But after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu Nationalist party (BJP) won a won a share of power in India's only Muslim-majority state, the refugees have reason to be hopeful.
As healer Mangu Ram rests with a threadbare blanket over his creaking knees, the 82-year-old looks to the future.
It is almost 70 years since he fled the violence that followed the partition of India, and he is still regarded as a second class citizen in Indian Kashmir – unable to own property or vote in state elections.
But now Ram and thousands like him are daring to hope they will finally be able to shed the refugee status that has plagued them for decades, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist party won a share of power in India's only Muslim-majority state.
‘If something can be done, then maybe I will finally have some enjoyment in this life,’ the traditional healer said from his slum home on the outskirts of Jammu, Kashmir's winter capital.
‘If only the gods could show us some mercy.’
Ram, a Hindu, was born in an area of Punjab province, part of modern-day Pakistan but within India’s boundaries before the country became independent in 1947.
Hundreds of thousands of families fled across both sides of the border during the conflict which led to the partition of the sub-continent. Around one million people were killed in the bloody war between the two countries.
Most of those refugees were quickly absorbed in towns and cities of the newly-independent nations.
However the fate of the West Pakistan Refugees (WPRs) like Ram who decamped to Jammu and Kashmir state became mired in the dispute with Pakistan over the territory.
Because of this, its rulers held off granting the refugees residential rights, including the right to buy land, vote in state polls or work in the state government.
Observers say the reluctance of successive state governments to grant full rights to the overwhelmingly Hindu WPRs stems from fears of upsetting the demographic balance in India's only Muslim-majority state, which has special autonomy enshrined in the constitution.
The WPRs, whose families mainly originate from Punjab, have fallen foul of a pre-independence law that only grants citizenship to people born - or descendants of those born - in the old undivided kingdom of Kashmir.
The same legislation has allowed around 35,000 Hindus who have fled Pakistan-controlled Kashmir since partition to be granted citizenship.
There are around 100,000 people classified as WPRs, most living in the Jammu region. Hardly any of them have ever set foot in Pakistan.
And despite prevailing unrest from different factions, who either fight for independence or to merge once again with Pakistan, Kashmir is one of India's more prosperous states.
Yet the estimated 18,000 WPR families however live in abject poverty, mostly marrying among themselves because of their low economic status.
'I spend whatever money I earn to send my children to school," said Ramesh Kumar, a part-time driver who lives with his wife, two children and mother in a two-room hovel.
He says he thinks the law is ‘ridiculous’, adding: ‘I was born here (in India). My roots are here. What else do I and my children need to be citizens of this place?’
As things stand, Kumar's children cannot be admitted to state-run training colleges or be employed in the state government, although they can work for the federal one.
But the tide may soon turn on the rights given to refugees, after a pledge by the newly-elected Bharatiya Janata Party to normalise the WPRs' status.
Although the BJP came second in the December hustings, they have joined a Kashmir governing coalition for the first time and are expected to champion the WPRs' cause.
'We have been living here like this for three generations now,' said veteran activist Labha Ram Gandhi. 'Granting us state-subject rights is the only way to improve our condition.'
But he warned the community is ready to take matters into their own hands if their hopes are dashed again.
‘We will spill our blood on the streets for our rights,’ he says.
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