Another happening in the world around
us that really bothered me and intrigued me was the problem of the fleeing Rohingyas
refugees. They are not just fleeing, but it is a mass exodus, them fleeing in
thousands and tens of thousands.
In 2015 there was a major episode and
the Rohingyas fled from Myanmar, a mass migration, when they fled to the South
East Asian countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand by boats, giving
them the nick name ‘the boat people.’ Around 25,000 of them fled and some 300
of them lost their lives in the waters, while crossing the Straits of Malacca
and Andaman Sea.
Now again in October-December 2017,
another mass exodus took place, almost 500,000 people left their homes to take
shelter in the border town of Bangladesh, Cox Bazar on rickety boats and on foot.
Why is this happening? Why are they
fleeing thus? Who is persecuting them and why? Such questions troubled me and I
wanted to study the background of the whole matter. What I found was
amazing.
Rohingyas are a Muslim minority group
living in the Buddhist majority state of Rakhine, formerly known as Arakan, in
the North West Province of Myanmar, the former Burma. Since beginning Myanmar
refused to acknowledge this ethnic group as their own. They were considered
‘stateless entities,’ people who had come as refugees from Bangladesh.
The Rohingyas had lived in Arakan
area for almost 200 years, ever since British rule was established in Burma
(now Myanmar). The British colonized Burma for almost hundred years, from 1824
to 1948. During that time, laborers from India were encouraged to migrate to
Burma by the British to cultivate rice. Such migration happened just as any
migration would occur depending on the availability of labor and livelihood.
The British ruled Burma as a province of India. Such a migration was considered
normal, rather encouraged.
British had promised a separate land to
the Rohingyas, a Muslim National Area in exchange of their support for the
World War II. While Rohingyas supported the British, the nationalists Burmese
supported the Japanese, considered intruders by the British. After the war the
Rohingyas were rewarded by the British with prestigious government posts, but
were denied a free state. As elsewhere colonial politics played here too and
even after hundreds of years a population is suffering due to that.
However once Burma gained its
independence from the British rule in 1948, close on heels of Indian
independence, the Rohingyas demanded an autonomous province that was promised
to them. But Myanmar, now independent, refused to acknowledge these people as their
own and declared their migration to their land during British era as illegal.
They were denied citizenship. By 1950s the army crushed all opposition from
Rohingyas.
The Act of citizenship of Myanmar of
1948, and thereafter 1982, did not include Rohingyas as one of the 135 ethnic
groups of the country that was listed. Ever since they had suffered
discrimination, oppression, persecution and forceful eviction. After the
military coup in 1962, troubles started. 1970s saw the first military crackdown
on them, forcing them to flee.
The basic requirement of citizenship
in Myanmar was that the concerned person should have the required proof that a
family of theirs had been living in Myanmar prior to 1948. No such record was
forthcoming for Rohingyas, because they were considered as migratory laborers
and were never issued with any such citizenship.
When registration for citizenship was
taken up in 1977, the army which was in power by that time, refused to enlist Rohingyas
and they were declared as illegal immigrants. They were given identity cards as
foreigners. Thus they were deprived of basic rights. They cannot vote, they had
no free access to study, work or travel, marry, practice their religion, or to
health services. They cannot own
property; restrictions were placed on them entering certain professions like
medicine or law or run for office.
In 2012 fresh violence against
Rohingyas started. The trigger was the alleged gang rape and killing of a
Burmese woman by some Rohingyas and killing of 10 Burmese women by some
Rakhines. Since then riots, burning of the villages of Rohingyas and blood shed
have been the norm. The majority Rakhines also persecuted them. It was nothing
but a virtual ethnic cleansing. Since 2012 Bangladesh had received some 200,000
Rohingyas as refugees who are living in Cox Bazar.
The recent violence against Rohingyas
started in October 2017, when a few of Rohingya militants under the name Arakan
Rohingya Salvation Army attacked some of the army stations, a very stupid idea.
They are a Muslim militant group and the army suspects that they are trained by
ISI of Pakistan and aided with money from Saudi Arabia.
In the military backlash that followed
the poor and innocent Rohingyas paid the price. Their houses were torched, youth
killed and they were forced to flee the country. 5,00,000 refugees landed in Cox Bazar due to this
2017. They are living in squalor and unhygienic
conditions despite the United Nation’s humane services to these poor and
displaced people.
Aug San Suu Kyi of Myanmar, it’s elected
leader of National League for Democracy, and the winner of Nobel Peace Prize in
1991, and the present State Counsellor, which is a post akin to that of a Prime
Minister of the nation, has maintained a stoic silence in the matter of military
oppression of Rohingyas, despite international criticism.
The fear of the Myanmar government seems
to be that this Muslim minority, a foreign body with a separatist agenda, might
swell in the future and overcome the Buddhist majority population, and the country
could become a Muslim spot on the world map, brewing up terrorist activities.
May be the way today’s Britain or the
West might fear that the Muslim population will overtake them in biological numbers.
Or as Qaddafi, while he was alive, said to have assured his fellow religious men,
not to resort to terrorism to win the West, but they can do so by sheer numbers
very soon.
Or even as some in authority in India
worried that Tamil Nadu might want to separate from Indian Union, if joined together
with the Tamils in the north east Sri Lanka. I am sure they heaved a sigh of relief
when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam of Sri Lanka lost and their leader Prabhakaran
was killed in action.
Be that as it may, these are no justifications
for a government to uproot and destroy an ethnic minority, especially the poor and
the vulnerable who are caught in between. Any person born in a country has a claim
to be counted as the citizen of that country, especially if parents were also born
and lived in the country. To say that one has no citizenship even after generations
of the family having lived in a country, is utter injustice. And this is what is
happening to the Rohingyas in Myanmar.
International agencies and institutions
will have to bring pressure on the government of Myanmar to be more humane and resolve
this crisis in which the poor and the marginalized are bearing the brunt against
an organized crime against humanity. A people cannot be treated as cattle, and neither
could citizenship be denied to those who have lived in a country for generations.
