Populism and foreign policy: India's refugee policy towards the Rohingya.

The article examines how India's refugee policy toward Rohingya refugees has evolved under successive Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) governments and how these shifts are implicated in the (re)production of the BJP's populist project. Using a contextual intersectional framework grounded in Ernesto Laclau's conceptualization of populism as a political logic and informed by Shweta Singh and Élise Féron's work, the analysis focuses on three dimensions of refugee policy—legal framework, admission and status, and protection and security. It highlights how the BJP-led government discursively constructs Rohingya refugees as a dangerous foreign "other" through intersecting identity assemblages of ethnicity/religion (Rohingya Muslims), gender (Rohingya men), and class (resource-dependent), justifying deportations despite India's prior adherence to non-refoulement. The study situates these policy changes within broader intra-regional dynamics involving India's geopolitical and security interests, contributing an innovative framework for understanding the interplay between populism, foreign policy, and refugee governance.