The Rohingya are a large Muslim ethnic minority in Myanmar now at the center of a humanitarian catastrophe. Myanmar’s Rohingya have been described by the UN as ‘the most friendless people in the world .’They are the world’s most persecuted minority. The Rohingya crisis in Myanmar is now widely described as ethnic cleansing. The brutality of the Myanmar army reminds us of the mass killing in the 1992-95 Bosnian Croatian war for which the UN war crimes tribunal in the Hague has recently awarded life sentence to the commander -in chief of the Bosnian Croat Defence Forces(HVO). Another commander named Slobodan Praljak took poison on hearing that his sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment was upheld by the judge.
The French President Emmanuel Macron said the attacks on Rohingyas amounts to genocide. But the Myanmar government won’t even allow Pope Francis to use the word ‘Rohingya’ let alone admit they are being persecuted. The term Rohingya is the corrupt form of the old name of Mrohaung ,the capital of Arakan. Later on the inhabitants who lived in Mrohaung are treated as Rohingyas.The history of the Rohingyas reveals that they are the direct progeny of the early Muslims as an ethnic race. They are the descendants of the Muslim Arabs ,Moors, Persians, Turks, Mughals and Bengalis who came mostly as traders, warriors and saints through overland and sea route. Many settled in Arakan and mixing with the local people developed the present stock of people known as ‘Rohingyas’. They developed from different stocks of people , not only Bengali who concentrated in a geographical location. They have more than 1200 years of old tradition, culture, history, and civilization of their own expressed in their shrines, cemeteries, sanctuaries, social and cultural institutions found scattered all over in every nook and corner of the land. Moshe Yegar notes that ”the Rohingyas preserved their own heritage from the impact of the Buddhist environment, not only as far as their religion is concerned but also in their culture.”
Language is the main foundation of culture and the Rohingyas have developed a language of their own from Arabic, Sanskrit, Bengali, Urdu, Persian which serves as common source of contact within the Rohingya community. They have also songs and music , literature of their own. The census of 1921 carried out by the British Government mentions the Rohingyas as really Arakanese. Rohingyas claim that in terms of their culture, they are neither Indian nor Burmese. A British army officer who served in the Arakan front during the WWII remarked about the ethnic character of the Arakanese Muslims as follows : ” to look at, they are unlike any other product of India and Burma that I have seen.They resemble the Arab in name , in dress, and habit.The women and more particularly the young girls, have a distinctive Arab touch about them.”
So the ethnic origin of the the Rohingyas is traced back as the later part of the 7th century A.D. when the first Muslim settlement was established in Arakan State now renamed as Rakhine by the military rulers in 1989.The official view as projected in the East Pakistan District Gazetteer : ”Muslim merchants from Arabia,Iraq,Persia,and other regions of central Asia had started coming to Chittagong from the 5th century , and some of them had settled there for commercial purpose. Along with them Muslim preachers and saints who penetrated deep into the country and proceeded down the coast to Arakan, which also had a Muslim settlement.” In 1948 Rakhine ( Arakan) became a Division within the Union of Burma.Shortly after violence broke out along religious lines between Buddhists and Muslims.In 1974 the Ne Win Government’s new constitution granted Arakan Division State status.
Pope Francis who had been dissuaded from using the term ‘Rohingya’ during his visit to Myanmar told an interfaith group in Dhaka :’The presence of God today is also called Rohingya.’ Some 620,000 Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar since August . ” In the name of all those who have persecuted you, hurt you, I ask forgiveness. I appeal to your large hearts to give us the forgiveness that we are asking,” Pope told the Rohingya refugees.
(Writer is a former MP and Former Director General of Bangladesh Management Development Centre.)
