The Sixth Annual Winter Course on Forced Migration

1.	A Unique Programme

The need for a peace and human rights education programme has gained urgency post 9/11, when the surveillance mechanisms on refugees and other categories of forced migrants and the accompanying “securitisation” of borders have become more stringent. Any act of violation of borders is met with legal and instrumental interventions of control, which end up in restricting mobility of populations on the move. In the name of the security, mechanisms are created to govern “refugee” flows, control “migrant labour” and reproduce existing hierarchies that are already steeped in hatred, intolerance, majoritarianism and war hysteria. The incidents of atrocities against minorities and attacks on migrant populations worldwide are evidences of the same xenophobia that has engulfed the subcontinent also in the recent times. The result is an increasing curb on asylum seekers, other immigrants, and internally displaced persons.

We have to add to this scenario the growing nationalist development discourse, supported by the liberal market policies and globalisation, which again results in large scale neglect of the rights of the displaced who are first victims of various state and privately promoted development policies. Of the “public consensus” is achieved through nationalist, majority centric and consumerist education, steeped in notions of “us” and “them”. There is an increasing defiance of the human rights protection mechanisms both by the state and non-state actors and decline of the public space to voice concerns regarding basic human rights issues. With “securitisation” of borders being the overarching discourse of the states in South Asia at least for the time being, human rights activists and thinkers will have to continue to struggle to secure the lives and livelihoods of the survivors of displacement due to violence, developmental projects, or of climate change, or of natural disasters such as the Tsunami. We have to also remember the alarming prediction, namely, that climate change will induce more population flows in the future decades to come than let us say conflicts, and which indeed will induce conflicts more. Everywhere immigrants are looked as suspected terrorists, there is a tightening of security laws, enactment of more draconian measures, and cultural patronage of intolerant, theocratic, nationalist activities suitably marking the general cultural agenda. The result is a general weakening of democratic, critical, and inter-cultural education, as if the motto of the time is to programme every youth as a recruit for the nationalist army, a zealot for the community’s culture, an admirer of masculine values, and an avid supporter of global domination over local politics and culture.

Ranabir Samaddar , Director, Calcutta Research Group addressing the course participants

In this perspective the annual orientation programme on forced migration in the form of a winter course assumes even greater significance. Developed through the last few years as a programme on human rights and peace education, the annual winter course on forced migration organised each year by the Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group (CRG) has come to be recognised in the region of South Asia as one of the most well known educational programmes on issues of rights and justice relating to the victims of forced migration. In the form of a certificate course, certified by the UNHCR and supported by the Government of Finland and the Brookings Institution, the winter course is aimed at scholars and educationists working on the issues of rights and justice relating to the victims of forced migration, functionaries of humanitarian organisations, national human rights institutions, peace studies scholars and activists, and minority rights groups, refugee communities, and women’s rights activists. Participants come from all over South Asia, with some more joining from Africa, Australia, Europe and the USA. The course attracts a renowned international faculty, and is now recognised by the National Human Rights Commission in India, and several universities along with various grassroots organisations have collaborated over the years to make it a success.

There are several features of the course, which make it a unique programme. Readers of the report will find the details in subsequent pages; however it is important to summarise them and place them at the beginning:

(a) Emphasis on distance education, its innovation, and continuous improvement through interactive methods, including the use of web-based education;

(b) International standard, rigorous nature of the course, customizing methodologies for forced migration research and generating original research inputs, fieldwork, analysis of the protracted IDP situations, and a comprehensive regional nature of the course;

(c) Emphasis on experiences of the victims of forced displacement in the conflict zones; such as India’s Northeast, Jammu & Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh and Chattisgarh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Israel/Palestine;

(d) Special focus on auditing and strategizing media through workshops, film sessions and creative assignments;

(e) Emphasis on gender justice;

(f) Special attention to policy implications;

(g) Follow up programmes such as spreading it to universities, providing inputs to future researchers, innovating local modules, training participants to become trainers of the future programmes;

(h) And, finally building up the programme as a facilitator of a network of several universities, grassroots organisations, Mothers’ Fronts, research foundations, UN institutions etc.

From Left to Right: Paula Banerjee, Samir Kumar Das and Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury at the introductory session of the Sixth Annual Winter Course