4 April 2022, NIICE Commentary 7743
Nikhil Guvvadi
The Rohingyas are the world’s most persecuted community, whose persecution triggered the largest mass migration of South Asia since the partition of India of the same nature with an added ethnic tint to it. Some of the Rohingyas are descendants of migrant workers from the Chittagong area of the erstwhile Bengal brought by the British to Burma but many consider themselves native to the region with a few of them dating back their ancestry there to the 8th century AD with influences from the Arabians, Mughals and the Portuguese and the etymology of their community’s name also suggests the same. Anyway, even now many of the Bamars address them as ‘Kalar’ which means Indian. So much so that it is not only a stereotype but instilled in the state structure as according to their citizenship law, as defined by the 1947 constitution citizens are persons who belong to an “indigenous race”. Myanmarese society feels little to no affiliation with Myanmar as a nation but only as a state. They still largely think on ethnic lines like their neighboring states to the east.
Myanmar has a legitimized hierarchical color – coded card – based citizenship system with pink, blue and green cards being issued for full, associate and naturalized citizenry respectively, which on the paper may seem fair enough, but it is practiced in a way that their societal hierarchy reflects in the system and citizenry of the state. Where the majority, Bamars dominate both the government and the military while other groups are made to be subservient to them through the state system. Other ethnic groups still have a better shot at life but not the green card holders which most Rohingyas are who cannot contest elections or hold any office of the government or even move freely with the country or their state without approval.
The Rohingyas who not only pray but also look different are not considered by Burmese law as one of the 135 legally recognized ethnic groups of Myanmar. Thus, denying most of them Myanmar citizenship. The Myanmarese Government claims that the Rohingya who speak a dialect of Bengali are the “citizens of Bangladesh”, but the Government of Bangladesh does not recognize this claim which leaves the Rohingya stateless.
The current crisis has its origins in Myanmar’s transformation into an infant democracy in 2011 when the military junta is not just a defense force but also a political force in the country who work for their own interests. The junta had to keep intact their political clout who took to encouraging ultra – Buddhist nationalism and cracking down heavily on ethnic minorities. Following which came the massacres, since then more than 700,000 Rohingyas have fled their homes into south-eastern Bangladesh, the number of whom has grown to 900,000 and more, joining the 300,000 who fled in the last 30 years.
There are still quite a few insurgencies going on in the north of the country bordering China. The religious imaging of the conflict that the Muslim world is trying to give it or the extremist organizations that are trying to bring Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) into their fold don’t really understand how societies function in Southeast Asia or the politics of insurgency in Myanmar that reflect in the very formation of ARSA just like any other insurgent group to the north such as the Kachin’s or the Karen’s that are fighting for their rights through violent means.
The military coup on 1 February 2021 led to another refugee crisis of the Bamars themselves now, who wanted democracy and started fighting for it. The country’s political atmosphere has now reached that of an outright civil war. There is now a general solidarity between the majority Bamars towards the Rohingya which was absent before. The National Unity Government (NUG) which was formed in exile after the coup with few members of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) who want the Rohingya to be on their side have said that they “would scrap a 1982 citizenship law that denies Rohingya citizenship, and which has effectively rendered them as one of the largest stateless populations in the world. Citizenship would instead be based on birth in Myanmar, or birth anywhere to a Myanmar citizen.… The NUG, which was set up after the military coup, also said it was committed to the safe repatriation of Rohingya who have been forced to flee military violence and promised to ‘actively seek justice and accountability for all crimes committed by the military against the Rohingya’.” Even the junta have now made promises of safe repatriation as there has developed a strong opposition against them in the country with most of the public opinion being against them. A post – colonial state like Myanmar which is one of the most diverse countries the world is in a deep political turmoil now and how the struggle for democracy and equality is going to turn out is something that only time can tell.
Nikhil Guvvadi is a Research Intern at NIICE.
