It has been more than three weeks since an alleged terror attack on the Burmese army by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army which triggered retaliation against the Rohingyas, resulting in thousands of deaths and an exodus of over 400 000 refugees to neighbouring Bangladesh.
Thousands of Rohingya cluster at their border to escape murderous death squads. This crisis has greatly embarrassed Nobel Peace Prize recipient and Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi, compelling her to cancel her proposed visit to New York to attend the UN General Assembly.
Despite being criticised by the media and Western countries for what has been described by human rights groups as “textbook” ethnic cleansing, Suu Kyi has got support from two Asian giants, China and India.
When Indian PM Narendra Modi visited Yangon this month, he was expected to speak on the Rohingya issue - especially about his government’s decision to deport them - but there was nothing in the joint declaration to suggest that.
India, though, made it clear what it thought of the alleged attack at Burmese army bases - though most killed in the exchange of fire were Rohingya.
India supported the armed forces against them, which fit the narrative Delhi has been trying to build for a while - refugees constitute a threat to national security and hence need to be subjected to refoulement (forcible return to a country where they are liable to be persecuted).
Unknown intelligence reports have been presented as a source of this menacing threat from refugees. Media probes subsequently revealed that not a single complaint on terror links had been filed against any of the 40 000 refugees living in India.
This year, Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Mehmooda Mufti stated categorically that there were no allegations against the refugees staying in her state.
The Indian government was not fazed by the media investigation that debunked those dodgy intelligence reports that reportedly associated the refugees with proscribed extremist organisations in Pakistan like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Instead they decided to throw out 40 000 Rohingya refugees living in different parts of India.
Before they could give meaning to this decision, which was challenged by human rights activists in India’s Supreme Court, the crisis in Burma erupted again with more refugees streaming into Bangladesh and Indian borders.
As reports of death squads armed with machetes burning villages, hacking men and raping and killing women began to make headlines in the media, India found itself in a serious moral dilemma: How do you send harassed and displaced people back to their country where they are bound to be hacked too?
Besides, its attitude was also causing enormous domestic stress to its ally Bangladesh, which was not only facing an avalanche of refugees, but discontent at home on how Muslim brethren were being treated by a neighbour as well as India’s hands-off attitude.
Bangladesh beseeched India to re-look at its refugee policy and soften its stance towards the Rohingyas. Realising the implications of antagonising an ally, Bangladesh, whose PM courageously announced it would feed Rohingya refugees as they feed their own, India was forced to finesse its position towards them.
It sent humanitarian supplies to refugees living in camps in Bangladesh and demanded from the Burmese government that it try to end the violence.
India’s strategy is still evolving due to its domestic compulsions, as the ruling BJP’s right wing constituency relishes the idea of also ousting all refugees and illegal Muslim immigrants from India.
Its partymen and some ministers in the government have questioned the identity of Rohingyas and insisted that they are Bangladeshis who are using the violence in Burma to sneak into India.
Suu Kyi’s government also calls Rohingyas “Bengalis” and refuses to recognise them as indigenous people. She is under pressure to end the violence quickly, but people who know how the country is administered recognise that it is the army that decides on security issues.
Suu Kyi also realised early in her political career that this minority - barely 1 million - does not count for much in a Buddhist majority country that has had historical misgivings about Islam.
During the national elections, she was generally silent on the persecution of minorities - a strategy that gave her ample electoral dividends even if it did not endear her to civil society.
Her attempts to mollify this international constituency by getting former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan to give his recommendations to solve the Rohingya issue, seemed to have been derailed by the latest crisis that many claim has acquired genocidal proportions.
Annan recommended improving their living conditions, generating jobs and sorting out their citizenship at the earliest to end the
conflict.
As the ongoing savagery prevented her sorting out this contentious issue, the attack by international NGOs and the Western media may be driving her closer to the Therawada Buddhist clergy that never conceals its abhorrence for the Muslim minority.
Buddhist groups have taken to social media to show that the
Rohingya are not so innocent and the atrocities against them are overblown.
Media outlets close to them have blamed Pakistan and its
terror network for aggravating the problem.
The AR Salvation Army has categorically denied any relationship with any Pakistan-based extremist outfits, but there is some “evidence” going around in the public domain to suggest the contrary.
Some members of the Organisation of Islamic States (OIC) have criticised the way the Rohingya crisis has been handled.
Both Burma and India have drawn their ire.
The Indian government sources have hit back by pointing out the hypocrisy of the OIC by saying it does not criticise the happenings in Yemen where thousands have been killed.
That said, the Rohingya crisis has challenged some of the
time-tested beliefs about Buddhism being the religion of peace, and
India not turning its back on refugees whatever their religious denomination.
India has been compelled to tweak its stand on this issue when it discovered that China is backing the Burmese government in this crisis.
Since then New Delhi is working hard to ensure that both Bangladesh and Burma do not get enticed by the flexibility of China’s foreign policy and jettison them.
In these times, it is a tough task.