Rajeev Kumar Nagotra
Ashin Wirathu is the face of the Buddhist angst against the Sunni Bengali Muslims in Myanmar. The speeches of this monk, are allegedly responsible for the violence perpetrated by the Buddhist majority with the connivance of the state machinery against the Muslim minority of this young and restless democracy. The apprehensions expressed by the Buddhist monk are: a) “Muslims are like the African carp. They breed quickly and they are very violent. b) Even though they are minorities here, we are suffering under the burden they bring us. c) You can be full of kindness and love, but you cannot sleep next to a mad dog. d) Muslims are only well-behaved when they are weak.” These expressions are extremely blunt and unsophisticated for the modern parlance. And to think they are coming from a Buddhist monk! His utterances have earned him the name Buddhist Bin Laden. He sounds no different from the Hafiz Saeeds or Masood Azhars of Pakistan except that those bigots instigate jihadi strikes against other countries where as Wirathu is conducting a jihad at home.
The monk claims that his thoughts and speeches are rooted in his understanding of the past and the contemporary geo-politics and his ability to predict the future ramifications of the growth of Islam in his country. Whether his fears are real or morbid is a subjective question, but one thing is clear – they find an uncanny resonance in India, Srilanka, the US, the UK, Russia, France, Spain, Canada, Germany, Denmark, Greece and, oddly, also in China. These countries are trying to cry foul against Islamic terrorism but they are gagged by the accepted norms of civilized statecraft and do not want to hurt the sentiments of the moderate and well meaning Muslims however few they might be in numbers. But Wirathu’s Myanmar has just emerged out of fifty years of oppressive rule by the military junta and has no patience for niceties and is all too eager to assert its cherished national identity. To this end, the country’s Legislative body has enacted a package on the protection of race and religion. The package includes four draft bills on interfaith marriages, religious conversion, polygamy and population control. Indeed they seem to be closely following the developments in the neighbourhood.
Let us keep his nuances and tones aside for some time and pay attention to what lies at the core of Wirathu’s campaigns. His worries stem from the history the Burmese Buddhists have had with the Muslims. The Muslims were taken from Bengal to Burma by the British colonizers to work in the paddy fields. Naturally, the hosts did not like the large influx of immigrants who spoke a different language, dressed up differently, ate different food, practiced a very different faith and grabbed their jobs and resources. If one wants to understand the unwritten rules of harmonious immigration one must look at the way the South Indians, Gujaratis and the Punjabis have blended into the western society or the way the Parsis have amalgamated with the Indian society. But the immigrants in Burma were of a different kind. Instead of making efforts to befriend the locals they presented themselves to the British masters to be used as a potential weapon against the local Buddhist population. That animosity persisted even after the British left the Indian sub-continent. Thus, in a way, the Rohingya crisis is also one of the many parting gifts of the British Raj to the southeast Asia.
Having grown substantially in numbers and strengths, the Rohingya Muslims gained the confidence to aspire for integration with Pakistan in 1947. When that did not materialize, they started lobbying for an autonomous Islamic state because the region inhabited by them had purportedly remained predominantly Muslim for over a thousand years. The story is also reminiscent of the events in our own state of Jammu and Kashmir. Only in our case the people at the helm of affairs could barely see far and were too complacent and reluctant to take inconvenient decisions at critical junctures. Similarly, the societies across Europe and North America, that welcomed Islamic influences, had not anticipated that the immigrants or their future generations would one day threaten the very roots of their cultures and national characters. Consider a hypothetical situation where a number of Buddhist immigrants from around the world happen to settle in some area of Saudi Arabia. How willing would the Arabs then be to let the immigrants create a separate Buddhist country out of their nation? By the principle of reciprocity, the developments in Myanmar, therefore, are not surprising.
Wirathu’s fears are substantiated by the moral and logistic support the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army receives from Pakistan’s ISI. An autonomous Muslim region in the west of Myanmar will not just weaken the Buddhist nation and keep it perpetually threatened but also serve as an ISI laboratory and a safe buffer for the Bangladeshi Jihadis whose resurgence has lately been stronger than ever since 1971. This strategic arrangement goes very well with the ISI’s plans of opening multiple fronts against India. While Myanmar’s response to the crisis at hand has been instinctive and natural, India’s response has been suicidal. India has simply let the enemy indoctrinated and trained by the ISI walk in through its official borders! Needless to say that the people, politicians or NGOs, who have orchestrated the influx of Rohingyas do not have the well being and safety of Indians in their hearts. Of the 40,000 Rohingyas living in different parts of India, about 14,000 have refugee cards and the rest are illegal intruders. Ten thousand of them are in Jammu – a region which is already witnessing a steady process of demographic change for the past two decades courtesy the mala fide intentions of the successive governments. 4000 kilometers, 10 odd Indian states and hundreds of cities separate Jammu and Myanmar and yet the NGOs – three from Kashmir and two from Delhi, chose to bring them here with the blessings of the state government. If they had a genuine sympathy for the Rohingyas, they should have taken them to their own homes in Delhi or Kashmir. Why halt at the city of temples which has not yet forgotten the denial of 0.4 kms of the state land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board in Kashmir? It is said that the consultation camps established along the Myanmar border send them directly to Jammu with the explicit motive of “strengthening” the local muslim minority.
While the governments kept looking away, the Rohingyas succeeded in obtaining PAN cards, Adhaar cards, mobile phone connections, internet subscriptions and even cars. The former CM Mehbooba Mufti had put their number at 5,743 spread over 39 colonies in January 2017. The home department put that number at 6,523 in the year 2018. The independent sources in the media believe that the official figure is only half of the actual number. Looking at their growth and contentment, which incidentally can be gauged from the numerous interviews available online, one can see that they are here for good now. Even if the honorable Supreme Court and the central government approve, the process of deportation of the Rohingyas will have to be carried out by the local government and administration, who have already demonstrated their soft corner for the Rohingyas. With the official figure being so underestimated, there is a plenty of room for manipulations during the process of deportation.
Lastly, if the warnings of Ashin Wirathu are even half true, the Rohingya population in Jammu will be around 25,000 in another 15 years. That is equal to the combined population of Panjtirthi, Jullaka Mohalla, Ustad Mohalla and Pacca Danga areas of old Jammu city according to the last census. With 206 Rohingyas living close to the military station in Sunjwan, 40 Rohingyas living close to 16 Corps headquarters of Indian army in Nagrota and with the likes of Noor Gul Ameen running trafficking rackets selling teenage girls in Ramban and Kishtwar, the people of Jammu have every reason to worry about their future.
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