Power and Responsibility at the Margins: The Case of India in the Global Refugee Regime

Abstract

Based on a study of the Indian experience of refugee protection, the article poses the issue of responsibility as a critical counterpoint to the question of power. Power may produce influence and power may be an element of influence. But how do we relate power to responsibility? Given the dominant discourse of “responsibility to protect” as part of the global governance regime, the article asks if there is a different way to conceptualize responsibility in the post-colonial context. Here the article seeks to make a second intervention. Responsibility takes us to the perspective of the margins.