My letter to Professor Ward Keeler of University of Texas, Austin


Dear Dr. Keeler,
Thanks for a very timely piece on the above subject (Rohingya vis-à-vis 'Mexican' Texans): https://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/commentary/article/Similarities-in-treatment-of-the-Rohingya-and-12511371.php.
 
As you noted the Rohingyas face ethnic cleansing (or, perhaps, more correctly, genocide), and the Burmese (Burman) and Rakhine xenophobic politicians and monks are justifying their genocidal pogroms by distorting history and dehumanizing the victims. As a concerned human rights activist I have been trying to stop this genocide, which Dr. Maung Zarni, Prof. Amartya Sen and other concerned fellow activists have been calling 'slow burning genocide'.  To stop the elimination of the Rohingya, it would require serious efforts from academics like you, making parallels, which you nicely did in your short article.
 
However, in my reading of Rohingya history, I find that they are not a product of British era colonial practice of enticing hard-working Bengalis to settle in Arakan, but as a matter of fact the littoral was husbanded by Indian (Bangladeshi) population since time immemorial before the advent of Tibeto-Burman Buddhist race in the 9th century CE. Most of these people were Hindus, some later converting to other religions (including Buddhism and Islam).
 
Even after the Buddhist infiltration and conquest of Arakan under emperor Anwarahta, there was always a small number of Indians (whose language,  culture and ties  were with those of Bengal, or today's Bangladesh on the other side of the Naaf River). Thus, area historians like (late) Prof. Abdul Karim and Michael Charney believed that the Rohingyas are the children of the soil, much like the Mexican-Americans of Texas are. From 1430 onwards, with the advent of the Arakanese Mrauk-U dynasty which was restored to the throne by the Sultan of Bengal, Muslim percentage grew sharply. During the 16-17th century (until 1666), more than a 100,000 Bengalis were abducted and enslaved in Arakan (by the Magh-Portuguese pirates) to work as rice growers or slave workers in temples along the Kaladan River, which significantly raised the Muslim population.
 
I am sure you are aware of the history, but felt that your piece (consider, e.g., "The British, who ruled Rakhine from 1826 to 1948, urged Bengalis to come and take low-paying jobs that long-time residents of the area disdained.") may have given the impression that Rohingyas were a by-product of British colonial era policy. They are not. As I have shown in my demographic study of Muslims of Arakan: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1949971 the vast majority of those who resettled from Cox's Bazar in East Indian Company administered Bengal to Arakan after 1826 were Rakhine Buddhists, and not Rohingyas. Most Chittagonians that went there during 100 plus years of British rule when Burma including Arakan was administered from Bengal (and later India) were seasonal farmers that returned to Chittagong. The British policy is partly to blame for the mess around ethnicity and the sad fate of the Rohingyas who had fought against Japanese/Burman/Rakhine fascist forces during WWII, and conveniently dumped after regaining the territory.
 
Thanks and kind regards,
Habib Siddiqui

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