The Rohingyas: the forgotten Refugees |
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What
'Bangladeshis' are to India, the Rohingyas are to Bangladesh. Muslim
immigrants and refuge seekers who are unwanted, and actively discriminated against. The
Rohingyas are Burmese Musilms, from the Arakan province bordering Bangladesh
and India. From the eight century onwards, Muslims and Buddhists had
coexisted peacefully in Arakan and in the rest of Burma. Britain colonized
Burma in 1886, and the importation
of the colonial divide and rule policies led to the anti-Muslim riots in
1938 which resulted in the massacre of nearly 30,000 Muslims and the burning
of over a hundred mosques. In Arakan,
many Muslims were forced out of Burma to Bengal after the slaughter of
over 100,000 Muslims. After independence in 1948, hostile actions by U Nu's
government led to the deaths of 80,000 more Muslims. In
1961, U Nu declared Buddhism as the state religion forcing Buddhist teaching
and culture on everyone, including the Mulims. In 1978, General Ne Win's
government launched an anti-Rohingya military campaign to check 'illegal
immigration'. By June 1978, more than 200,000 Rohingyas had sought refuge
across the border in southern Bangladesh. In 1982, Ne Win redefined
citizenship so that the Rohingya, Muslims who had inhabited northern Burma as
early as 788, were now legally considered illegal aliens. The Rohingyas were
now people without a country. The
conditions imposed on the Rohingyas were draconian. The law passed by Ne Win
permitted arbitrary confiscation of Rohingya land without compensation. These
lands have been increasingly taken over by military garrisons and Buddhist
settlers from South Burma. There were severe restrictions on Rohingyas
travelling, or even leaving their villages. They were also subject to forced
labour, illegal taxation, arbitrary arrest, denial of employment
opportunities, shrinking food rations for children – the Burmese junta
ensured that there was no future for the Rohingya in Burma. As if things weren't bad enough, the
SLORC, the State Law and Order Restoration Council, the military junta that
consolidated power after the democratic upheavals of the early nineties, led
military actions against the Rohingyas, coupled with
rioting and looting by the local populace. About 250,000 Rohingyas fled to
Bangladesh. Where
prospects haven't been much better. The Rohingyas were placed mostly in
refugee camps, where conditions weren't far better than back in Burma.
Despite being a Muslim country, Bangladeshi authorities, didn't want the
Rohingyas and made that amply clear. Reductions in rations, worsening medical
care, denial of educational opportunities, beatings and imprisonment – all of
these served as incentives for 'voluntary' repatriation, overseen by the
UNHCR in 1994 and 95. Today,
only about twenty thousand Rohingya refugees are sheltering in two camps,
Kutupalong and Nayapara, located between Cox's Bazar and Teknaf in southern
Bangladesh. The 21,500 refugees in the Nayapara and Kutupalong camps under
UNHCR protection are the visible side of the crisis. Since 1996, thousands of
Rohingyas, both repatriated refugees as well as new arrivals, have continued
to trickle back from Burma into Bangladesh. They have been denied access to
the refugee camps, and have joined the more than 100,000 undocumented
Rohingya living outside the camps, often surviving in extreme poverty in
villages or slums around Cox's Bazar and Teknaf. Local sources estimate that,
in 2002, more than 10,000 Rohingya crossed the border illegally to seek sanctuary
in Bangladesh. They have became invisible refugees, being labelled as
'economic migrants' by the Bangladesh authorities. There
are around 100,000 of these 'economic migrants' living outside the camps in
south Bangladesh, eking out a miserable and precarious living. They have no
country to call their own, and no legal standing whatsoever. They are
vulnerable to everybody who wishes to exploit them. With Bangladeshi
government and society giving the refugees a less than grudging welcome, the
only organisations they have to turn to are the various splinter factions of
the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation. Many
of these splinter groups have connections to various Islamic groups with
extremist ideologies, and established links to political violence and
terrorism - including Pakistan's Jamaat-e-Islami and the Bangladeshi Harkat
ul Jihad Islami (HuJI). And for many Rohingyas denied access to education,
the fundamentalist foreign financed madarsas might be the only option they
have. With the sort of treatment meted out to Rohingya refuges by the
Bangladeshi government, the conditions are tailor made for Islamist groups to
recruit disaffected Rohingya youth for terrorist actions under the label of the
jihad. After all, denied the
protection that comes with recognised refugee status, and denied admission into Bangladeshi civil
society with its plural, tolerant Islamic traditions; the Rohingyas have no
stakes to defend, and nothing to lose. India
should sit up and take notice. Not just because the Rohingyas pose a future
insurgent threat, but because of the startling parallels between the
situation of the Rohingyas in Bangladesh and the situation of the
Bangladeshis in India. Last week, resentment against Bangladeshi immigrants
boiled over in a campaign of leaflets
and SMSes
by anonymous groups in Assam. The
unidentified groups in the troubled state's Dibrugarh district have
circulated leaflets and sent text messages on mobile phones in the past week,
warning Bangladeshi nationals to leave immediately or face unspecified
action. Mobile phones in Assam are being flooded with text messages saying, "Save
the nation, save identity. Let's take an oath ... no food, no job, no shelter
to Bangladeshis" while leaflets seeking an "economic blockade"
of the migrants are also being distributed. This
is not the first such campaign against Bangladeshi migrants. In the early
1980s, the powerful All Assam Students Union launched a bloody campaign to
push Bangladeshis back to their homeland. Thousands of Bangladeshis,
including women and children, were massacred across the state by Assamese
mobs, who feared they would be
reduced to a minority in their own land. The government and the students
union signed a pact in 1985, but clauses on the deportation of foreigners have
still not been implemented. For in Assam, concerns about Bangladeshis are
easily conflated with communal violence against local Muslims as well , many
of whom also get labeled as 'Bangladeshi'. Since
the latest campaign against Bangladeshis began, rickshaw pullers in Assam
have gone off the road, maids have stopped coming to work and there is a
shortage of eggs and chickens as most vendors were Bangladeshi. Brick kilns
have been closed due to shortage of labour. Which only proves that most
Bangladeshis are here to work and to make money. They are not the 'security
concerns' that they are made out to be in government and public discourse.
But if the persecution and the attacks, psychological and physical, continue
– then like the Rohingyas in Bangladesh,
the Bangladeshis in India will be ticking time bombs to an explosive
future. India
perhaps needs to learn from its own tolerant and inclusive past. After all,
what have we lost by giving refuge to the Tibetan community? We gained
international recognition for humanitariaism, and have gained a unique
community which certainly adds to India's tourism appeal. There's a lesson in that. Tourists come to
places where conditions are hospitable and welcoming. So do refugees.
Governments cannot be selective about welcoming 'tourists' while keeping
refugees out. Unless governments create conditions and rules which allow for easier
migration, the unrest is likely to keep tourists away as well. We cannot be
selective about 'Atithi devo Bhava'. After all, despite its beautiful beaches
and mangrove swams, who goes to Bangladesh but aid workers? And more
poignantly for us, who goes to India's North East,
despite all the beauty of the place?
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