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Tracing the Exclusion of the Rohingya
Asst. Prof. Dr. Imtiyaz Yusuf — Director of the Center for Buddhist-Muslim Understanding, Mahidol University, Thailand
Myanmar is a non-secular Buddhist majority country. The majority of Myanmar peoples are Buddhist, including both ethnic Burmans and non-Burman ethnic minorities. Buddhists make up 89.8 percent of the population, Christians 6.3 percent and Muslims 2.3 percent. In the contemporary climate of Myanmar, Many Buddhists see Islam as a threat to Buddhism; they use Bangladesh, Indonesia and Afghanistan as examples of Islam’s takeover of previously Buddhist majority locations.
Myanmar was born out of the ashes of the murder of its integrationist freedom fighter leader General Aung San, the father of Aung San Suu Kyi. He was assassinated on July 19, 1947, a few months before the independence of Burma on January 4, 1948. His legacy of seeking integration and the violence associated with his murder still alludes Myanmar today. These research notes will set forth the history of Muslims in Mynamar as in attempt to understand the contemporary exclusion of the Rohingya from the modern nation state of Mynamar and to argue for the continued failure of Myanmar to become a multicultural society of ethno-religious equality and plurality.
The Burmese Muslim community is largely composed of traders and ulama who are economically well-off but have not worked the fields of education, science, engineering, medicine, technology and business management. There are also several prominent law specialists among them. In its 69 years of existence, Myanmar has been dominated politically by the Bamar Buddhist majority which espouses a Bamar racist interpretation of Buddhism. The Bamar and the other 135 distinct ethnic groups are officially grouped into eight ”major national ethnic races” viz., Bamar, Chin, Kachin, Kayin, Kayah, Mon, Rakhine, and Shan. These national, ethnic races are officially recognizedas the original natives of the country of Myanmar. Others are classified as outsiders or illegal immigrants, as is the case for the Rohingya Muslims.
Muslims in Myanmar are divided into four groups: 1) Indian Muslims known as Chulias, Kaka, and Pathans were brought by British colonizers to administer the colony. They resided largely in the colonial capital city of Yangon which at one time was 56 percent Indian. These Indian Muslims were economically successful as factory and dock workers, as well as gems traders, and business owners. Indian Muslims speak Urdu and follow the Indian Muslim religious traditions of the Barelwi, Deobandi, and Tabligh Jamaat. They often rely exclusively on the religious authority of the Maulvis and send their children to Indian styled Islamic schools, madrasa. Male graduates of theses Indian madrasas typically take on the management of family businesses, and women become house wives.
Within the history of nation building of Burma, the Indian Muslim community has a very mixed past. In addition to the military coup in 1962 where General Ne Win expelled 300,000 Indians from Burma to India, Myanmar witnessed two anti-Indian riots in 1930 and 1938, the later being explicitly against Muslims. The prominent Indian Muslims of Burma include the last Mughal king Bahadur Shah and Mr. U Razak. Bahadur Shah was exiled by the British to Rangoon after the Indian Rebellion of 1857. His mausoleum is located at No. 6 Theatre Road in Yangon. It has become a Sufi shrine. Mr. U Razak (1898 – 1947) was a prominent secular Burmese politician of Tamil ancestry who deeply loved Burma and called for unity between Burmese Muslims and Buddhists. Being an educator, he learned Pali and Theravada Buddhism and founded the Mandalay College (now Mandalay University). He was the Minister of Education and on the National Planning in General Aung San’s pre-independence interim government. He was also the chairman of the Burma Muslim Congress. U Razak was assassinated, along with Aung San on July 19, 1947.
2) Pathi or Zerbadee are the Burmese Muslim offspring from the intermarriage of Persian/Indian Muslim men and Burman/other women. They see themselves as different from other Muslim groups both racial and culturally and as closer to Buddhist Burmese, both ethnically and culturally. They distance themselves from Indian Muslims whose religious lives are influenced by the Indian theological schools of Barelwi and Deoband. The Zerbadee Muslims are caught between the Burmese Buddhists with whom they share the same racial and cultural identity but not a religious identity and Indian Muslims whom they share a religious identity but not a cultural identity. They are a minority of a minority in Mynamar.
3) Panthay or Hui Muslim of Chinese background are culturally Chinese engaging in business and trading occupations. They mostly migrated from the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan during the 13th century and also during 1949 when fleeing Chinese communist persecution. They have mostly settled around the northern city of Mandalay.
4) Rohingya numbering around one million are natives of the Rakhine state which was formerly the Arakan Kingdom. The Rohingya are designated as illegal Bengali migrants from Bangladesh and are discriminately referred to as the “kalla” – dark skinned people. The Rohingya, also known as the Arakan Muslims, have a long historical presence in the modern nation-state of Burma. They have been in the area of Burma since the times of the ancient Arakan kingdom along with Arakan Buddhist. Their place in the history of Burma in relation to Arakan Buddhist has now been denied, and this has further weakened their claims as legitimate Myanmar citizens.
