The Rohingya Crisis is a global humanitarian crisis which can be termed as one of the most talked about problem in history . The Rohingya people ha

INTRODUCTION

The Rohingya Crisis is a global humanitarian crisis which can be termed as one of the most talked about problem in history . The Rohingya people have been suffering a long systematic persecutions and violence and this series of persecutions they have been facing in Myanmar is considered as a genocide. The Rohingyas have to face violence not only by the locals but also by the Myanmar authorities authorities and the Buddhist extremists. Several ethnic cleansing operations have been carried out by the Myanmar authorities towards the minority groups of Myanmar and mainly targeting at the Rohingya community in particular. The national identity of Myanmar was redefined due to the military rule. The military differentiated the Rohingya community from the indigenous people of Myanmar which made them a stateless community. Ever since the exclusion of the Rohingyas from the official ethnic groups of Myanmar, all rights and services were denied to them and the authorities also started to initiate violent acts towards the Rohingya community This also gave rise to the spread of anti-Muslim sentiments, targeting the Rohingyas. This influenced and brainwashed the locals of Myanmar in seeing the Rohingyas as outsider which in turn fueled fear and insecurity among the Rohingya people in Myanmar.

With the exclusion of Rohingyas from the official ethnic groups of Myanmar, the word Rohingya became associated with hatred and illegal. The Rohingyas were insecure of their own identity as they could not escape the violent discrimination and persecutions meted out towards them as a community. The systematic and routine persecution forced the Rohingyas to flee Myanmar and seek for protection and safety in other countries, however, not all countries opened the doors to shelter them or to give humanitarian assistance to this landless, stateless community. The desperate cries of the Rohingyas echoed all over the world but failed to receive attention at the beginning and it was only recently that the Rohingya crisis could gather attention from the world, however tangible effective solution has not been adopted by the international community and international bodies. .

The Rohingya crisis, at present, is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world which has often been ignored or forgotten by the international agencies and other countries. The United Nations describes the Rohingyas as the most persecuted minorities in the world and probably among the most forgotten community. They are politically and socially excluded in their home country- Myanmar and the use of violence against them in the form of killing, massacre, rape and arson are now seen as an ethnic cleansing and as against humanity. Despite tracing their origin in Myanmar, the Rohingyas are not recognised by the Myanmar government. During the British colonial rule in Burma, the Rohingyas were accepted as the indigenous people of Burma and were granted rights and security by the British. The Rohingyas never faced discrimination and persecution during the British colonial era and they showed their loyalty towards the British during the Second World War where the Rohingya community supported and sided with the British while the other communities of Arakan region (present day Rakhine) sided with the Japanese.

The early years of Myanmars Independence also marked its acceptance of the Rohingya as its people as the newly Independent Myanmar placed Rohingya in the same category with the other ethnic group of Myanmar and in 1950s the democratic government of Prime Minister U Nu accepted the Rohingyas as an indigenous ethnic group of Myanmar but they were still excluded from acquiring citizenship as per the 1947 Constitution.9 In addition to the 1947 Constitution, the Union Citizenship Act was passed in 1948 which listed certain ethnic groups of Myanmar who can acquire the citizenship of Myanmar and this act excluded the Rohingyas. However, the Rohingyas were able to improve their position as during 1948-1961, a small number of Rohingyas served as a member of the Parliament and a few numbers of Rohingyas were also found holding seats in high offices.

Nonetheless, Myanmars close affiliation with the Theravada Buddhism slowly sparked out intolerance towards the minority Muslim community which further got culminated into a full-fledged oppression and violence during the military junta. The rule of the military in 1962 Myanmar completely changed the situation of the Rohingyas as the military junta carry out extreme discrimination, violence and bloodshed in Rakhine state. The Rohingyas were subjected to all sorts of oppression and violence and their lives in the post-colonial Myanmar were miserable as they were treated inhumanly by the military. The military carried out several anti-Rohingya propaganda and campaigns, denied access to education, no access to basic rights and citizens, and curtailed their citizenship rights which eventually deemed them vulnerable in a country where they have been living for many generations. The violence carried out against the Rohingyas were routine wise, systematic and institutionalised and it was not only violence towards the life of the Rohingyas but also attacked their property and institutions as the violence also led to destruction of mosques and their houses, confiscation of their land and separation from their families. In addition, the extremist Buddhist and the Buddhist monks also played a prominent role in spreading hatred against the Rohingyas in a way that that the extremist Buddhist intensified Islamophobic rhetoric in Myanmar which plant the seeds of portraying the Rohingya Muslim as an internal threat.f the Indian government towards the Rohingyas

SCOPE AND OBJECTIVE OF RESEARCH

Today millions of people are forced to flee their homes because of conflict, systematic discrimination or many other forms of persecution. The Rohingyas have also faced such kind of persecution in their home country and have migrated to their neighbouring states in search of refuge. Some government have a formal legal law on refugee while others lack such policy .Many Rohingyas have migrated to India in search of protection and have settled in different parts of India. Therefore it is very significant to study their current status in India and the neighbourings countries.

RESEARCH PROBLEM

The Rohingyas are a Muslim ethnic minority in Myanmar which is at the centre of a humanitarian catastrophe and a classic example of statelessness. They trace their origin in Myanmar since 8th Century and they claimed that they have been living in the Rakhine state even before the arrival of the British colonial rule in Myanmar. There have been controversies over the identity and the ethnicity of the Rohingyas for many decades. The Myanmar government do not claim them as its citizens, that means they are not given the citizenship and rather they are termed as an illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. So this situation is in conflict with the The 1954 Conventionand The 1961 Convention. The 1954 convention has set certain standards for the treatment of stateless people in view of their rights. It guarantees right to identity, travel documents, administrative assistance, right to education, employment and housing. The 1961 Convention further adds up to prevent statelessness and reduce it over time.It has established an international framework which ensures right of every person to a nationality. One of the most important provision set by this convention is that the child will acquire the nationality of the country in which they are born irrespective of their parents nationality.

The problem of statelessness of the Rohingyas stands the same in India and in the neighbouring countries as well , so I would like to evaluate the effectiveness of the international legal standards and the rules of the statelessness for the same.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1)How effective are the international legal standards and the rules of statelessness for the Rohingyas in the world

2)What is the role of India and the neighbouring countries in housing the Rohingyas ?

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The study is a descriptive study using qualitative research method. It uses facts and information which are already available in open source to draw the result of the study. The study utilised the available literatures on the Rohingya crisis and Indias stance towards the Rohingyas in India.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

In an article titled, A short Historical Background of Arakan by Mohammad Ashraf Alam (1999) traces the historical background of the Arakan region where he highlights the origin of the Rohingya people in Arakan (present day Rakhine). The author traces the history of Rohingya through the arrival of Islam in Arakan (present day Rakhine) and states that the Rohingyas have been residing in the Arakan region since the 8th Century and that the Muslims have been settled in the coastal regions of Arakan as traders and navigators and he further states that the Rohingyas are the nationals as well as an indigenous ethnic group of Burma who are not new born racial group of Arakan but they are as old as indigenous race of Burma as any other.

In the article entitled, A brief history of the word Rohingya at a heart of a humanitarian crisis by Aamna Mohdin (2017) states that the Rohingyas are a Muslim ethnic minority in Myanmar but the Myanmar government refuse to use the word Rohingya and instead call them Bengalis, foreigners or terrorists. The author traces the origin of the Rohingya and states that they have existed in Myanmar- a Buddhist majority country- for centuries even before the arrival of the British colonial rule in Burma. The author highlights the difference of the two terms- Rohingyas and Bengaliswhich is very crucial to understand the crisis unfolding in Myanmar. The author proceeds on saying that words really matter as by referring to the Rohingya as Bengalis, the government is able to designate this persecuted minority as the other and the perception of Rohingya as outsiders and illegal immigrants provides a not-sosubtle justification and that the governments efforts to root them out of their home. Even though the Myanmar government do not recognise the Rohingyas as their citizens, the authors believes that they are the original inhabitants of Myanmar.

CHAPTERIZATION:

Chapter 1- Introduction

Chapter 2-The Rohingya Crisis: An overview

Chapter 3- International legal standard and rules of statelessness

Chapter 4- Rohingyas in India : Social and Political account

Chapter 5- Findings, Conclusion and Suggestions