Unlike Muslim states,
India must help them out
Rajeev Sharma
It doesn't happen very often
when a temple of democracy
like India, in fact the world's
largest democracy, is singled
out for a brutal criticism by the
United Nations (UN). This has
happened in the Modi regime.
Among other things which are as
India-specific as cow vigilantism and
intolerance, the UN Human Rights
Commission (UNHRC), a UN body,
found fault with India's stand on the
Rohingyas issue as well.
The UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights described the situation
of Myanmar's Rohingya minority as a
"textbook example of ethnic cleansing" and criticized both Yangon
and New Delhi, the latter for seeking to
deport Rohingyas who fled to India.
Delivering a statement at the 36th
session of the Human Rights Council in
Geneva on September 12, UNHRC
chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein asked the
Myanmar Government to stop
claiming the Rohingyas were "setting
fire to their own homes and laying
waste to their villages."
This rebuke of India from a UN
body was definitely a downer from the
Narendra Modi government and
despite whatever noises India made in
rebutting the unusual criticism by the
UNHRC, the harm was done. It put the
Indian government under a spotlight
for its alleged sins of omission and
commission. It showed India in a poor
light in the comity of nations,
something which doesn't happen
regularly.
However, the UNHRC's rare criticism of India and Myanmar, the
latter for Its "ethnic cleansing" on the
Rohingyas put the spotlight on the
fast-depleting community of Rohingya
Muslims in a Buddhist-majority
country like Myanmar. The Rohingyas
have been living in Myanmar for long
as stateless citizens without any rights
whatsoever. And the problem is that
India, the temple of democracy and
the self-proclaimed champion of
human rights, has tied itself in knots
over this issue.
Even as the Rohingyas' persecution
was making international news
headlines, Prime Minister Narendra
Modi was in Myanmar. But during his
meetings with his Myanmarese
inaterlocutors he never made a
specific reference to the plight and
sufferings of the Rohingyas.
There are at least forty thousand of
Rohingyas living as migrants, mostly in
West Bengal but also in places like Delhi-NCR, Jammu, Haryana, UP,
Rajasthan and Hyderabad. Since they
have similar facial features as
Bangladeshis and have picked up the
Bangladeshi accent of speaking
Bangla, they pass off as Bangladeshi
migrants.
The Indian government's stand on
the Rohingyas, articulated in
Parliament and before the Supreme
Court is that it wants to deport them to
Bangladesh and Myanmar. New Delhi
fears that the Rohingyas are illegal
migrants who constitute a security
threat to India because they can be
easy prey for terrorist and insurgent
outfits in view of their stateless profile
and precarious economic condition.
Minister of state for home Kiran Rijiju
outlined the government stand on
Rohingyas in Parliament. However, the
Indian government also assured that it
would not persecute or harass the
Rohingyas.
India's proposed plan of deporting
the Rohingyas has been challenged in
the Supreme Court and the apex court
is already seized of the matter. But the
problem is that India has no law on
refugees as India is not a signatory to
1951 UN Refugee Convention or its
1967 Protocol.
But the real pity for the Rohingyas is
that not just countries like India are
unresponsive and insensitive but they
are not getting support from even the
Muslim nations. Their vociferous
protests in the plight of Myanmar's
miniscule minority of Rohingya
Muslims notwithstanding, most
Muslim nations are paying only a lip
service to the cause of the Rohingyas
while they are busily upgrading their
strategic ties with Myanmar.
Take the example of Pakistan for
example. Pakistan has been having an
extremely close strategic partnership
with Myanmar since the turn of this
century. So much so that Pakistan
covertly sent to Myanmar four of its
nuclear scientists, who were under the
international community's scanner in
the wake of the AQ Khan episode. The
Pakistani nuclear scientists lived for
long in safehouses provided by the
Myanmarese junta in Central parts of the country, away from Western
intelligence agencies' prying eyes.
Now Pakistan is in advanced
negotiations with Myanmar for
licensed production of the third
generation fighter aircraft JF 17 which
Pakistan is co-producing along with
China. Two years ago, Myanmar had
decided to make an off-the-shelf
purchase of sixteen JF 17 aircraft from
Pakistan.
Take the case of Saudi Arabia, a
prominent leader of the Islamic world.
Riyadh has made noises on the recent
Saudi Arabia has taken up
the cause of the Rohingyas
with Myanmar
government time and
again. But look at its own
track record. It has thrown
thousands of Rohingyas in
its jails on charges of
being illegal migrants.
persecution of the Rohingyas by
Myanmar which has resulted in
Rohingyas crossing over to Bangladesh
after they paid off the thriving human
smuggling syndicates from their
meagre savings. The Rohingyas have
been living like stateless citizens in
Myanmar for years and being forced
to flee the country over the years.
From a million-strong ethnic
community once, they are now
reduced to a little over half a million in
a nation of 60-million population
which has 135 ethnic communities.
Saudi Arabia has taken up the cause
of the Rohingyas with Myanmar
government time and again. But look
at its own track record. It has thrown
thousands of Rohingyas in its jails on
charges of being illegal migrants.
The case of Gulf countries is no
different. Most of them have cried foul
on the Rohingyas' persecution and
exerted diplomatic pressure on
Myanmar. Yet they are keen on
milking Myanmar's opportunities since
2011 when Myanmar started its
outreach to the world. Kuwait has been paying fifty per cent salaries of
Myanmar's diplomats stationed there
in its newly opened embassy.
Now take the case of Qatar. Some
three years ago, Ooredoo, a Qatari
company, was one of the two which
were granted a telecoms license in
Myanmar, one of the largest foreign
investments in Myanmar as Ooredoo
said it would invest up to $15 billion in
two years to bring ninety percent of
Myanmar's population on a 3G
network. The Qatari license is valid for
15 years
The Gulf countries are eyeing
newer countries for trade and
investment opportunities given
the highly combustible strategic
environment in their region.
Myanmar's burgeoning nowopen
economy and the fact that
Myanmar is Southeast Asia's
second largest country offer a
whale of opportunity to the Gulf
countries. At a time when these
Muslim countries are jostling for
the political and strategic place
in Myanmar, they seem to have
decided to first consolidate their
position rather than getting into
sensitive issues like the
Rohingyas' plight which can rub
Naypyidaw in the wrong manner.
This is far more serious and is
largely responsible for the undoing of
the Rohingyas. India could have taken
the lead in championing their cause
but chose to get after them even
though they are just forty thousand of
them in India.
India has been living for decades
with much larger numbers of
Bangladeshi illegal immigrants and
there are at least twenty million of
them. The ruling BJP, which as a party
has made noises about the
Bangladeshi illegal migrants, has not
taken such a harsh stand about the
handful of Bangladeshis as they have
taken vis a vis the Rohingyas.
The Modi dispensation needs to
make a course correction in this
regard and treat the hapless
Rohingyas as victims, not perpetrators
of terror. But sadly, that's is not
happening.