Glossary 

Who is Hannah Arendt?

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Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) was one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth

century. Born into a German-Jewish family, she was forced to leave Germany in 1933 and lived in

Paris for the next eight years, working for a number of Jewish refugee organisations. In 1941 she

immigrated to the United States and soon became part of a lively intellectual circle in New York. She

held a number of academic positions at various American universities until her death in 1975. She is

best known for two works that had a major impact both within and outside the academic

community. The first, The Origins of Totalitarianism, published in 1951, was a study of the Nazi and

Stalinist regimes that generated a wide-ranging debate on the nature and historical antecedents of

the totalitarian phenomenon. Source

Who are the Chakma refugees?

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The Chakmas are ethnic people who lived in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, most of which are

located in Bangladesh. Chakmas are predominantly Buddhists, they are found in northeast

India, West Bengal, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.The Chakmas living in India are Indian citizens,

some of them, mostly from Mizoram, live in relief camps in southern Tripura due to tribal

conflict with Mizos. Source

What is the 1951 Convention?

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The 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, as complemented by its 1967 Protocol, has

justly been termed the “Magna Carta” of refugees. The Convention and Protocol are, indeed, the

culmination of an uninterrupted effort by the international community, started under the League of

Nations in 1921, to ensure the international recognition of some basic rights and of certain minimum

standards of treatment for persons forced to flee their country in order to escape persecution on

account of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social

group. The fundamental importance of the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol was stressed by the

World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna in 1993, and has been repeatedly affirmed by the

General Assembly of the United Nations, which has hailed the Convention and Protocol as “the

cornerstone of the international system for the protection of refugees”.The Executive Committee of

UNHCR has also emphasised the primacy of these instruments, and confirmed that they form the

international legal basis for the protection of refugees. Source