Narendra Modi’s government cannot afford to put the Rohingya issue on the back burner.
Amidst serious issues like corruption in the Rafale deal and farmers’ agitation, the government has overlooked the fact that thousands of Rohingya Muslims have reportedly travelled from the northeast to Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Some of them travelled by trains to reach the southern states. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government cannot afford to put this potential security threat on the back burner.
In fact, in a rare but commendable action, the principal chief security commissioner of Railway Protection Force (RPF) has sent a “secret” note to all divisional commissioners. He alerted them about the mass movement of illegal Rohingya Muslim immigrants from West Bengal, Odisha, Assam and other northeastern states to south India, by as many as 14 long-distance trains. The RPF has been keeping a vigil on these trains to track migrant labourers and also the mass movement of people from the northeast, especially after the panic-stricken exodus from Bengaluru in 2012.
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“All Rohingyas are travelling in groups along with their families… Officers and staff under your control may be sensitised about their movement. If they are found in trains, they may be handed over to the police having jurisdiction for further action. Action taken report may be sent to this office at the earliest for the perusal of the Principal Chief Security Commissioner of the RPF (PCSC),” the communication directed.
The home ministry should be concerned about this movement of Rohingyas in the country. Once they settle down in these areas it will be difficult, rather impossible, to identify them, not to speak of deporting. The Rohingya Muslims speak fluent Bengali and Hindi and it would be easier for them to mingle with the daily wage earners in these states and be identified as workers from Bihar, West Bengal or Odisha. Many people from northeast usually migrate to the southern states for employment.
In this background, it is shocking as to how and why the home ministry could not localise the Rohingya Muslims before they could disperse. Earlier, the issue of Rohingya Muslim settlements in Narwal, a suburb of Jammu, was widely reported. While Kashmiri Hindus find it impossible to settle in the region where they belong to, it is ironical that thousands of Rohingya Muslims could not only settle in Jammu but find jobs and get identity cards made too. The issue was raised even by a section of the local BJP unit but was cleverly brushed under the carpet by the state administration under the PDP-BJP coalition government.
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Rohingya Muslims, Bengali speaking and hence considered to be of Bengali origin, mostly living in Rakhine province in the Arakan region of Myanmar have been denied citizenship in their own country. This is like many Indians from Bihar who were indentured labourers working in Bangladesh’s Choudanga district. Sometime in 2014, the Myanmar government was considering a citizenship plan for some of the Rohingyas provided they reconsider their ethnicity. This was probably a reaction to international pressure but did not work out as Rohingyas refused.
While the Rohingya Muslims have drawn international attention to the repression they are facing at the hands of Myanmar army, the government and the army have a very different tale to tell. The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who is currently in India, has termed the Rohingyas as the most persecuted community in the world and strongly advocated Indian intervention in sorting out the issue by supporting Bangladesh government. After his visit to Cox Bazar camps in Bangladesh, he had warned of the nexus between the radical elements among the Rohingyas and the terrorist groups looking to recruit mercenaries. In fact, the government of India had been warned by security experts of the potential dangers of these elements infiltrating the refugee camps and posing a serious security threat to all three countries. Myanmar reportedly found some of these radical elements indulging in looting, arson and vandalising Buddhist places of worship besides attacking Buddhist monks. There were reports of them attacking Hindus in Bangladesh as well.
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Meanwhile, Dhaka has slowed down the Bhasan Char project that it was building to settle these refugees even as the international aid agencies and Rohingya representatives have rejected the proposal saying the area is flood prone and inaccessible.
It is perilous for New Delhi to allow these refugees to travel all over the country at will and mingle with the local population. Instead of outsourcing the vigil to RPF and state governments, the home ministry should create a special purpose vehicle under the supervision of the National Security Council Secretariat to facilitate swift action and also accept responsibility for internal security.
With important states going to polls and the 2019 election approaching, it will be too risky to allow anti-social elements to plot social and communal conflagration of any scale.
The author is former editor of ‘Organiser’.
We should recall Bangladeshi exodus into India since 1971 and learn lessons from it. We then had slightly more responsibility compared to the present Rohingya situation because we were seen as the “saviours” of the weaker side. We had no alternative but to be patient with the unwanted burden of refugees because they had faced dire situations in their own country and we had taken upon ourselves to be their “liberators”. Even in a typical family, the “big brother”, poor fellow, gets saddled with unwanted responsibilities which he himself and his children deeply resent. They all, jointly and very vociferously shout against those imposed responsibilities whenever they get the slightest opportunity. But nothing changes, some things remain permanently etched as “facts” of life.
But the fact that we could not unload the Bangladeshi refugees WITHIN A FEW YEARS after 1971 is our failure. If a neighbor’s creeper or ivy dangles onto our side of the wall, we can lift it and put it back on the neighbor’s side. But if it dangles all the way down to the earth, sprouts many more shoots, and the whole thing over time stands like a solid banyan tree and we then “try to get rid of it” and throw it back to the neighbor’s side, then … You know what I mean. That is called foolishness, or NRC exercise in Indian vocabulary, which remains a darling project of the BJP but which will soon become a hot potato in their hands and will scorch their entire party.
Coming back to the issue at hand, that of the Rohingyas, I agree with Seshadari Chari that the government should not allow them to disperse all over the country. Because that was precisely how the Bangladeshi refugees got undetectable over time. They should be treated as “international guests”, and the international community (IC) should be repeatedly reminded that they should help us in sending back these guests. We should not allow them to take up jobs through private agents or construction contractors. Whatever their burden of food and clothing, government should continue to bear it, and for that reason continue to remind the IC about the urgency to find a solution, and in the interim to help us financially through UN aid or some such thing.
If we say that we should be compassionate and accommodate these Rohingyas because they are only 45000, then where is the assurance that another 45K won’t land up in due course, and then yet another installment? They should be treated humanely while the process of finding a solution continues, given basic amenities, food etc, but told clearly that they will eventually have to leave. That is the best a poor people can do for another poor people.
Is it illegal for these refugees to travel within India? It seema its not the case. But the writer is presuming that just because they are Muslims that why they are a security threat. A typical case of using Muslim bashing and misinformation to give a false perception to the overwhelminglu in majority Hindus that they are in danger.
Wow… While Mr author tried his best to act objective by giving space to the UN envoy’s words — he couldn’t resist the core requirement of his original job and moreover, proving true to his name i.e. “King of Serpents” by going full Hasty Generalization.
I’m appalled to read this piece in the Print. Do you really think these poor and persecuted people are threat to national security? Just for the sake of being viewed as “neutral” it’s not right to give space to bigots, in my opinion.
Read the footer disclaimer! Believe It Or Not, I never generally say this unlike many of netizens but..: Full 5 minutes of my life I’m not getting back!
Aapnay ghaar main rakh ley sabkoo phir…baki bharityoon ne theka nahi le rakha samjha.
Bahut gareeb, dukhi log hain. They have faced genocide and war crimes on a scale and intensity analogous to what ISIS has done. We are a tolerant, compassionate nation, have given shelter and refuge to Tibetans in the past. We should make space for these 45,000 souls in our ocean of 1.3 billion.
“Jonk”??? If not, then how could you miss the footer-info?
Make home for them in your house plz no need to get other to do it for you.