the local language, his children can communicate easily in Hindi.
The people from the Chin community had to take a route to New Delhi via the state of Mizoram. Some of the people stayed back in Mizoram, while many decided to come to Delhi. Mawi Daw was assaulted by the army because he allegedly wasn’t supporting the party backed by the army. Even today, his fingers are bent due to the injuries caused by the military. He then decided to leave his homeland for the safety of himself and his family. “I carried my kids on my back throughout the journey from Myanmar to Delhi. A journey so tiring, I did not know how I was going to survive in this unknown land,” he said. At first, the family had thought that they would return to Myanmar soon. They were perhaps being naïve and ignorant about the reality.
The hardships the family had to face were immense. Not just poverty, but the children also grew up in an environment which was strange to their parents. Esther, the seventeen-year-old daughter said how the teachers at schools used to have a bias against them. Many times, people make racial remarks against them, making jokes and calling them names like, ‘Chinki’ or ‘Nepali’. Esther said she felt hurt with the behavior of the locals sometimes.
The reason the family had to shift 13 houses was that they were not able to give the rent or fail to pay the electricity bill. The landlords also do not show any compassion towards them. “Landlords complain about rent, but do not listen to our grievances about the flat.” Because they are refugees, even the police and administration do not register their complaints. There is hardly any help from the administration. Thus, Chin people like Chung Dawi have made organizations to make their voices heard.
“We miss our home. In Myanmar, we had built everything. For my father, he will never recover from the horrific memories of the past. But we have grown up here and still face cultural and financial problems, which makes me unhappy,” said Esther. Mawi Daw currently works in a charger company and is barely surviving with his family.
Looking at the situation in which the Chins are living, where they are not getting good healthcare and other basic domestic facilities, it is fair to say that the Indian people and the government have failed to protect the refugee community.