Rohingya genocide in Myanmar

• Rejected by the country they were born in and shunned by the neighbouring states, the Rohingya are among the the most vulnerable amongst forcibly displaced groups. The Rohingya are impoverished, virtually stateless and have been fleeing Myanmar in droves.
• Rohingya are an ethnic group, largely comprising Muslims estimated at more than one million, who predominantly live in the Western Myanmar province of Rakhine. They speak a dialect of Bengali, as opposed to the commonly spoken Burmese language.
• Though they have been living in the Myanmar for generations, Myanmar considers them as persons who migrated to their land during the Colonial rule. So, it has not granted Rohingyas full citizenship. According the 1982 Burmese citizenship law, a Rohingya (or any ethnic minority) is eligible for citizenship only if he/she provides proof that his/her ancestors have lived in the country prior to 1823.
• Myanmar's government denies them citizenship and sees them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh - a common attitude among many Burmese.
• Discriminatory policies of Myanmar’s government since the late 1970s have compelled hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya to flee their homes in Myanmar. Most have crossed by land into Bangladesh, while others have taken to the sea to reach Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.
• In July 1978, after intensive negotiations mediated by UN, Ne Win's government agreed to take back 200,000 refugees who settled in Arakan. In the same year as well as in 1992, a joint statement by governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh "acknowledged that the Rohingya were lawful Burmese residents". 
• The Rohingya trace their origins in the region to the fifteenth century, when thousands of Muslims came to the former Arakan Kingdom. Many others arrived during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when Rakhine was governed by colonial rule as part of British India. Since independence in 1948, successive governments in Myanmar, have refuted the Rohingya’s historical claims and denied the group recognition as an ethnic group. The Rohingya are largely considered illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
• The Myanmar government has effectively institutionalized discrimination against the ethnic group through restrictions on marriage, family planning, employment, education, religious choice, and freedom of movement. 
• Widespread poverty, poor infrastructure, and a lack of employment opportunities in Rakhine have exacerbated the cleavage between Buddhists and Muslim Rohingya. 
• Violence broke out in 2012, when Rohingya men were accused of raping and killing a Buddhist woman. Buddhist nationalists responded by burning Rohingya homes, killing more than 280 people and displacing tens of thousands. Human Rights Watch characterized the anti-Rohingya violence as “crimes against humanity.” 
• Most displaced Rohingya have been forced to take shelter in squalid refugee camps. Others have turned to smugglers, paying for transport out of Myanmar. “The fact that thousands of Rohingya prefer a dangerous boat journey they may not survive to staying in Myanmar speaks volumes about the conditions they face there,” said Amnesty International in 2015.
• More than 370,000 Rohingya have left Myanmar, approximately a third of the estimated Rohingya population in the country. They migrated to Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.
• In 2016, Myanmar’s first democratically elected government came to power, but it has been reluctant to advocate for Rohingya and other Muslims for fear of alienating Buddhist nationalists and threatening the still fragile leadership.
• Since a dramatic Rohingya exodus from Myanmar in 2015, the political party of Nobel Peace Prize winner and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi has taken power in a historic election, the first to be openly contested in 25 years. But little has changed for the Rohingya and Ms Suu Kyi's failure to condemn the current violence is an outrage and her failure to defend the Rohingya is extremely disappointing. The point is that Aung San Suu Kyi is covering up this crime perpetrated by the military.
• Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto leader, has denied that ethnic cleansing is taking place and dismissed international criticism of her handling of the crisis, accusing critics of fueling resentment between Buddhists and Muslims in the country. In September 2017, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate said her government had “already started defending all the people in Rakhine in the best way possible.” Suu Kyi has little control over military and public opinion, with large number of Buddhist population is against Rohingyas.
• Suu Kyi has been criticised internationally for her attitude towards the Rohingya, and there have been calls for withdrawing the Nobel Peace Prize. But it was also at Suu Kyi’s instance that the Annan Commission was appointed, and she has welcomed the report. The powerful military has, however, has rejected the report.
• The United Nations reported in September 2017 that more than 120,000 Rohingya people have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh due to a recent rise in violence against them. The situation is expected to exacerbate the current refugee crisis as more than 400,000 Rohingya without citizenship are trapped in overcrowded camps and in conflict regions in Western Myanmar.
• Many Rohingyas have fled to southeastern Bangladesh, where there are over 900,000 refugees, as well as to India, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. More than 100,000 Rohingyas in Myanmar live in camps for internally displaced persons, and the authorities do not allow them to leave.
• About five lakh Rohingyas have already taken shelter in Bangladesh over the last two decades and is clearly unwilling to take in more. The country has opened its border for Rohingyas upon UNHCR’s request and continues to shelter Rohingya in over-crowded refugee camps at Cox Bazar.
• Approximately 40,000 Rohingyas living in India. They reached India from Bangladesh through the land route over the years. Rohingyas in India were “illegal immigrants” and they will be deported soon, a decision that has surprised many given the record of India accepting refugees.
• India’s national security fears are based on intelligence reports linking some Rohingya's front organisations with Pakistan and ISIS. But no individual Rohingya in India has yet been linked to any terror organisation. They live in dismal conditions in cities across India. Statements by MoS Home and some senior BJP members that the 40,000 Rohingya in India are a generalised threat, have fed off existing Hindu-Muslim communal faultlines.
• No one believes the Rohingya crisis will be resolved soon, leave alone Myanmar accepting the Rohingya as citizens. India’s plan to “deport” the 40,000 Rohingya refugees is impossible. There is nowhere to deport them. They belong to no country, and no country wants them.
• A UN spokeswoman in 2009 described the Rohingya as "probably the most friendless people in the world".
• In the past India had opened its doors to Tibetan refugees, Hindus migrating from Muslim-dominated Pakistan, and Tamils fleeing Sri Lanka during armed conflict between the Sri Lankan army and Tamil separatists. But all those are Hindus but Rohingyas are Muslims and Modi & BJP doesn't have any heart for Muslims but Rohingyas speak in a language that has predominant Bengali dialect.
• Modi had visited Myanmar and he only referred to “extremist violence” in Rakhine in his public remarks and the India-Myanmar joint statement only mentioned the terrorist attack by Rohingya militants against security personnel on Aug 25, 2017. 
• Faced with an upset Dhaka, India modified its position on Sep 9, 2017, when it issued a new press release acknowledging that the there was an “outflow of refugees” from Rakhine. Since then, New Delhi stepped up providing relief assistance to Bangladesh. The first plane carrying relief aid reached Chittagong on 14/9/17, and the second consignment reached on 15/9/17.

Persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar has been described by UN's top human rights official as "ethnic cleansing". Aung San Suu Kyi, State Counsellor of Myanmar (akin to PM), claiming of being follower of Gandhism, maintaining stoic silence for the atrocities of Military on Rohingyas is totally unacceptable. Her noble prize must be withdrawn. Modi heading Hindutva government is unlikely to accommodate Rohingya Muslims in India as refugees. But deporting them back to Myanmar is neither easy nor feasible. And none in the world are much concerned about them except the neighboring Bangladesh & India. They hardly have any choice. What they will do, time will only unfold. Hard action on Myanmar is unlikely. See the Indira Gandhi's response in 1971 for resolving East Pakistan issue when her diplomatic efforts for over an year did achieve nothing. The least we should do is to keep sending relief material to Bangladesh to take care of lakhs of Rohingyas in their refugee camps, while pursuing diplomatic international pressure.

In the meeting of Indira Gandhi with Henry Kissinger at New Delhi in July 1971, Mrs Gandhi was persistent in asking Kissinger to plead with Nixon that he should try to restrain Pakistan from what was being done in East Pakistan because the conditions there were  becoming intolerable and it was almost becoming impossible for India to remain silent. Kissinger would not give any assurance that Nixon would do something about it. Rattled Mrs Gandhi said if that was the position she may have to do something herself which she was reluctant to do. At this, Kissinger asked her rather as to what she intended to do. She stood up and pointing towards the General Manekshaw (in full military uniform) told Kissinger that “if the US Government and US  President cannot control the situation then I am going to ask him to do the same”. And she did it later in Dec 1971 that led to liberation of Bangladesh.