Between Securitisation and Humanitarian Narrative: Rohingya Refugees in Indian Media Discourse

This article examines how four Indian English-language news platforms represented Rohingya refugees between 2012 and 2021. It analyses 129 written online news items through qualitative content analysis and descriptive counts. The findings show that humanitarian victim framing predominates: 84 items, or 65.12 per cent, portray Rohingyas as persecuted, stateless and displaced. By contrast, 45 items, or 34.88 per cent, use a threat/intruder frame centred on illegality, border control, criminality, demographic anxiety and national security. The article argues that Indian media coverage is not dominated by securitised narratives. It is, however, marked by a contested field where humanitarian representation coexists with threat framing.