NEW DELHI:
Hands clasped behind his back, Nazeer Ahmad stands stiff. He's in a lungi,
kurta and skullcap at the edge of a huddle of men speaking to a reporter in the
shade of a barely-there tin sheet propped up on bamboo stilts. Listless as he
stands on a dusty, barren plot at southeast Delhi's Madanpur Khadar, he doesn't join the
group. Only when the reporter moves away, he steps up.
"The
UN has
wronged us," he says. "The UN has given refugee status to all other
Burmese refugees but for us. It says India doesn't allow it. Why?"
His eyes redden in frustration and shoulders droop as he pulls an 8- or
9-year-old girl to stand in front of him. "Why can't I send her to school?
Are my children different from others?" Ahmad is a Rohingya Muslim, one of
an estimated 4,000 now in India's
cities. The Rohingyas are from Myanmar's
Arakan region, a strip of land the size of Kerala. It has India (Manipur) to its north, Bangladesh to its northwest across the river
Naf, a range of difficult hills cut it off from the rest of Myanmar on the west and the
Bay of Bengal
to its south.
Activists say
Rohingya
Muslims are among the world's most persecuted people. Bias against this
ethnic Muslim group is racial and religious, say Rohingya scholars, and is
rooted in history. Their 'Indian' - read non-Burmese - looks and their religion
have been held against them ever since the 18th century when Buddhists
conquered the Muslim-ruled Arakan. The hill tracts separating them from the
rest of Myanmar
added to their woes. They remained "outsiders". The attempt to
depopulate the area and push Arakanese Muslims out has been a sustained
campaign, says Tun Khin, London-based leader-activist of the UK's Burmese
Rohingya Organization.
Things turned ugly when the military junta came to power in 1972 and in two
years, Rohingya Muslims were stripped of their nationality. Killings,
confiscation of property, destruction of mosques and sexual attacks forced more
than 200,000 out of the country. In 1982, a citizenship law declared the
Rohingyas as "non-national" or "foreign residents". The
Burmese authorities call them "naikanzha" (non-resident without right
to land, law or rights) and the region's Buddhists "thairansa"
(residents), says Ahmad, flashing his non-resident Burmese ID card. Arakan's
people are Buddhist and Muslim, and the region was renamed Rakhine in 1989 when
Burma was renamed Myanmar.
Their madrassas are padlocked, they have to pay heavy fines if they want to
marry, which means most cannot, says 26-year-old Omer Hamza. They can't send
their children to school and they can't stay over in other villages. The last
is the reason most of them make the transit to India
via Bangladesh,
not directly through Manipur. Reaching the Indian border requires them to pass
through villages in Myanmar,
which is disallowed so the risk of being jailed is high.
Chased out, they live in the largest numbers in Bangladesh. About 600,000 live in
camps in Saudi Arabia,
200,000 in Pakistan.
Arakan has about 1.2 million Muslims, says Khin and the 900,000 who remain in
Arakan form Myanmar's
largest minority group.
Ahmad fled with his children, wife and mother. The 50-year-old registered
himself and his family at the UN's human rights office in 2009. They issued him
a letter recording his registration and a UNHCR card was issued to him in 2011.
Ahmad's story repeats itself, with changes in details, in each of the
approximately 50 tents under the banner of Darul Hijrat of Zakat Foundation,
which are now home to about 300 Rohingya Muslims. They were sheltered here by
the charity after they were chased out of their Vasant Kunj camp earlier in
May.
Inside a tent, Rashida carelessly cradles a weeping three-year-old boy. Both
she and the child are running fever; Rashida's eyes are drawn and she sits
tight. The 37-year-old finds it difficult to hold a full bladder all day.
Ever since they were brought here on May 15, the empty plot became 'home', but
since the bathroom is an adjoining empty plot, the women wait till night to
relieve themselves and bathe. "Where to go in these barren fields? It's
all in the open. It's scary," says the mother of two daughters and five
sons, hastily adding that she is not complaining. It's not a matter they can discuss
with the men, so Fatima simply sits tight.
She rushes to say she is grateful to the NGO for giving them ground under their
feet, a cover over their heads, firewood for cooking and rice. The local MLA
has promised to provide a water tanker every day.
Toilet inconveniences and health issues that the women face are, after all, no
issue at all, they say, compared with the grave matter of their place in the
world. Rashida says she simply can't figure out why they aren't granted refugee
status, which would ensure "a taleem" (education) for her children -
five boys and two girls.
But nations are cagey about Rashida and her fellow Rohingyas, uncertain where
to fit them in a terror-wary and energy-hungry world.
Who is their leader? Are they a security risk?
About 620 Rohingya families hit the headlines in Delhi in April when they landed up
unannounced in tony Vasant Vihar's UNHCR office to demand refugee status. They
first camped in Vasant Vihar, were evicted, squatted in Vasant Kunj, were
thrown out, and then many dispersed while 50 families were given shelter by the
charity which took pity on them. "It's a humanitarian effort. We don't
know how long we can keep them. Let's see," says the NGO.
As far as organizing protests go, it was a puny affair, their fight reduced to
being a "nuisance factor" in new-age Delhi, the city that's known to make space
for refugees. Yet, the coming together of a poor people, rudderless and on the
face of it leaderless, raised an alarm. Who is behind them?
The Rohingya leadership is elusive. Some of the more articulate are being
pushed to speak up, following the media coverage of their protest outside the
UNHCR office. A file of their papers includes appeals filed by a group named
Myanmar
Rohingya Refugee Committee, led apparently by Delhi-based Shomshul Alam,
who lives in Khajuri Khas, Jammu-based Abul Hossin and a Mohammed Salim, who is
also from Delhi,
says Hamza.
In their Madanpur Khadar group, Nazeer Ahmad and Zia-ur-Rahman are engaging
with outsiders. A couple of 'leaders' are studying in Deoband too. These are
faceless people. It looks more like a desperate poor community cobbling
together a representation of sorts.
Tun Khin says he doesn't know of any organized group of the Rohingya Muslims in
India.
"The poorer ones with very little provisions are in India."
But many suspect a "hand" behind them. Their synchronized appearance,
apparently out of thin air from across the country, led to a question in the
Rajya Sabha with BJP's
Balbir Punj
objecting to their remaining in the country and demanding a probe to identify
the "organizer". After a monthlong standoff from April between the
Indian government, UNHCR and the protesters, they were given permission to stay
in the country till 2015 pending a series of verifications by sundry agencies.
Alongside, a strident letter to the PM and all-who-matter from VHP leader
Praveen Togadia has demanded the Rohingyas be thrown out as they were a
"security risk". Togadia, whose letter and a series of attachments
are available online refers to a 2005 paper by security analyst B Raman. The
paper says the Bangladesh
wing of HUJI recruited a "number of Rohingya Muslims" and took them
"to Afghanistan
to fight Soviet and Afghan troops" in the 1980s. The VHP's note on Raman's
paper names "24 Bangladeshi/ Rohingya mujahideen" who died during the
Afghanistan
jihad.
Raman also mentions that a Rohingya group is "projecting itself as HUJI
Myanmar".
The Burmese regimes accuse them of being Bangladeshi infiltrators. One of the
main attacks is to red-flag the bogey of Islamization of Myanmar via these
'Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators'. In Bangladesh, where lakhs have taken
shelter, they are called Burmese. "Where do I go?" asks Khin.
In India,
the call to throw out the Rohingyas is also based on reports of a number of
such Muslims joining terror outfits. How much is the security risk from
shelterless people mired in misery? B Raman says, "We don't know their
background. We don't know who they were in contact with. One has to be
cautious." One of the reasons, says Raman, that Aung San Suu Kyi is not
supporting the Rohingyas is because of certain Rohingya groups' actions against
the Burmese army. "While she is talking about some ethnic groupings, she
has stayed quiet on the Rohingya," says Raman, adding that they should
simply be repatriated.
One-way ticket out of Myanmar
They look hunted at the idea of a return to Myanmar. Hamza says the very
thought of repatriation terrifies; refugee is the only status they can aspire
to. "Whatever happens, we can't return. They've taken our houses, our
land."
"We can't return to Myanmar
and we aren't allowed to be refugees. Where do we go?" says a shaking
Ahmad, father of four sons and three daughters. "It will be double
'zulum'. It's not an option," chorus the refugees.
The trip from Arakan to Delhi
took him just a week, says Hamza, now the maulana among the Madanpur Khadar
group. He had a tiny farm in Arakan. Hamza escaped to India in 2009
in 'jamadil awal' or winter. The last straw was when the Burmese army picked
him up in an extortion bid. Hamza's brother, a petty shopkeeper, paid a hefty
sum for his release. "We knew that now that they had got the money, they
would target me again," he says.
The exit plan didn't take long. "The route and arrangements are in place
because people have been leaving for a long time now," says Hamza. From
his Arakan village, it was a kishti (canoe) to Chittagong. He bussed it from Chittagong to Dhaka, which ferried "only
Burmese", then a private vehicle from Dhaka to Kolkata and by train to Delhi. It took a week and
cash changed hands at every checkpost from his village onwards, ranging from Rs
200 to Rs 3,000 at each point. "When a group moves, many get caught and
are dumped in prisons. I was lucky," he says.
Being cautious over security reasons is one thing, hawkish another. The UN's
denying them refugee status and being satisfied with the Indian government's
extension of their stay is a big dampener for them. "We came to India because
it is the land of 'raham-karam' (mercy and fate/ providence)," says Hamza.
The UNHCR card that they flash will "only ensure that the police don't
harass us. But we can't send our children to school," says Fatima. This concern about the children is not a
parrot-like drone; it seems born of watching the very many half-clothed kids
running around in the dirt. "My life is finished, but I must think of the
children's future," says Hamza, aged 26.
Fatima (27), mother of three kids, reached India several years ago, got
married here and has lived in several cities for stretches of six to seven
months, returning to a given town after a gap. Jalalabad, Jammu,
Muzaffarnagar, "some place in Haryana", and now in Delhi, she racks her memory. She says with a
quiet smile: "We have no place to go. 'Jaane ka koi rasta nahin'. (There
are no roads leading anywhere). Wherever we go, we are chased away."
The Rohingyas live across India
from Jammu to Hyderabad, from Uttarkhand's Bagwari to
Jaipur, in pockets in Jalalabad, Baghpat and Muzaffarnagar. These are the main
places from where the 620 families came to Delhi, says Hamza, each city having its own
loose network of "Burmese refugees". "We reach the country but
have no fixed schedule. We move from a city when we are thrown out," he
says matter-of-factly.
World salivates over energy-rich Arakan
The Rohingya Muslims need help in two ways: with a refugee status to those who
have fled the country and putting pressure on the Burmese government to restore
land rights to those who remain in the country. Rehabilitation of this ethnic
group seems all the more important especially because of the terror links that
have surfaced. But nations seem more likely to look the other way.
It's not as if the world hasn't heard of Arakan in resource-rich Myanmar, the
country abundant in oil, natural gas, coal, zinc, copper, precious stones,
timber and hydropower with uranium deposits thrown in too.
Arakan is Myanmar's
richest oil-producing region. Arakanese locals claim they have been extracting
oil for over 300 years using makeshift pulleys. Whatever the actual history, Myanmar is
certainly one of the world's oldest oil producers, its first barrel exported in
the 1850s. As per CIA figures, Myanmar
could have 50 million barrels of oil and 283 cubic metres of natural gas.
According to experts, gas will be the main focus of the much-needed foreign
investment over the coming years, though there is little data on the extent of
reserves.
With the military junta giving way to a civilian government that came to power
in February last, the world is eyeing Myanmar hungrily. Strategic affairs
analyst Robert Kaplan wrote in Stratfor, "Geographically, Myanmar ... is where the spheres of influence of
China and India overlap.
Think of Myanmar as another Afghanistan in
terms of its potential to change a region: a key, geostrategic puzzle piece
ravaged by war and ineffective government that, if only normalized, would unroll
trade routes in all directions."
He goes on to talk about the immense potential of the region. "At Ramree Island
off the Arakan coast, the Chinese are constructing pipelines to take oil and
natural gas from Africa, the
Persian Gulf
and Bay of Bengal across the heart of Myanmar
to Kunming.
There will also be a high-speed rail line roughly along this route by 2015.
"India too is
constructing an energy terminal at Sittwe [Arakan] that will potentially carry
offshore natural gas northwest through Bangladesh
to West Bengal. The Indian pipeline would
split into two directions, with another proposed route going to the north
around Bangladesh.
Commercial goods will follow along new highways to be built to India. Kolkata,
Chittagong and Yangon, rather than being cities
in three separate countries, will finally be part of one
Indian Ocean
world."
If that weren't euphoric enough, "The salient fact here is that by
liberating Myanmar, India's hitherto landlocked northeast, lying on the far
side of Bangladesh, will also be opened up to the outside. Northeast India has
suffered from bad geography and underdevelopment, and as a consequence it has
experienced about a dozen insurgencies in recent decades ... Myanmar's
political opening and economic development changes this geopolitical fact,
because both India's northeast and Bangladesh will benefit from Myanmar's
political and economic renewal.
"With poverty reduced somewhat in all these areas, the pressure on Kolkata
and West Bengal to absorb economic refugees
will be alleviated." He signs off on an impossibly positive note, "If
Myanmar
can build pan-ethnic institutions ... it could come close to being a midlevel
power in its own right..."
The operative words being "if" and "pan-ethnic". A look at
the state of the Rohingya Muslims, one can only wonder.
The road ahead
Rohingyas saw a ray of hope when the civilian government promised to talk with
the many dispossessed ethnic groups in Myanmar including the insurgent
groups. But once the government announced the groups it would be talking to,
their name was conspicuously missing. "While the government has engaged in
talks with several other ethnic groups, not even a whisper in the wind of
talking about Rohingyas," says Khin.
Discrimination is growing, says Nurul Islam, president of the London-based
Arakan
Rohingya National Organization. In a March 29 interview, he said,
"There is no change of attitude of the new civilian government of U Thein
Sein towards Rohingya people; there is no sign of change in the human rights
situation of Rohingya people. Persecution against them is actually greater than
before."
For the world, their predicament has remained a blind spot. There's little
coverage on their plight.
The UNHCR, which takes care of 'Arakanese Muslims' in the region, does not
mention the term Rohingya in its online literature on Myanmar,
choosing to refer to them as Arakanese Muslims. "The UNHCR works in Arakan
with an understanding with the regime. It is on a contract. Though Rohingya is
established in international community, UNHCR avoids using the term," says
Khin. Can lopping off their core identity help assimilate or mainstream this
ethnic group?
The UNHCR says it supports the 800,000 Muslim residents in the northern part of
the region that was renamed Rakhine state (NRS), who do not have
citizenship." Its website says, "There has been no improvement in the
legal status or living conditions of the Muslim residents of NRS. With the
government's response to the proposals being a reiteration of current policies,
UNHCR foresees a continuing need for programmes to assist residents without
citizenship in NRS."
Fears are strong that the coming 2014 census that the Burmese government has
promised may bypass the existence of the Rohingya Muslims altogether. NGOs are
stepping up their agitation in the run-up to the census, says Khin.
These fears were given credence by recent reports that senior government
officials have said that there are no 'stateless people in Myanmar' while the immigration minister
reiterated the allegation that the Rohingyas are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
At Madanpur Khadar, they have no place to go. And they are praying they will
not outstay their welcome. The charity has taken no decision, but has
provisioned for about a month, says Dr Najaf, its secretary.
Does India
have reason to fear Rashida? If you look at the plight of this young
population, not today. But if we don't take care of her and her children, who
knows what these kids will be doing a few years from now? They're sitting
ducks, easy prey.
The
rights group also said that authorities had blocked humanitarian aid
from reaching tens of thousands of desperate refugees in conflict areas
and said soldiers had sexually assaulted civilians.
