Fearing crackdown, thousands of Rohingyas quit India

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The Rohingyas, an ethnic group is in deep trouble. Many Rohingyas, alleged to have entered India illegally, are fleeing in large numbers, fearing a crackdown by the Indian government. Hindu nationalists want the Rohingyas to be deported, in order to address serious security issues.

For decades, Myanmar has steadfastly refused to recognise them as citizens, labelling them as illegal Bengali immigrants. The Myanmar government ordered a brutal army offensive in August 2017 on Rakhine, where Rohingyas were in large numbers. The United Nations criticised Myanmar for this.

This led to the influx of more than 7,00,000 Rohingyas into camps in Bangladesh, to add to the 3,00,000 already living there.

Despite criticism from Amnesty International, United Nations and many other frontline human rights groups all over the world, India has steadfastly refused to accommodate the Rohingya refugees. The Hindu nationalists want the government to repatriate the Rohingyas to Myanmar because of security concerns to the country.

Significantly, India is not a signatory to the United Nations Refugee Convention. The Indian government ordered the arrest of 230 Rohingyas in 2018. This is the highest number of arrests in many years. Intelligence agency officials had found that most of them were without proper papers.

Fearing a crackdown by the Indian government, Rohingyas moved to Bangladesh in large numbers, with the numbers only going up this January. Most of the Rohingyas are housed in Cox Bazar in south Bangladesh — one of the largest refugee camps in the world. Bangladesh police state that the Rohingyas coming from India were living in India for a very long time.

The human rights groups have been critical even of the Supreme Court of India for “breaching many international human rights”. They hope that the Bangladesh foreign minister talks about this issue with his Indian counterpart during his visit to India next week.