On May 22 the Amnesty International released a report
provingRohingya militants – ArakanRohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) –had indeedkilled as many as 99 Hindu civilians in a single day of
carnage on August 25, 2017 – sparing only eight women and eight children who
they abducted and forced them to convert to Islam.The report has brought
different reactions from several quarters of the political thinkers and leaders.
While some critiques questioned the authenticity and timing of the report, for
others this report served as ‘perfect’ excuse to blame and despise the whole Rohingya
community.
The ArakanRohingya Salvation Army, better known as ARSA,
operate in northern Myanmar, where the Rohingya have since several decades
faced persecution from the hands of its own country’s government. Last year the
ARSA attacked police posts in Rakhine state, thus, killing about 12 people,
according to then released reports. Post this attack the military with the
government launched large scale retaliation on the community. This retaliation
led to lakhs of Rohingyaflee their homes, cross dangerous forests and
minefields and water in rickety boats to seek safety in Bangladesh. While this
mass exodus led to countries competing against each other on who condemns the
incident first, UN called it as ‘textbook example of ethnic cleansing’.
Last month the Amnesty International brought out a new
disturbing fact. It highlighted that the ARSA is also guilty of killingcivilians.
The group was responsible for killing 99 Hindu civilians in a single day last
year. This new finding stirred a whole
new topic of discussion – Should all Rohingya be counted as a threat?
Though this new finding’s authenticity is under scanner,
this report has been hailed by both the Myanmar government as well as some of
reputed political organizations of India. ZawHtay, a Myanmar government
spokesman, welcomed the Amnesty report’s conclusions.
This report’s release has led to an outburst of statements
and articles by some of India’s eminent personalities. Recently
PrashantBhushan, a senior lawyer who has been fighting the Indian government’s
plan to deport 40,000 Rohingya refugees said, “Horrendous and unforgivable.
Rohingya militants have massacred hundreds of Hindus in Myanmar. Rohingya in
Myanmar have been victims of a terrible genocide. But that is no justification
for attacking innocent people. Rohingya will lose public sympathy if this
happens.”
In a recent editorial piece ‘Rohingya shadow over Myanmar
Hindus’ in a reputed English daily by Sandhya Jain, a Senior Fellow, Nehru Memorial
Museum and Library, questioned logic of rehabilitation even when the role of
Rohingya militants having massacred Hindus have been proven. She also cited
some reports of intelligence agencies that have commented on Rohingya militants
having ties with groups like Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, Lashkar-Tayyeba and
Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). She, through her article, tried
to pull the attention of the world from Rohingya to the plight of Hindus in
Myanmar which was being ignored by the world while the Rohingya got sympathy.
Recently even the Indian Government in fear Rohingyamuslims
being a security threat to the country issued certain directives like confining
them to pre-identified places and not issuing them id proofs but maintaining
biometric details of all illegal Rohingya. This ‘fear’ is ironical as till now
much to the surprise of the government the Rohingya preferred Jammu over
Kashmir. Also till now such fear have never seem to exist towards illegal
Hindus and Muslims who have been entering India from Bangaldesh since past many
decades.
Though the attack on Hindus by Rohingya and the plight of
Hindus living in Myanmar is unthinkable and the fear of Rohingya militants seeping
into India scares every citizen yet both these statements and article have missed
out or rather ignored the essential facts. Both have included the whole
Rohingya community into the Rohingya militant group. Also the fact that
MsSandhya Jain seems to miss is that there is huge wide difference between the
plight of Rohingya and plight of Hindus in Myanmar. The difference merely lies
in the constitutional status that the Myanmar government has granted to both
these ethnic minorities.
Once Dr MaungZarni, a Human Rights activist and scholar, had
said, “In Myanmar, we have taken up a Nazi frame of mind. If anyone would
understand what if happening to Rohingya, it would be you, the Jewish victims
of the Holocaust, the survivors and their families.”
