The Refugees’ Imperial Past

Set in the early twentieth century, this chapter focuses on the position of Indians within the transnational British Empire in the age of the nation-state based order of the League of Nations. It discusses the inequalities of Indian subject-citizenship within that empire, even as the British influenced key decisions of the League of Nations. The questions of self-determination, of minority rights, and of refugees are revealed to be inextricably intertwined, particularly in discussing the situation of India both within the empire and in its anomalous position at the League of Nations under British aegis. It thus exposes the tensions over the lack of Indian people’s equal rights under British rule, even as rights, assistance, and bureaucratic recognition that exceeded that of these citizens of the British Empire were extended to those called ‘refugees’, paving the way for the postcolonial nation-state’s policies.