ROHINGYAS

• Rohingya are an ethnic group, representing the largest percentage of Muslims in Myanmar and predominantly live in the Western Myanmar province of Rakhine.
• They speak a dialect of Bengali, as opposed to the commonly spoken Burmese language.
• They are described by the United Nations (UN) as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.
• The Rohingya population is denied citizenship under the 1982 Myanmar nationality law. They have denied the Rohingya the possibility of acquiring a nationality.
• The flow of Rohingya from Myanmar intensified in 2017 and the coast near the Bangladeshi city of Cox’s Bazar was taken over by refugee settlements.
• Recently, Bangladesh started relocating Rohingya refugees from overcrowded camps at Cox’s Bazar to Bhasan Char Island, which is an ecologically fragile area prone to floods.

3. History of Islam in the Arakan region of Myanmar

• The Rakhine (previously called Arakan) region of Northern Myanmar, is largely believed to be the original home of the Rohingyas and has shared a porous border along the Naaf River with Chittagong in Bangladesh.
• Before the modern state of Myanmar came into being, this border was not exactly known to be a line of the division between two separate communities and historical evidence shows a frequent movement of people across the border. 
• In pre-colonial days, the region of Arakan was an independent kingdom, separate from both the Burmese kingdoms and the Mughal empire in India and Bengal.
• In 1459, the Arakan king is believed to have conquered Chittagong which had a dense Muslim population. In the years that followed, the Arakanese control in Chittagong led to an intimate relationship developing between the Muslims and the inhabitant of Arakan.
• In 1784, Burmese King Bodawpaya conquered the Arakan region and brought it under the control of the kingdom of Ava in central Burma.
• What followed was severe oppressive measures taken by the Burmese ruler against the Arakanese population and the latter rebelling against them.
• Thereafter, a large number of Arakanese (both Buddhists and Muslims) fled to the neighboring territory of Bengal which was by now under British rule.
• The large numbers of which Indians, particularly the Bengalis, who were brought into Arakan were a cause of great resentment to the Burmese population, who were now also in the process of developing strong nationalist feelings.
• After the Second World War, when the British left Burma, large sections of the Indian population followed. Those who were left behind were in any case in the bad books of the Buddhist Burmese population and soon after a large number of communal clashes started taking place between the two groups.
• While the Arakanese Muslims, largely inspired by the formation of Pakistan along religious lines, started demanding an autonomous region for themselves on ethnic grounds, the independent government of Myanmar continued discriminating against them and later ensured that they do not receive legal citizenship status in the country.

4. India's concerns