Module E deals with Internal displacement – causes, linkages, and responses. When 1951 convention for protection of refugees was framed no one had imagined that within few decades the number of Internally Displaced Persons[1] (IDPs) would surpass that of refugees. Today on an estimate there are 25 million[2] IDPS spread all over Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. These people have been forcibly uprooted from their homes by civil wars, ethnic conflicts, natural and man-made disasters. The most important concern of the world civil society is the fact that these IDPs are trapped within their own country boundaries in conflict zones under situations of gross human rights violation. Within them women, children and older people have to suffer most because of increased vulnerabilities in situations like this. In these situations they not only suffer from forced displacement from their place of natural habitat but also economic, political, societal, and emotional displacement. It becomes extremely difficult for women to perform even mundane daily chores in circumstances like these. Expecting mothers have to suffer extreme hardship due to negligence, lack of food, health and sanitation measures. The problems of women further gets multiplied due to gendered nature of the protection laws which prioritises male members as claimants for compensation and other benefits.

The displacement also means loss of pride, prestige, self-respect, privacy and values which can’t be quantified as the material loss of houses, and property. The condition of IDPs is no better than that of refugees except for the fact that they have not lost their national identity and rights due to them as citizens of that state. Since the internally displaced remain within the borders of their own country and thus are forced due to seek shelter, they pose a challenge to the humanitarian nature and the human rights concerns of the international law. Displacement of people from their houses, dwellings and surroundings affect a broad range of rights like the right to life, equality, freedom of speech, expression, information, residence, movement, trade, occupation, right to religion, culture, language and property. But it is the extraordinary situation in conflict zones that makes it difficult for IDPs to enjoy rights prescribed by the states.

As mentioned in beginning IDPs are product of specific circumstances in the respective countries but who is responsible for providing relief to them ? Who is responsible for their ‘empowerment’ and ‘Sustainable’ Resettlement and Rehabilitation ? Who is responsible for restoring the faith, pride, prestige, sense of loss, mental agony, physical torture, harassment which they have to go through in these conditions ? Not that everything can be compensated but still it is important because any relief measure has to be more than the immediate. That is why the relief measures have to be targeted towards ensuring permanent peace, settlement and constructive transformation of the conflicts which leads to generation of IDPs. This would ensure not just survival but dignity, participation and sustainability of just norms. How can one do this ? who is responsible for this ?

The guiding principles on Internal Displacement, prepared by UN Secretary General’s special representative on Internal Displacement, assigns primary responsibility of providing relief and protection to concerned national authorities.[3] However primarily because of the nature of the problems and circumstances which create IDPs, and the conflicting sovereignties of nation states provisions has also been made for action by international communities, organisations, and relief agencies in the Guiding Principles under article 25.2. It states, ‘International humanitarian organisations and other appropriate actors have the right to offer their services in support of the internally displaced. Such an offer shall not be regarded as an unfriendly act or interference in a State’s internal affairs and shall be considered in good faith’. These Principles developed by Farncis M Deng provide comprehensive guidelines on the issues of protection from displacement; protection during displacement; providing humanitarian assistance; return, resettlement, and reintegration of IDPs. However, the greater challenge before the international communities and nation state is to deal with the roots of factors which generate IDPs. On the surface of it the causes could be the ethnic conflict, civil wars, natural or man made disasters but deep inside the problem lies in the process of nation-state formations, cultural differences, notions of development, and the growing hegemonic influence of capitalist system of production furthering inequality, authoritarianism, majoritarianism, and growth of a class at the centre at the cost of majority at margins.

The solution to the problems of IDPs has further been affected by recent developments. Firstly, there has been a spurt in the power and influence of global corporations together with the democracies all over the world, especially in Africa and Latin America. However, the very corporations has acted strongly to undermine the influence and growth of upcoming democracies and promoted the cause of authoritarianism and majoritarianism to garner profit for themselves at the cost of people who have lost control of their natural resources and democratic rights to these corporations. The control over the scarce resources directly or indirectly has been at the root of most of the conflicts around the world which produces a big chunk of IDPs. The global civil society is slowly beginning to realise the complex nexus of the global capital, their imperialistic designs and the ruling sections of the Third World which survives at the cost of exploitation of natural resources, forced displacement and the conflicts among various groups. The anti-globalisation protests are a beginning at the world scale but much is happening at the grass root level among social movements and civil organisations by empowering the people.

This module is an attempt at precisely addressing these issues and providing an opportunity to discuss the problems of IDPs, the rights available to them, and the response by various national, international organisations engaged in relief and rehabilitation measures. The module also attempts to discuss the larger politics behind the generation of IDPs through specific case studies from North East India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and in general at world level. Some of the articles also discuss the specific problems of women and children during displacement and their increased vulnerabilities. The module should be seen more as an initiation in to the complex world of IDPs and the reasons behind their conditions because they are rooted deep in to the political, economic, and social structure of the nation states at the local, national, to global level.