In the year 2012, two NGOs, Swajan and Bimalangshu Roy Foundation, filed a petition which pleaded that Hindus and persons of other minorities from Bangladesh migrating to India to escape religious persecution must not be bracketed with illegal migrants and sent back.
BJP government is formalizing a policy to this effect to grant citizenship status to them. It has broader ideological position, as mentioned in the BJP election manifesto, that India should be the natural home for persecuted Hindus who could seek refuge here. This has overtones of exclusionary doctrines like the Law of Return in Israel that gives Jews the right to live and seek citizenship there.
But the problem here is that it may complicate the relations with Bangladesh. It may show that country in bad light with regard to protection of its minorities.
In this context, it is better if India has a National policy on Refugees or if it signs the 1951 refugee convention. Here, signatories are obliged not to send refugees back to where they have a well-founded fear of persecution.
