National Populism and Refugee Crisis: The Case of Rohingya Refugees in India

In contemporary global politics, the interconnection between national populism and the refugee crisis lays bare one of the significant challenges to the liberal democratic constitutional order in many societies. Due to various reasons, globally, there is an increase in the number of refugees. Depending upon the conditions and the nature of governments, many refugees often end up in the middle of intense political propaganda. The presence of refugees or the potential ‘threat’ posed by them could be capitalized on by governments and populist parties to strengthen their political constituencies further. This phenomenon is increasingly evident in many European countries where the refugee crisis is a major flashpoint, leading to the emergence of national populist parties across Europe. By taking a cue from the theoretical interconnections between national populism and the refugee crisis in general, this entry attempts to understand the political response of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India to the Rohingya refugee crisis. This entry argues that national populist parties such as BJP, which claims to represent the majority identity, automatically harbor us vs the ‘other’ binary. This binary produces alienation and, at times, structural violence against the ‘other’. It examines the BJP’s political approach to the Rohingya refugees, thereby introducing how national populist parties capitalize on the refugee crisis to consolidate the majority constituency.