According to Ashish Bose – a Population Research scholar, Sikhs and Hindus were well integrated in Afghanistan till the Soviet invasion when their economic condition worsened. Thereafter, they became a subject of "intense hate" with the rise of religious fundamentalism in Afghanistan. Their "targeted persecution" triggered an exodus and forced them to seek asylum. Many of them started arriving in and after 1992 as refugees in India, with some seeking asylum in the United Kingdom and other western countries. Unlike the arrivals in the West, the persecuted Sikh refugees who arrived in India have remained stateless and lived as refugees because India has historically lacked any refugee law or uniform policy for persecuted refugees, state Ashish Bose and Hafizullah Emadi.