Muslim Identity and Demography in the Arakan state of Burma
By
Dr. Habib Siddiqui
1: Introduction
Burma (or today’s
Mayanmar) is a country of many nations - many races, ethnicities and religions.
It is not a country either of or for any particular group – be they are the
majority Bamar (Burman), the minority Shan, Kachin, Kayah, Kayin, Rohingya,
Rakhine, Mon, Karen, Chinese, Indians, or whatever. And yet, time and again,
this time-honored realization is either forgotten or deliberately ignored.
Racism runs deep
and acts like the Krazy glue holding members of each of these discernible
groups together in their own domain, while it acts like a double-edged knife
cutting through the fabric of the Burmese society, justifying hostility against
disparate groups that have nothing in common either in language or in religion.
And no group is treated as inhumanly as the Rohingya people of Burma, who live
in the northwestern Arakan (Rakhine) state, bordering Bangladesh. The Burmese
military government has denied them their citizenship rights, and through its
atrocities and harassment have forced millions of the Rohingya to live either
as stateless people in its own soil or as unwanted refugees elsewhere. To this
sad account, add the daily hatred, racism and bigotry practiced by the Rakhine
Maghs – the majority ethnic group living in Arakan. Their ultranationalist
leaders and scholars have essentially become the ugly arm of the hated regime
to justify the latter’s draconian measures to uproot the Rohingya from their
ancestral land.
Khin Maung Saw’s
article “Islamization of Burma through Chittagonian Bengalis as Rohingya
Refugees” is one such revisionist attempt by a deranged chauvinist Magh to
rewrite the history of the Muslims of Arakan.1 Racism and bigotry are written
all over the article. In this post-9/11 era of hatemongering and Islamophobia,
it is not difficult to understand his evil mindset that steered him to concoct
such an absurd idea that the Rohingya Muslims are working towards Islamization
of Myanmar (Burma). Forget about the fact that Burma is a military-ruled
country with no democracy, how could a mere 2 to 3 million people impose the
dictates of their faith on a nation of 50 million, especially when they are
denied all basic rights – of movement, assembly, marriage, education, jobs,
etc.? One has to be either mentally unstable or very high in mind-altering
drugs to hallucinate such a ludicrous idea!
As already
recognized by scores of international organizations and human rights groups,
including the US government and the UN, the legitimate rights of the Rohingyas
of Arakan state of Burma towards equal rights and citizenship in their
ancestral home cannot be throttled by hateful propaganda of anyone, and surely
not by the paid agents of the rogue regime that have not given up on their
divide-and-conquer policy to weaken genuine democratic aspirations of the
people of Burma. And what better tactic than to stoke the fear of Islamization
of the country by a persecuted minority that has already been brutalized and
marginalized! Denied every right, enshrined in the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, these unfortunate Rohingya people, pushed to settle for an
uncertain life of either statelessness or refugees, inside or outside Burma,
must now defend their honor and dignity against hateful and bigotry-ridden
campaigns by their fellow countrymen – the racist Rakhine/Maghs of Arakan! Electronic
copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1949971
Racism and bigotry cannot come any worse than what thus far has been
showcased by these evil children of Arakanese (and by default, Burmese) racism!
It is sad to see that Saw who has been living in Germany has not learned
anything from its past history of xenophobia. He had the choice to either
reject or espouse the failed model of Nazi fascism that has had wrecked so much
havoc and brought so much pain, shame and unbearable misery to its people.
Instead of siding with the persecuted Rohingyas, he chose the hated monsters of
the Nazi era as his model. One can only feel repulsed by such an evil choice.
Thus, it is not
surprising to discover the unmistakable similarities of Saw’s fascist onslaught
against the persecuted Rohingyas with those of the Jews of Nazi-era Germany.
Like his other pseudo-historian peers - Aye Kyaw and Aye Chan (two unabashed
fascists, by any account), his pattern of onslaught against the Rohingya people
is borrowed from the hateful works of convicted war criminals like Julius
Streicher of the Nazi era.2 One only has to change the terms ‘Jew’ to
Chittagonian Bengali/Muslim or Rohingya, ‘Judenstaat’ to Islamization, and
‘Germany’ to Burma (Myanmar) to see the obvious similarity of their hate
campaign.
These demented and
paranoid Theravada Buddhists of Arakan, often masquerading as intellectual
voices of their community, are no democrats and surely not liberals. They are,
in fact, closet fascists. If allowed to come to power or sway policy decisions,
they will, in all likelihood, borrow the pages from the hated (German) SS
manual and repeat the heinous crimes of their fellow coreligionists in
Cambodia. It is no accident that Saw’s mentor Aye Kyaw wrote the infamous 1982
Burma Citizenship Law that provided the blueprint for denying citizenship
rights of the Rohingya people – the other dominant ethnic group of Arakan. It
was done with a calculated precision to not only rob the properties of the
Rohingya but also to uproot them en masse from the soil of Arakan, their
ancestral home. It’s an utterly devious and devilish conspiracy.
Surely, these
Buddhists of Arakan give a bad name to their religion and the non-violent
founder of their faith. Their malicious words and acts of unfathomable bigotry,
racism, aggression against and oppression of the Rohingya people show that they
are misfits to the civilized world, especially in the 21st century
when people have learned to live amicably burying their age-old prejudice.
Indubitably, multi-culture, integration and pluralism -- a reality in most
parts of our world today -- are alien concepts to them, and as such, are an
anathema to everything that they stand for or crave for their fractured country
along the ethnic line.
The only way this
country of many nations can survive and evolve into a civilized state is not
through the brutal and savage arms of injustice, denial, xenophobia, abuse and
oppression of the minorities but a federal democratic framework that genuinely
protects all ensuring their human rights and equality without any
discrimination. This means, the Rohingyas of Arakan should have the same rights
as enjoyed by a Rakhine; the Karens have the same rights as enjoyed by a Bamar,
and so on and so forth for all the races, tribes, ethnicities, and groups.
As much as the
spiteful non-Muslim promoters of ‘Islamization of Europe’ and ‘Islamization of
America’ have failed to bring about mass-scale onslaught against minority
Muslims living in the West, and, instead, have unearthed their own unfathomable
bigotry and racism, and the often-ignored but dirty little secret about the
criminality of the homegrown terrorists and white hate-groups, the fascists of
Arakan
and Burma are doomed to failure with their fear-tactic of using
boogeyman of ‘Islamization of Burma.’ Their disinformation campaign has also
unearthed their true hideous selves.
2: Analysis: The
Land and the Indigenous People of Arakan:
To incite violence
and bigotry against the Rohingya Muslims of Arakan, Khin Maung Saw does not
waste any time. He starts with a picture of a Muslim congregational prayer on
the front page, followed by a photo of some soldiers (or possibly guerillas)
sitting on the ground. The connotation is quite obvious. However, such
fear-mongering tactics will not succeed and would only lay bare the hideous
character of their accusers, as it did in Norway. After all, of all the various
communities that call Arakan their home, it is the Rakhine Maghs of Burma that
have continued to practice violence; they want a ‘free’ Arakan away from the no
less monstrous military brutes of Burma, while still purporting to retain its
racist, non-democratic and fascist character that does not allow integration
and multi-culture.
In his prologue Saw
mentions the story of an ‘ungrateful’ camel that had dislodged its master from
the tent. He does not duck the connotation by stating that the Rohingyas of
Burma are like that camel in the story that are trying to dislodge the ‘owner’
of the tent. By ‘owner’, he obviously means his own race - the Rakhine Magh.
Fact is, however,
opposed to this make-belief fictional story put forth by the chauvinist
Rakhine: the Rohingyas are neither the guests of Arakan nor are they trying to
dislodge anyone. Far from the false Rakhine propaganda of being the outsiders
who had settled in Arakan during the British rule of Arakan -- a persistent
theme in the propaganda materials of Aye Kyaw, Aye Chan, Khin Maung Saw and
other ultra-chauvinist racists of Arakan -- the existence of the Rohingya in
the soil of Arakan predates the Magh influx to the territory from Tibet and
other parts of Burma.
As credible
research work by unbiased historians and researchers have amply shown, these
Rohingyas, derogatorily called the Kalas (by the racist Maghs of Arakan), are
the descendants of the indigenous people of Arakan – the true Bhumiputras (adibashis)
-- of the land.3 For instance, the distinguished historian (late) Professor
Abdul Karim wrote, “In fact the forefathers of Rohingyas had entered into
Arakan from time immemorial.”4
After all, as noted
by many area historians the ancestors of Rakhines did not enter the territory
until the 10th
century CE. Historian D.G.E. Hall writes,
“Burmese do
not seem to have settled in Arakan until possibly as late as the tenth century
A.D. Hence earlier dynasties are thought to have been Indian, ruling over a
population similar to that of Bengal.”5
M.S. Collis who did extensive research
work on Arakan’s history, including studying its coinage and old manuscripts,
similarly concluded that “that Wesali was an easterly Hindu kingdom of
Bengal, following the Mahayanist form of Buddhism and that both government and
people were Indian as the Mongolian influx had not yet occurred.”6
[Note: Wesali, or more correctly spelled
as Vaishali, was an earlier capital of Arakan, established in late 8th century.]
Separated to the north by the high hills and deep forests of the Chin
State and to the east by the almost insurmountable Arakan Yoma mountain range
which divides the Arakan coastal area from the rest of Burma, the region came
to be known as the land of the ‘Kala Mukh’ (Land of the ‘Black Faces’),
inhabited by these dark brown-colored Indians who had much in common with the
people (today’s Bangladeshis, or more particularly Chittagonians) living on the
north-western side of the Naaf River, along the adjoining coastal areas of the
Bay of Bengal.7 The resemblance was not limited to physical features like skin
color, shape of head and nose alone, but also in shared culture and beliefs.
They thrived on rice cultivation on the fertile planes and the abundant supply
of fish in the nearby rivers, streams and the Bay of Bengal. The one-mile wide
Naaf River was no barrier to sustain family and cultural ties between these
sea-faring people living on either side of the river. Arakan’s northern part
Mayu, as noted by Dr. Moshe Yegar, can be seen as ‘an almost direct
continuation of eastern Bengal’ [Bangladesh].8
The Arakan Mountain
range also served as a barrier inhibiting Burmese invasions, and allowing
Arakan to develop as a separate political entity. As already noted and
concurred by all historians the influx of the Sino-Tibetans (with Mongoloid
features) in Arakan, resembling today’s Rakhine stock, did not happen until
after the collapse of the Vaisali kingdom in the 10th century CE.9
What happened to the region in
the centuries before and after this invasion? As evidenced by numerous
archeological finds, it is obvious that the Hindu colonists, fuelled by their
need for trade and commerce, gold and silver, first colonized the region in the
early 1st century
CE. According to Dr. Emil Forchhammer, a Swiss Professor of Pali at Rangoon
College, and Superintendent of the newly founded Archaeological Survey (1881):
“The earliest dawn of the history of Arakan reveals the base of the hills,
which divide the lowest courses of the Kaladan and Lemro rivers, inhabited by
sojourners from India… Their subjects are divided into the four castes of the
older Hindu communities…”10
By the 3rd century
(CE), the coastal region of Kala Mukh (Arakan) had been settled with the
colonists dominating and coexisting warily with the indigenous people. In the
sites of major habitation Sanskrit became the written language of the ruling
class, and the religious beliefs were those prevalent at that time in
south-Asia (or Indian sub-continent). 11 The Hindu kings that ruled the coastal
territories of Chittagong also ruled the crescent of Arakan. Presumably, the
indigenous people of Arakan, much like their brothers and sisters living to the
north-west of the Naaf River in (today’s) Chittagong, practiced some loose form
of Hinduism.
The second phase of
Indianization of Arakan occurred between the 4th and the 6th century
CE, by which time the colonists had established their kingdom, and named their
capital Vaishali. As a port city, Vaishali was in contact with Samatat (the
planes of lower Bangladesh) and other parts of India and Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
Historically, these early rulers came to be known as the Chandras and
controlled the territories as far north as Chittagong.12
The Anand Chandra Inscription,
which contains 65 verses (71 and a half lines) and now sited at the Shitthaung
pagoda, provides some information about these early rulers. Interestingly, neither
the name of the kingdom or the two premier cities – Dhanyavati and Vaishali –
is mentioned. This 11-foot high monolith, unique in entire Burma, has three of
its four faces inscribed in a Nagari script, which is closely allied to those
of
Bengali and north-eastern India. As noted rightly by Noel Singer had
it not been for Professor E.H. Johnston of Balliol College, Oxford, who
translated the Sanskrit script and the Indian epigraphists before him, the
contents of the Inscription which remained inaccessible for well over a
thousand years would never have been known.13
The script on the panel on the
east face is believed by Johnston to be the oldest. According to Pamela Gutman
it was similar to the type of script used in Bengal (Bangladesh) during the early
6th century
CE. As to the panel on the north face, Johnston mentioned that several smaller
inscriptions in Bengali characters had been added in the 10th century.
Gutman however felt that the principal text in this section is of the mid-11th century
CE. The panel on the west face, which is reasonably preserved, is believed by
Gutman to be of the earlier part of the 8th century. This priceless
document not only lists the personalities of each monarch but also some of the
major events of every reign.14
So who is this Ananda Chandra?
In verse 64, it clearly says that he was a descendant of the Saiva-Andhra
monarchs [presumably of Banga or Bangladesh] whose kingdom was located between
the Godavari and Krishna Rivers of Bengal, and close to the Bay of Bengal. The
founder of this new dynasty was Vajra Sakti who reigned circa 649-665 CE. His
successor was Sri Dharma Vijaya, who reigned from circa 665-701. As noted by
Singer, and much in contrast to Rakhine claims, Dharma Vijaya was not a
Theravada Buddhist, but probably a Mahayanist. The next in line was Narendra
Vijaya who reigned from circa 701 to 704 CE. The next to rule was Sri Dharma
Chandra, who reigned from 704 to 720 CE. He was the father of Ananda Chandra
who was a munificent patron of Mahayana Buddhism and Hindu institutions.15
As can be clearly seen from the
above brief review, the rulers that ruled Arakan, in centuries before the
Sino-Tibetan invasion, were of Indian descent, as were the people (the
so-called Kalas) who lived there. They had much in common with Banga, or
today’s Bangladesh.
So what happened to those
indigenous people after the invasion of Arakan in 957 CE by the Sino-Tibetan
race? We have absolutely no historic evidence to suggest that they were
exterminated. It is not difficult to understand that while the kingdom had
changed hands, a majority of those indigenous people (the ‘Kalas’) continued on
with their lives as usual, paying taxes (e.g., in grains) to their new rulers,
as they had done before to the previous rulers. Some perhaps changed their
faith to Buddhism, while many retained their ancestral religion. Theravada
Buddhism, imported mostly from Sri Lanka, took centuries to take its root in
Arakan, gradually replacing the Mahayanist Buddhism of the latter Vaisali
rulers.
It is also important to note
that many of the Sinhalese Buddhists, who later came as monks and settlers to
Arakan, were the descendants of Bengali Buddhists who had fled the country as a
result of internecine wars that took place between the forces of Hinduism and Buddhism
in nearby Bengal in the centuries before Islam came to the region. As Buddhism
was almost wiped out in Bengal by the Hindu rulers and the Brahmin clergy, it
found a safe haven in Sri Lanka where it flourished. And who would have thought
that centuries later those Singhalese Buddhists (with a remarkable facial
similarity with the people of Bengal), the progenies of fleeing Buddhists from
Bengal, would one day become the harbinger of the new faith - Theravada
Buddhism -- in Arakan and rest of Burma?
While the previous Vaishali rulers looked westward, the newer
Sino-Tibetan rulers looked eastward, thus allowing mixing of its race with the
Burman people of today’s Myanmar proper.16 Eventually Arakan became subservient
to the Burman rulers of Pegu until 1287 CE. Over the centuries, thus, two
communities emerged – one the indigenous with Indian (Bengali/Arakanese)
features (the forefathers of today’s Rohingya Hindus and Muslims) and the
other, the new-comers with Mongoloid features (the forefathers of today’s
Rakhine Buddhists). It is not difficult to also conclude that in those days of
porous borders across land and sea there were migration of other races and
religions to this region. Buddhist monks, e.g., came from Sri Lanka bringing in
their Theravada Buddhism, as did others, slowly changing the culture of the
people living there.17
It is simply regrettable to
notice how today’s ultra-chauvinistic Rakhine and Burman intelligentsia with
tunnel-vision refuses to widen their knowledge of the ‘other’ people, Hindus
and Muslims, who share the same territory. Anything Indian/Bengali/Chittagonian
is usually looked down and frowned upon. It is pure racism at its worst.
3: The Muslim
Factor in Arakan
Just as it happened throughout
the coastal territories from the Arabian Peninsula to the Barbary Coast and the
shores of Gibraltar and Iberian Peninsula (and beyond) via Alexandria, Tripoli
and Tunis to the west, and to the shores of Mozambique (originally
Musa-bin-Baik) via Zanzibar and Mombasa to the south, and to the lower Gangetic
Delta (Bangladesh) and beyond (to the Strait of Malacca) via the Malabar Coast
of India to the east, the maritime trade route in the India Ocean in those days
(pre-dating European colonization) used to be controlled by the Arab/Persian Muslims.
18 As
they traded they also created pockets of settlements, and interacting with and
marrying into the local populace, which slowly changed the local customs and
culture.19
After the rapid expansion of
Islam in the 7th century, according to Dr. Moshe Yegar, “Colonies of
Muslims, both Arab and Persian, spread all along the sea trade routes… As early
as the middle of the 8th century, a sizable Muslim concentration
could be found in along the southern coast of China, in the commercial ports of
southern India, and Southeast Asia…. Merchants brought silk, spices, perfumes,
lumber, porcelain, silver and gold articles, precious jewels, jewelry, and so
forth from these countries, and some of the trade made its way to Europe.”20
“Because sailing ships were dependent on monsoon winds and seasons, it was
essential for Arabs and other Muslim traders,” writes Yegar, “to set up
domiciles in ports that were located in the heart of local communities. Muslim
settlements spread rapidly in Asian port cities as Muslim merchants became
vital to the economy of the local communities.”21
The local inhabitants of
Arakan, as noted in the British Burma Gazetteer (1957), had interactions with
the so-called Mohammedans – the ‘Moor Arab Muslims’ (merchants/traders), dating
at least to the time of Mahataing Sandya (8th century CE).22 As to the
Muslim settlements in Arakan, the renowned scholars of the early 20th century,
Professor Enamul Haq and Abdul Karim Shahitya Visarad wrote in 1935: “The
Muslim influence in Roshang [Mrohang: the capital of Arakan during the Mrauk-U
kingdom] and modern Chattagram [Chittagong] has been noticeable from ancient
times. The Arab traders established trade link with the East Indies in the
eighth and ninth century AD. During this time Chittagong, the lone seaport of
East India, became the resting place and colony of the Arabs. We know from the
accounts of the ancient Arab travelers
and geologists including Sulaiman (living in 851 AD), Abu Jaidul Hasan
(contemporary of Sulaiman), Ibnu Khuradba (died 912 AD), Al-Masudi (died 956
AD), Ibnu Howkal (wrote his travelogue in 976 AD), Al-Idrisi (born last half of
11th century) that the Arab traders became active in the area between Arakan
and the eastern bank of the Meghna River [in today’s Bangladesh]. We can also
learn about this from the Roshang national history: when Roshang King, Maha
Taing Chandra (788 – 810 AD) was ruling in the 9th century, some ship wrecked
Muslim traders were washed ashore on ‘Ronbee’ or ‘Ramree’ Island. When they
were taken to the Arakanese king, the king ordered them to live in the village
(countryside) in his country.23 Other historians also recognized the fact that
Islam and its influence developed in Arakan in the 9th and 10th century AD.”24 [Explanatory notes within the parentheses [ ] are mine. It is
worth noting that in the dialect prevalent in Chittagong and Arakan the vocal
sounds ‘Ha’ and ‘Sha’ are interchangeable. Thus the words Roshang and Rohang
are interchangeable. – H.S.]
R.B. Smart writes
in the British Burma Gazetteer as follows: “The local histories relate that
in the ninth century several ships were wrecked on Ramree Island and the
Mussalman crews sent to Arakan and placed in villages there. They differ but
little from the Arakanese except in their religion and in the social customs
which their religion directs, in the writing they use Burmese, but amongst
themselves employ colloquially the language of their ancestors.”25
As noted by
renowned historian Professor Abdul Karim, “The important point to be noticed
about these shipwrecked Muslims is that they have stuck to their religion, i.e.
Islam and Islamic social customs. Though they used Burmese language and also
adopted other local customs, they have retained the language of their ancestors
(probably with mixture of local words) in dealing among themselves. Another
point to be noted is that the Arab shipwrecked Muslims have retained their
religion, language and social customs for more than a thousand years.”26
These shipwrecked Arab
Muslims became the nucleus of the Muslim population of Arakan; later other
Muslims from Arabia, Persia and other countries entered into Arakan.
Dr. Yegar says, “Beginning
with their arrival in the Bay of Bengal, the earliest Muslim merchant ships also
called at the ports of Arakan and Burma proper… Muslim influence in Arakan was
of great cultural and political importance. In effect, Arakan was the beachhead
for Muslim penetration into other parts of Burma even if it never achieved the
same degree of importance it did in Arakan. As a result of close land and sea
contacts maintained between the two countries, Muslims played a key role in the
history of the Kingdom of Arakan.”27
It is no accident
that Akyab (today’s Sittwe, the capital of Arakan state of Burma, situated on
the south-eastern bank of the Naaf River) is a Farsi name, as are so many other
towns and villages named, and how over the centuries most of these local
inhabitants along the coastal towns and villages, tired of a corrupt form of
their ancestral region, would convert to Islam.28 And this happened centuries
before Muslim rulers governed some of those territories.
Professor Enamul Haq and Abdul
Karim Shahitya Visarad wrote: “The Arabic influence increased to such a
large extent in Chittagong during mid-10th century AD that a small Muslim
kingdom was established in this region, and the ruler of the kingdom was called
‘Sultan’. Possibly the area from the east bank of the Meghna River to the Naaf
was under this ‘Sultan’. We can know about the presence of this
‘Sultan’ in the Roshang [Mrohang, the capital Arakan during the Mrauk-U
dynasty] national history. In 953 AD Roshang King, Sulataing Chandra (951- 957
AD) crossed his border into Bangla (Bengal) and defeated the ‘Thuratan’
(Arakanese corrupt form of Sultan), and as a symbol of victory setup a stone
victory pillar at a place called ‘Chaikta-gong’ and returned home at the
request of the courtiers and friends. This Chaik-ta-gong was the last border of
his victory, since according to Roshang national history – ‘Chaik-ta-gong’
means ‘war should not be raised’. Many surmise that the modem name of
Chittagong district originated from Chaik-ta-gong.”
If the story of Arakanese king
-- mentioned in its Chronicles -- moving into Chittagong can be believed, in
southern Bangladesh, especially in Chittagong, not only was there a Muslim
community present but also a Muslim Sultanate ruling there in the 10th century.
It may explain why Dr. Than Tun, the former Rector of Mandalay University and
Professor of History at the Rangoon University, believed that the kings
mentioned in the Inscription might have been Rohingyas, who lived in the
eastern part of the Naaf River. He writes, “In the Kyaukza or stone inscription
of 1442, it was written that some Muslim kings of Arakan were the friends of
king of Ava.”29
In their masterpiece, Arakan
Rajshavay Bangla Shahitya, Professor Enamul Haq and Abdul Karim Shahitya
Visarad continued, “In this way the religion of Islam spread and the Muslim
influence slowly extended from the eastern bank of the Meghna to Roshang
Kingdom in the 8th and 9th centuries. From the travelogues of the Egyptian
traveler to India, Ibn Batuta (14th century AD) and from the accounts of the
Portuguese pirates in the 16th century, the influence of the ‘Moors’ or Arabs
was waxing till then. So it is evident that long before the Muslim race was
established in Bengal in the 13th century, Islam reached to this remote region
of Bengal. A conclusion may easily be drawn that after the establishment in
Bengal, Islam further spread in the region. That is why Bengali literature was
for the first time cultivated among the Muslim of the region. Since the 15th
century onwards the Muslims of this region began to engage themselves in the
study of Bengali, that is, began to write books in Bengali, of which we have
lots of proofs.” 30
The Muslim saints,
the Sufis, who came in hundreds to the shores of Bay of Bengal had a fabulous
influence in proselytizing the local inhabitants to Islam.31 The Arakanese
chronicle gives reference to the traveling of Sufis in that country at the time
of the king Anawarhta (1044-1077 CE) during Pagan period.32 Even, a Russian
merchant, Athanasius Nitikin, who traveled in the East (1470), mentions
regarding activities of some Muslim Sufis of Pegu. The Merchant pictured Pegu
as "no inconsiderable port, inhabited by Indian dervishes. The products
derived from thence are manik, akhut, kyrpuk, which are sold by the dervishes.”
As noted by Dr. Mohammed Ali Chowdhury, these dervishes were Muslims, and
probably of Arab descent, and that at that time some Muslims (from nearby
Muslim India) had settled in those places.33
As it happened
throughout history, wherever Muslims went and settled, they were able to
proselytize the local people. The simplicity of their faith, views about
salvation, egalitarian characteristics and ease of practice, and their ethos -
morals, values, dealings, manners and customs -- had a profound effect on the
local population to gravitate them to the faith of these strangers, the
newcomers, away from the degenerative form of their own religion that they had
endured. These migrant Muslims married into the local populace and parented
children.
In his book, The Essential History of Burma, historian U Kyi writes, “The
superior morality of those devout Muslims attracted large number of people
towards Islam who embraced it en masse.”34
This essential
piece of history of the Muslims of the coastal regions of today’s Bangladesh
and Arakan state of Burma is simply ignored by chauvinist elements within the
Rakhine and Burmese community. They cannot imagine Islam amongst the ordinary
masses without rulers being of the same faith. They also forget that Islam from
its very inception has been a simple practical religion, away from the curses
of racism, supremacist concepts and caste system that so overwhelmingly
dominated the then Buddhist and Hindu culture. While the temples, statues,
mandirs and pagodas were built with gold and precious ornaments, and monks and
priests held the demigod status enjoying the benefits of the vast material
resources that were endowed to them for their upkeep, ordinary people went
hungry and poor, and were forced to lead a life of begging and eternal
servitude. It is no accident of history either that vast majority of people in
places like Malaysia, southern Philippines and Indonesia, where no Muslim army
went, would one day become Muslims and abandon their ancestral religions.35
The restoration of the deposed
king Narameikhla (Mong Saw Mwan) to the throne of Arakan by the Muslim Sultan
Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah of Bengal, thus ushering in the Mrauk-U dynasty
(1430-1784 CE), is a turning point in the history of Arakan. From this time
onward, many of its rulers, indebted to the Muslim Sultan adopted Muslim names
(and may even have converted to Islam), a practice that would continue for the
next two centuries, until 1638 CE.36 It is worth noting here that when
Narameikhla was dethroned in 1404 CE by the Burman forces, he chose to flee to
Muslim Bengal instead of either the Buddhist-ruled Tripura or the Hindu-ruled
territories of India.
When the king Naramikhla
reached the capital, he was widely acclaimed by his people. He was aided by two
contingents of 50,000 Muslim soldiers (first under General Wali Khan and later
under Sandi Khan) many of whom later settled in Arakan. They became his
advisers and ministers making sure that the territory was not lost again to the
Burmans.
The first thing Naramikhla did
after regaining his throne was to transfer the capital from Launggyet to
Mrohaung, which in the hands of Bengali poets and people became Roshang
(Rohang).37 Those Muslims established the Sandi Khan Mosque in Mrohaung. Their
descendants, as noted by the Bengali poets of the 17th century,
held high positions during the Mrauk-U dynasty. During the successive centuries
the Muslim population in Arakan grew in large numbers as a result of
inter-marriage, immigration and conversion. [In my travels around the Diaspora
communities, I have come across many of the descendants of those soldiers who
came and settled in Arakan during Narameikhla’s time. As Anthony Irwin had
noted some 70 years ago, these Muslims look quite different than average
Bangladeshis; many of them have distinct Arab and Persian touch about them;
many even have Mongoloid touch.]
As a vassal state of the Muslim
Sultanate to the west, Arakan adopted the superior Muslim culture from the west
in its courts, and minted coins with Arabic inscription of the Muslim article
of faith (kalima). In this way, Arakan remained subordinate to Bengal
until 1531. Interestingly, however, as noted above, its kings continued using
Muslim titles even after they were liberated from dependency on the sultans of
Bengal. As to the
reason behind this practice, Dr. Yegar writes, “[T]hey were
influenced by the fact that many of their subjects had become Muslims.
Indeed, many Muslims served in prestigious positions in the royal
administration despite its being Buddhist.”38 In Rakhine Maha Razwin (Great
History of Arakan), Tha Thun Aung describes mass conversion of many Arakanese
to Islam in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Because of her geographical
proximity with the south-eastern parts of Bengal, Arakan developed both
political and cultural ties with its neighbor to the north-west. Major Muslim
settlements developed along the rivers of Lemru, Mingen, Kaladan, Mayu and
Naaf. Its courts and royalties patronized Bengali literature. Some of the best
known classical Bengali poets (Alaol, Dawlat Qazi and Mardan) came from Arakan.39
Its capital city essentially became the breeding ground for Bengali literature
in the 17th
century.40 This Mrauk-U period also came to be known as the
‘Golden Age’ in the history of Arakan.
It is also worth mentioning
here that as a result of rather lax administrative control of Chittagong by the
Mughal and Afghan rulers, and the intermittent rebellion by the Sultans of
Bengal against the central government in Delhi, the territory was lost to
Arakan between 1580 and 1666 CE.41 So the ties between Chittagong and Arakan
were no less striking than those visible today in places like Texas and
California with Mexico.
In their masterpiece work "Arakan
Rajsabhay Bangala Shahitya,” Abdul Karim Shahitya Visarad and Dr. Enamul
Haq wrote, "The way Bangali flourished in the court of the 17th century
Arakan, nothing of that sort is found in its [Bengal’s] own soil. It is
surprising that during the exile of Bengali language in Arakan, it was greatly
appreciated by the Muslim courtiers of the Arakanese kings and the Muslim poets
of East Bengal, especially those of the [greater] Chittagong Division.”42
These scholars further wrote, “The
study of Bengali literature that the Muslim initiated reached perfection under
the aegis of the courtiers of the Roshang kings. It is needless to say that the
Kings’ Court of Roshang got filled up with Muslim influence long before this.
From the beginning of the 15th century AD the Kings’ Court of Roshang by luck
was compelled to heartily receive the Muslim influence…
…. [T]he powerful
intrusion of the Muslim influence that penetrated into the Kings’ Court of
Roshang in the fifteenth century AD grew all the more in the following
centuries. This influence gradually grew so strong that it reached the highest
point in the seventeenth century. The Bengali literature in this century shows
the full picture of the Muslim influence in the King’s Court of Roshang.”
How can this piece of history
about flourishing Bengali literature and the presence of Muslim courtiers and subjects
in Arakan be ignored by any objective analyst?
Nor should one forget that when
the Mughal Prince Shah Shuja, the Governor of Bengal (1639-59), chose to take
asylum in 1660 CE instead of submitting to the authority of Aurangzeb – the new
Mughal Emperor, he chose Arakan, which already had many high ranking Muslims
serving the king of Arakan. He was accompanied by his family members and
retinues, which included hundreds of bodyguards. Upon arrival, however, the
Mughal Prince was betrayed by the Arakanese king Sanda Sudamma. While there are
competing accounts as to what had ultimately happened to the fate of the
Prince, including one account that suggests that Shah Shuja and his family
members were treacherously murdered (and another that suggests that he was able
to flee to Manipur
with some of his retinues), there is little doubt that many of his
guards who were attacked savagely by the Maghs of Arakan fled to the nearby
jungle.43 Some of the surviving guards were later made royal archers and
bodyguards serving the Arakanese king.44 Their descendants, known as the Kamans
or Kamanchis (bowman), are to be found settled mostly in Rambree Island.45 Some
of the followers of Shah Shuja escaped the persecution of Maghs and crossed to
Burma. The king of Ava settled them in Ramethin, Shwebo, Maydu and Meiktila.
Their descendants can be found today in these places.46
There was yet another kind of
interaction between the Kingdom of Arakan with its eastern neighbor Bengal,
beginning in the 17th century, when gaining strength, the kings of Arakan
would allow the plunder of Bengal, and Bengali captives – tens of thousands -
would be brought to work as slaves in Arakan.47 When the Portuguese moved to
the Bay of Bengal, they were allowed to set up their military posts in Arakan.
In return, the Portuguese aided the Rakhine Maghs in their piracy in Bengal,
terrorizing its people and harassing the Mughal forces.48 The joint
Magh-Portuguese marauding expeditions into Bengal continued well after they
were routed out of Chittagong in 1666 by Shaista Khan, the Mughal Viceroy
(Subedar) of Bengal and his son General Bujurg Umid Khan. Taking captives, most
of whom were Muslims, forcing them into slavery was an important part of those
raids.49
Friar Manrique, a Portuguese
priest who visited Bengal and Arakan and who spent six years in the Augustinian
Church at Dianga (Deang, near Chittagong town), was himself a witness to such
Magh-Portuguese piratical raids. He wrote, “They usually made there general
attacks three or four times in the year, irrespective of minor raids which went
on most of the year, so that during the five years I spent in the kingdom of
Arracan, some eighteen thousand people came to the ports of Dianga and
Angarcale.”50
As can be seen from Manrique’s
account, the number of those captives was not small, and was in excess of 3,000
per year, and continued for well over a century of piracy. This is further
evidenced by the fact that when the Chittagong fort fell into the hands of the
Mughals, 10,000 Bengali (both Muslim and Hindu) captives got liberty and they
went to their homes. While the Portuguese pirates sold their captives and/or
forcibly baptized them into Christianity, the Magh pirates forced theirs into
slave labors in the paddy fields along the Kaladan River (the river was named
after these Kalas). So these captives also helped in increasing the Muslim
population of Arakan.51 The descendants of these captives mostly reside now in
Kyauktaw and Mrohaung Townships of Arakan.52
According to historian
Professor Abdul Karim, “In the 17th century the Muslims thronged the capital
Mrohaung and they were present in the miniature courts of ministers and other
great Muslim officers of the kingdom. An idea of their presence is available in
the writings of Muslim poets like Alaol who wrote that people from various
countries and belonging to various groups came to Arakan to be under the care
of Arakanese king. The Portuguese Padre Fray Sebastien Manrique visited Arakan
and stayed for some time; he was also present in the coronation ceremony of the
Arakanese king held on 23 January 1635. He gives a description of the
coronation procession and says that of the several contingents of army that
took part in the coronation, one contingent wholly comprised of Muslim
soldiers, let by a Muslim officer called Lashkar Wazir. The leader rode on
Iraqi horse, and the contingent comprised of six hundred soldiers. In other
contingent, led by Arakanese commanders also there were Muslim soldiers. This
evidence of Sebastien Manrique combined with the fact that there were
several Muslim ministers in Arakan gives a good picture of the
presence of the Muslim in Arakan in the 17th century. The influence of the
Muslim officers over the king of Arakan is also evident from the episodes
mentioned by Sebastien Manrique.”53
The Muslims of Arakan,
therefore, are an amalgam of new migrants - Shaikhs, Syeds, Qazis, Mollahs,
Alims, Fakirs, Arabs, Rumis (Turks), Moghuls, Pathans - from various parts of
the Muslim world that settled during and before the Mrauk-U dynasty, including
the captives (the so-called Kolas) brought in from various parts of Bengal and
India, and the indigenous Muslims (the children of Bhumiputras who had
converted to Islam over the centuries). They created the genesis of what we
call the Rohingya Muslims. To put it succinctly: the Rohingya Muslims are the
descendants of the indigenous 'Kalas' that either converted or mixed with the
Muslim settlers/travelers/Sufis (including Arab/Persian merchants, traders) to
the region, the non-returning soldiers who came to restore Narameikhla to the
throne of Arakan, the unwilling captives and others that called Arakan their
ancestral home. Hence, the Rohingya Muslims are not an ethnic group, which
developed from one tribal group affiliation or single racial stock, but are an
ethnic group that developed from different stocks of people.
As already demonstrated, the
conversion of these indigenous people to Islam has been no different than what
has happened throughout history in the last 14 centuries along the coastal
regions from Mozambique to Malacca. It should, therefore, come as no surprise
that the Rohingyas of Arakan while having some similarities in matters of
physical features, and borrowing religious, linguistic and cultural heritage
with their neighbors to the west would develop their own distinct identity,
albeit a hybrid or mosaic one. They are neither Chittagonians nor are they
Bengalis [Bangladeshis].
The Rohingya Muslims - the
‘Musulman Arakanese’ - as Anthony Irwin noted, ‘are quite unlike any other
product of India or Burma that I have seen.’54 Similarly, Moshe Yeager noted,
“There is very little common – except common religion – between the Rohingyas
of Arakan and the Indian Muslims of Rangoon or Burmese Muslims…”55
While their ancestral territory
would later be colonized by the Tibeto-Burman Buddhists (i.e., the ancestors of
today’s Rakhines) whose cultural ties have been towards the east, it is the
strength of their group character that the Rohingyas of Arakan were able to
retain their linguistic and genealogical ties to the soil. After all, the
Rakhines are genetically, culturally and linguistically closer to the Burmans
(of Burma). On the other hand, as Dr. Yegar noted ‘the Rohingyas preserved
their own heritage from the impact of the Buddhist environment, not only as far
as their religion is concerned, but also in … their culture.’56
As the children of the
indigenous people of Arakan, the Rohingyas have as much right, if not more, as
the Rakhine Buddhists, to identify themselves with the name that they prefer to
describe them. If the late-coming Tibeto-Burman admixture has no problem in
calling itself the Rakhaing of Arakan, no outsider (and surely not its abuser)
has any right to either define the Rohingya maliciously or deny the same
privilege in self-identifying itself.
To call these indigenous people
of Arakan -- who identify themselves as the Rohingyas in Burma – “unwanted
guests” is like calling the Native Americans unwanted refugees who had settled
in America after the Europeans. As much as no massacre of yesteryears and
ghettoization of the Native Americans today in designated American Indian
Reservation
camps can obliterate their genuine right, place, history and identity,
no propaganda and government or non-government sponsored pogroms can erase the
rightful identity of the Rohingya people of Burma. They are the children of the
soil of Arakan.
4: The Demography Controversy
Khin Maung Saw
provides a highly distorted rendition of the 1784 invasion of Arakan and tries
to justify the brutal occupation by the racist and bigot Burman King Bodaw Paya
by saying that it was all about reformation of the Buddhist Monk's order. To
him, all those who fled were only 50,000. And obviously, to him, these were
Rakhines (and no Rohingyas). Likewise, the Rohingya factor starts with British
control of Arakan, esp. as he puts it, after 1886, as if they simply did not
exist before the British colonization. He writes, "Arakan was very
under-populated at that time. Therefore, the British brought tens of thousands
of Chittagonian Bengali Muslims into Arakan. The Arakanese (Rakhaings) have to
bear the burdens of these aliens until today. These aliens tried and are still
trying to Islamize Arakan (if not the whole of Burma) by all means."
Obviously, such a
narrative belies history, esp. the multi-cultural reality of Arakan during the
Mrauk-U dynasty, preceding Bodaw Paya's invasion. As we have noted elsewhere,
during the 40-year Burmese tyrannical rule (1784-1824) of Arakan, tens of
thousands of Arakanese of all faiths were massacred.57 The conquering Burmese
forces demolished mosques, temples and shrines and stole the treasures of
Arakan (including the Mahamuni statue). They conscripted and enslaved many,
some of whom died out of fatigue and hunger while the living ones were settled
at other parts of Burma.58 Some 20,000 inhabitants were taken as prisoners to
Ava. By 1798, Bodaw’s repeated demand for forced slave labor (e.g., to build
pagodas) and conscript service and the atrocity of his forces plus the rapacity
of his local representatives had forced two-thirds of the inhabitants - Hindu,
Muslim and Buddhist alike – to take refuge in Chittagong (Bengal).59 As noted
by Farooque Ahmed, a researcher at the JNU, just the number of Muslim refugees
to Bengal might have been 200,000.60 What is worse: during the next four
decades of Burman colonization of Arakan, everything that was materially and
culturally Islamic was meticulously razed to the ground.
According to G.E.
Harvey, “Arakan had never been populous, and now it became a desert; the
towns were deserted and overgrown with jungle, and there was nothing more to be
seen but ‘utter destruction … morass, pestilence and death.’”61 Khin Maung
Saw’s attempt to whitewash the blood-soaked history of his idol, Bodaw Paya, is
simply ludicrous, if not criminal and evil. He may like to re-read the
historical account of this Buddhist monster, and learn why the Arakanese
enthusiastically collaborated with the East India Company to get rid of the
Burmans.
As we have noted
earlier, the number of Muslims who lived in Mrohaung, the capital, during
Mrauk-U kingdom was rather large, probably half the population. It is not difficult
to surmise that the Muslim population could have grown to well over 300,000 in
1784 before the Burman invasion of Arakan, just from the Muslim soldiers alone
that had settled there after restoring Narameikhla to the throne in 1430.62
It is well known
from demographic studies within Bangladesh that most of those fleeing refugees
– mostly Muslim (and some Hindu) Rohingyas and Rakhine Buddhists - never
returned, even when the British allowed such immigration after it had captured
Arakan after the first Anglo-Burmese War of 1824-26. They assimilated within
Bengal, esp.
Chittagong and Chittagong Hill Tract Districts. For example, the
‘Rohai’, comprising nearly half the population in southern Chittagong, trace
their origin to Arakan, and as citizens of Bangladesh, have no desire to return
to Arakan after more than two centuries.63 Similarly many Rakhine Buddhists are
now citizens of Bangladesh. If the descendants of Arakan who had fled to
Chittagong during Bodaw Paya’s invasion of the territory can become citizens of
Bangladesh, K.M. Saw’s claim that the Rohingyas in Arakan are the aliens and
that they don’t deserve Burmese citizenship show his utterly repugnant
chauvinistic attitude that is at odds with scores of international laws
governing basic human rights.
We have also seen
throughout history that a persecuted people, no matter how horrible the living
condition is even under the worst of the circumstances minus annihilation,
don’t want to leave their ancestral homes. Many would prefer to endure their sufferings
than opt out into a life of refugee. Thus, it is conceivable that in spite of
the Burman savagery, many Arakanese Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists continued to
live inside Arakan, and many would move to and fro through the porous borders
as they felt either secure or insecure.
We are, therefore,
not surprised to read Francis Buchanan’s eye-witness account who was a surgeon
in 1795 to the British Embassy in Ava, the Burmese capital. He wrote about
three dialects spoken: “The first is that spoken by the Mohammedans [Muslims],
who have long settled in Arakan and who call themselves Roangiya [Rohingya]
or native of Arakan.”64 In stark contrast to the propaganda of the
Buddhist racists in today’s Burma, Buchanan clearly identifies the Rohingya
people as the natives of Arakan. [K.M. Saw, e.g., tries to mischievously
downplay this with his silly explanations, which are so ludicrous that one can
clearly see that he was running out of his tricks.]65 How could the Rohingya be
a product of the British colonization when Britain did not even move into the
territory until 1824-6, nearly a quarter century after Buchanan’s account?
To account for
Muslim factor in Arakan, Saw shoots onto his own foot by quoting R.B. Smart,
the deputy assistant commissioner of Akyab: “Since1879, immigration has
taken place on a much larger scale, and the descendants of the slaves are
resident for the most part in the Kyauktaw and Myohaung [Mrohaung] townships.
Maungdaw Township has been overrun by Chittagonian immigrants. Butheedaung is
not far behind and new arrivals will be found in almost every part of the
district."
Who are these
‘slaves’ that Smart talks about, if they are not the ancestors of today's
Rohingyas? So, surely, before 1886, there were already those Kalas in the
territory. How did they originate? Did they originate during the British rule,
starting at 1824? Surely, not! Can anyone deny the fact that they were a legacy
of the Magh-Portuguese piracy, so evident during much of the 17th and
the 18th centuries,
when at least 3,000 Bengalis were taken as captives per year, many of whom were
forced to work as slaves in Arakan? According to Arthur Phayre, based on the
Travelogue of Friar Manrique, the slave population accounted for 15% of the
total population of Arakan.
It is not difficult
to also understand that under the new political reality of Arakan with the East
India Company (EIC) in power, some of the descendants of the Arakanese refugees
that had settled in the nearby EIC-controlled Bengal would be allured to settle
back in their ancestral land, and that they would prefer to settle in places
like Maungdaw and Buthidaung, which are closest to Teknaf, the southern tip of
Chittagong in Bengal.
That way, if things did not work out for them they could return to
Chittagong with much ease.
The new colonizers
depended on taxation and land-revenue; and rice export was an important trade
in those days. However, with only 740 square miles of the fertile land
cultivable in 1871, rice export was accounting for 105,894 Pounds Sterling
(less than 10% of the total sea-borne trade of Arakan, amounting to 1.35
million Pounds Sterling). More cultivable land in Arakan meant more land
revenue and more income for the British government.
According to the
Encyclopaedia Britannica, the population in Arakan grew to 173,000 in 1831,
248,000 in 1839, 461,136 in 1871 and 762,102 in 1901.66 For the total
population in Arakan to grow to those numbers it would have required yearly
annual growth rates of 11.59%, 7.24%, 3.46%, and 2.74% within the first 5, 13,
45 and 75 years, respectively, since 1826. Since the first two growth rates
(until 1839) cannot be explained away from natural growth, one must look at
huge influx or migration from outside to Arakan as the key contributor to
understand the phenomena.
|
K.M. Saw shares the table below about the
demography in Akyab (the first 4 columns). Races
|
1871
|
1901
|
1911
|
1871- %
|
1901-%
|
1911-%
|
|
Mahomedan
|
58255
|
154887
|
178647
|
21.05
|
32.16
|
33.71
|
|
Burmese
|
4632
|
35751
|
92185
|
1.67
|
7.42
|
17.40
|
|
Arakanese
|
171612
|
230649
|
209432
|
62.02
|
47.89
|
39.52
|
|
Shan
|
334
|
80
|
59
|
0.12
|
0.02
|
0.01
|
|
Hill
|
38577
|
35489
|
34020
|
13.94
|
7.37
|
6.42
|
|
Others
|
606
|
1355
|
1146
|
0.22
|
0.28
|
0.22
|
|
Total
|
276691
|
481666
|
529943
|
100
|
100
|
100
|
Interestingly, while Khin Maung Saw cries foul about the
declining Arakanese (Rakhine) and Hilly population -- becoming only 45.94%
(=39.52+6.42) of the total population in Akyab in 1911, he pretends to suffer
from selective amnesia about why there was the loss of 21,217 individuals
amongst the Rakhines between 1901 and 1911. His silence about the loss of Hilly
people whose numbers had steadily declined by 4557 from 1871 to 1911 (and 1469
between 1901 and 1911) is also strange. Only a half-educated intellectual fraud
could ignore such obvious signs!
In the same period (1901-11) the Rohingya Muslim
population in Akyab had only increased its share from 32.16% to 33.71%, which
can be explained by 1.437% annual growth rate within the community. And this
rate is only half the yearly growth rate common amongst Muslim population, and
may suggest that some of the residents of the district could have moved
elsewhere (including to the Chittagong Division).
As already hinted, amongst many third world countries with a
sizable Muslim population the yearly growth rate of 3% or higher is not
uncommon. Consider the case of Pakistan (erstwhile West Pakistan prior to 16
December 1971) whose population grew 5-fold from a mere 34 million in 1951,
shortly after the partition of India, to 170 million in 2010 (i.e. in six
decades). Between 1951 and 1972, when it ceded Bangladesh, the yearly growth
rate was 3.2%. Thanks to the family planning program, this rate has significantly
come down to 2.5% in the period between 1972 and 2010.
|
|
1961
|
1972
|
1981
|
1998
|
2010
|
% Growth Rate 1951-1972)
|
% Growth Rate 1951-1961)
|
% Growth Rate 1972-2010)
|
% Growth Rate 1951-2010)
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
Bangladesh
|
42
|
50.84
|
75
|
142.3
|
2.800
|
1.928
|
1.700
|
2.090
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Pakistan
|
34
|
43
|
66
|
87
|
132
|
170
|
3.209
|
2.376
|
2.521
|
2.765
|
||||||||||||||||||
For our purpose here, we need not go all the way westward
to Pakistan, but can compare the growth rate of Muslims inside Arakan to that in
nearby Bangladesh. As can be seen
from the above table, Bangladesh
(formerly East Pakistan) had a 2.8% yearly growth rate between 1951 and 1972.
Thanks again to the family planning program, this rate has significantly come
down to 1.7% in the period between 1972 and 2010.
From the above analysis, it is quite obvious that the
growth rate among the Muslims in Akyab (2.841%) between 1871 and 1911 is at par
with the trends shown in Bangladesh (2.8%). Thus, all the fuss about massive
migration of Muslims from Chittagong or Bangladesh to Arakan during the British
rule is not only wrong and baseless, it is racist, to say the least.
Even if we are to assume the conservative estimate of 2.8%
growth rate amongst Rohingya Muslims since 1826, it is not difficult to
estimate that their number could have grown to at least 313,716 in Arakan by
1911. The Rohingya population in Akyab District, per Saw’s table, would have
then comprised only 57% of their total population inside Arakan.
So far from the utterly false claims of racist elements
within the Rakhine community, the likes of Khin Maung Saw, Aye Kyaw and Aye
Chan, the growth within the Rohingya Muslim community of Arakan was an organic
one – a natural one, which had nothing to do with so-called influx or migration
from British Bengal or Chittagong. On the other hand, much of the early
increase in Rakhine and Burmese population to Akyab and Arakan do clearly show
that it was due to external factors like migration.
As every student of historiography knows the borders in
those days were much porous, thus facilitating population movement. It is,
similarly, not far-fetched to suggest that the many of those lost from Arakan
census account of 1911, could well have migrated to places like Chittagong Hill
Tract and Cox’s Bazar (southern Chittagong) in today’s Bangladesh.
5. Conclusion:
In the above analysis of British-era demography of Arakan,
in contradistinction to K. M. Saw’s bloated and unsubstantiated claims that
while “Arakan was a colonie d'exploitation to the British, but to the
Chittagonian Bengalis, Arakan became a colonie de peuplement” what one
actually notices is a clear racist campaign by a half-educated
Burmese/Arakanese Buddhist extremist who has no knowledge of demography.
Unfortunately, Saw is not alone and there are many within his ethnic community
that thrives on selling poison pills of racism and bigotry against the
Rohingyas of Burma.
As we have noticed, the so-called influx to Arakan was
caused by the Rakhines and not Rohingyas (or so-called Chittagonians from
Bangladesh). The Rakhines of Arakan should be thankful that the Burmese
government has not applied its highly racist and bigotry-ridden litmus test
towards citizenship against them, many of whose ancestors had moved into the
territory of Arakan from Bengal during the British rule. Their accusation
against the Rohingyas of Arakan -- who are the true Bhumi Putras (the
indigenous children of the soil) -- is like that of a criminal who accuses its
victims.
Regrettably, xenophobia, sponsored by the Burmese
government and aided by Rakhaing ultra-nationalists, has caused forced exodus
of 1.5 million Rohingya Muslims to seek refuge outside Burma, internal
displacement of at least a million, and death of another 50,000. Rohingyas are
denied each and every right guaranteed under the 1948 Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. Extra-judicial killing and summery executions,
humiliating movement restriction,
denial of education, job and healthcare, rape of women, arrest and torture,
forced labor, forced relocation, confiscation of moveable and immoveable
properties, religious sacrileges, etc., are regular occurrences in Arakan,
making the Rohingya people an endangered people of our time who require special
protection under international laws.
As regional specialists like the distinguished historian -
Professor David Ludden of the New York University (and previously with the Ivy
League school - U Penn), have repeatedly shown through the massive scholarly
works that bear their names – rather than having one singular origin, South
Asia and South-East Asia have always included many peoples and cultures which
had different points of origin and departures and followed distinctive
historical trajectories. What is promoted by ultra-nationalist, narrow-minded
revisionists, pseudo-historians as the single tree of their culture, rooted in
their racial and religious myths, is actually more like a vast forest of many
cultures filled with countless trees of various sizes, shades, ages, colors and
types, constantly cross-breeding to fertilize one another. The profusion of
cultures blurs the boundaries of the forest. The so-called cultural boundaries
of our time are more like an artifact of modern national cultures than an
accurate reflection of pre-modern conditions.
Will the revisionist historians and charlatan scholars of
Burma reflect upon this fact and amend their ways to make a more inclusive
world in our time?
It is high time that the government of Burma repeal its
utterly criminal, morally indefensible, repugnant and inhuman Citizenship Law
that has denied the right of citizenship and belonging to the millions of
Rohingyas of Arakan, who are the true children of the soil.
[Dr
Siddiqui’s book - The Forgotten Rohingya: Their Struggle for Human Rights in
Burma – is available from Amazon.com]
1 http://burmanationalnews.org/burma/images/Documents/kmsislamizationofburma201109.pdf;
see also Aye Chan’s xenophobic work: http://www.soas.ac.uk/sbbr/editions/file64388.pdf
on the same theme.
2 See
Dr. Abid Bahar’s refutation of Aye Chan’s xenophobic works ‘The Development of
a Muslim Enclave in Arakan (Rakhine) state of Burma (Myanmar) and ‘Influx
Viruses,’ in ‘Problems of Democratic Development in Burma and the Rohingya
People,’ ed. Dr. Habib Siddiqui and Dr. Abid Bahar, Arakan Rohingya
Association Japan (JARO), 2007.
3 See,
this author’s well-researched article: Rohingya – the Forgotten People, http://www.rohingya.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=143&Itemid=70
and the short comments: http://www.rohingya.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=235&Itemid=70;
http://www.rohingya.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=142&Itemid=70
4 Abdul
Karim, ‘The Rohingyas: A Short Account of their History and Culture,’
Arakan Historical Society, Bangladesh (2000).
5 D.G.E.
Hall, The rise and fall of the Kingdom of Mrohaung in Arakan.
6 M.S.
Collis, Arakan’s Place in the Civilization of the Bay: A Study of Coinage
and Foreign Relations, Burma Research Society, 50the Anniversary
Publication No. 2, 1960, pp. 1485-1504.
http://merhrom.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/arakan%C2%92s-place-in-the-civilization-of-the-bay/
7 Noel
F. Singer, ‘Vaishali and the Indianization of Arakan,’ A.P.H. Publishing
Corporation, New Delhi (2008), p. 2.
8 Moshe
Yegar, ‘Between integration and secession: the Muslim communities of
southern Philippines, Southern Thailand and western Burma/.Myanmar,’
Lexington Books, Lanham, MD, USA (2002), p. 23.
9 See
the excellent article – Coming of the Muslims to Arakan – by Professor
Abdul Karim, http://www.kaladanpress.org/v3/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=298:coming-of-the-
muslims-to-arakan&catid=36:rohingya&Itemid=36
; see also: http://www.kaladanpress.org/v3/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=872%3Aa-short-history-of-rohingya-and-kamas-of-burma&catid=60%3Aarakan&Itemid=36;
M. A. Tahir Ba Tha, “A SHORT HISTORY OF ROHINGYAS AND KAMANS OF BURMA,” originally
written in Burmese under the title “The Rohingyas and Kamans,” (1963)
and tr. A.F.K. Jilani, ed. Mohd. Ashraf Alam (1998).
10 Singer,
op. cit., p. 5.
11 Singer,
op. cit., p. 4.
12 Singer,
op. cit., pp. 5-8; see also Collis (1925).
13 Ibid,,
pp-39-40.
14 Ibid.,
pp. 39-55.
15 Ibid.,
pp. 55-57, 83.
16 According
to Wilhelm Klein, author of a few books on Burma, “All of a sudden, Arakan
changed. The invading tribes made the country face east, away from India. As
Burma began to flex its muscles, the profound changes born at Pagan started to
transform Arakan,” Burmese Outpost.
17 A.F.K.
Jilani, A Cultural History of Rohingya, (2001), p. 13.
18 http://karnafuli.angelfire.com/articles/ArakanandRohingyas.pdf. In
his work, ‘Between integration and secession: the Muslim communities of
southern Philippines, Southern Thailand and western Burma/.Myanmar,’
Dr. Moshe Yegar writes that the sea lanes ‘from Egypt and Persia to India on
the one hand, from India to southeast Asia on the other, were in Arab hands.’
p. 1.
19 http://karnafuli.angelfire.com/articles/ArakanandRohingyas.pdf.
20 Moshe
Yegar, ‘Between integration and secession: the Muslim communities of
southern Philippines, Southern Thailand and western Burma/.Myanmar,’ p.
2.
21 Ibid.,
p. 3.
22 Ibid.,
p. 1.
23 See
also the British Burma Gazetteer (1879).
24 Dr.
Muhammad Enamul Haq and Abdul Karim Shahitya Visharad, “Arakan Rajsabhay
Bangala Sahitya (tr. Bengali Literature in the Court of Arakan) 1600-1700,”
Gurudas Chattaopadhyay and Sons, 203/1/1 Cornwallis Street, Kalikata, India.
25 British
Burma Gazetteers. Vol. A, 1917, District Akyab. p. 90.
26 Abdul
Karim, op. cit., http://www.kaladanpress.org/v3/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=298:coming-of-the-muslims-to-arakan&catid=36:rohingya&Itemid=36
27 Moshe
Yegar, op. cit., p. 23; see also Abdul Karim, op. cit.
28 See,
Dr. Abid Bahar’s article on linguistic similarities from his book: Burma’s
Missing Dots - the Emerging Face of Genocide, Ch. 4; http://www.kaladanpress.org/v3/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1721:mystery-behind-the-chakma-and-the-rohingyas-linguistic-similarities&catid=35:rohingya&Itemid=29
29 See
the citations in A.F.K. Jilani’s ‘A Cultural History of Rohingya,’ (2001), p.
37. M. A. Tahir Ba Tha, “A SHORT HISTORY OF ROHINGYAS AND KAMANS OF
BURMA,” originally written in Burmese under the title “The Rohingyas
and Kamans,” (1963) and tr. A.F.K. Jilani, ed. Mohd. Ashraf Alam (1998).
30 Dr.
Muhammad Enamul Haq and Abdul Karim Shahitya Visharad, “Arakan Rajsabhay
Bangala Sahitya (tr. Bengali Literature in the Court of Arakan) 1600-1700,”
Gurudas Chattaopadhyay and Sons, 203/1/1 Cornwallis Street, Kalikata (1935);
printed at Atindra Nath Chowdhury, Kalikata, India.
31 Moshe
Yegar discusses the contribution of the Sufis, the Muslim missionaries, in
converting indigenous people to Islam in his book ‘Between integration
and secession: the Muslim communities of southern Philippines, Southern
Thailand and western Burma/.Myanmar,’ p. 7.
32 The
Arakanese chronicle, referring to an incident during king Anwartha’s time
(1044-1077), states: “When he (attendant of the king) entered the forests he
found a fakir, possessed of mystic wisdom.” It also mentions that Muslims
resided in Pagan and Popa in those days. Anwartha’s son Saw Lu was breast fed
by a Muslim lady who was mother of Rahman Khan, who later ruled Pegu. See
A.F.K. Jilani’s “A Cultural History of Rohingya,” (2001), pp. 39-43.
33 See
the references in http://karnafuli.angelfire.com/articles/ArakanandRohingyas.pdf;
Dr. Mohammed Ali Chowdhury, “The advent of Islam in Arakan and the
Rohingya,” Seminar paper at the Arakan Historical Society, Chittagong Zila
Parishad Hall, Chittagong, December 31, 1995 (cosponsored with Chittagong
University, Chittagong, Bangladesh).
34 U
Kyi, op. cit., p. 160.
35 Moshe
Yegar, op. cit., p. 7.
36 Dr.
Yunous, in his book – A history of Arakan -- surmises that Narameikhla
could have genuinely become a Muslim.
37 Abdul
Karim, op. cit.
38 Yegar,
op. cit., p. 23.
39 http://www.albalagh.net/current_affairs/0090.shtml
40 Dr.
Muhammad Enamul Haq and Abdul Karim Shahitya Visharad, “Arakan Rajsabhay
Bangala Sahitya (tr. Bengali Literature in the Court of Arakan) 1600-1700,”
Gurudas Chattaopadhyay and Sons, 203/1/1 Cornwallis Street, Kalikata, India.
41 Dr.
Mohammed Ali Chowdhury, op. cit.
42 http://www.kaladanpress.org/v3/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1905:the-cultural-affinity-of-rohingyas-with-bengal&catid=16:rohingya-article&Itemid=27
43 Niccolai
Manucci, Storia do Mogro (History of Mughal India), 1653-1708.
44 Between 1690 and
1710 these Kamans or Kamanchis became the virtual rulers or king makers in
Arakan, before they were subdued by Arakanese Magh Maha Dhabado who ascended
the throne under the title of Sanda Wizaya in 1710. He deported them to the
Rambree Island and other places inside Arakan. Thousands of Muslims fled to
other parts of Burma, including taking refuge in Ava (Burma).
45 See this author’s
article: Imagine this - you are a Rohingya, or What is happening in
Burma? http://www.albalagh.net/current_affairs/0090.shtml for a
description of various Muslim groups in Arakan.
46 M. A. Tahir Ba
Tha, “A SHORT HISTORY OF ROHINGYAS AND KAMANS OF BURMA,” originally
written in Burmese under the title “The Rohingyas and Kamans,” (1963)
and tr. A.F.K. Jilani, ed. Mohd. Ashraf Alam (1998).
47 See the link: http://www.kaladanpress.org/v3/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=866:towards-understanding-arakan-history-part-ii&catid=60:arakan&Itemid=36
48 The Arakan
pirates, both Magh and feringhi, used to come by the water-route and plunder
Bengal.... Mohammedans underwent such oppression, as they had not to suffer in
Europe. As they continually practiced raids for a long time, Bengal daily
became more and more desolate and less and less able to resist them. Not a
house was left inhabited on their side of the rivers lying on their track from
Chittagong to Dacca. The district of Bakla [Backergunge and part of Dacca],
which formerly abounded in houses and cultivated fields and yield a large
revenue as duty on betel-nuts, was swept so clean with their broom of plunder
and abduction that none was left to tenant any house or kindle a light in that
region. ...... When Shayista Khan asked the feringhi deserters, what salary the
Magh king had assigned to them, they replied, ''Our salary was the Mughal
Empire. We considered the whole of Bengal as our fief. We had not to bother
revenue surveyors and ourselves about court clerks but levied our rent all the
year round without difficulty. We have kept the papers of the division of the
booty for the last forty years.'' See this author’s article Rohingya: the
Forgotten People - for citation sources: http://www.kaladanpress.org/v3/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=707:rohingya-the-forgotten-people&catid=35:rohingya&Itemid=29
49 http://www.banglapedia.org/httpdocs/HT/B_0650.HTM
50 Abdul Karim, op.
cit.; Shihab-ud-din Talish, the famous 17th century historian gives a horrible
picture as to how the Magh and Portuguese pirates carried away people from
Bengal, oppressed them and sold them as slaves. He says: “As these (piratical)
raids continued for along time, Bengal became day by day more desolated.
Not a house was left inhabited on either side of the river lying on the
pirates’ track from Chatgaon (Chittagong) to Dacca. The prosperous district of
Bakla (Bakergung) was swept clean with the broom of plunder and kidnapping, so
that none was left to occupy any house or kindle a light in that region… The
Arakan pirates both Magh and Feringi (Portuguese) used constantly to plunder
Bengal. They carried off the Hindus and Muslims they could seize, pierced the
palms of their hands passed thin strips of cane through the holes, and threw
the men huddled together under the decks of their ships. Every morning
they
flung down some uncooked rice to the captives from above as people fling grain
to fowl. They sold their captives to the Dutch, English, and French merchant at
the ports of the Deccan. Sometimes they bought their captives to Tamluk and
Balasore for sale at high prices…… Only the Feringis sold their prisoners but
the Maghs employed all whom they carry off in agriculture and other
occupations, or as domestic servants and concubines.”
51 Yegar, op. cit.,
pp. 23-24.
52 A.F.K. Jilani, op.
Cit., pp. 42-43.
53 Abdul Karim, op.
cit., http://www.kaladanpress.org/v3/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=298:coming-of-the-muslims-to-arakan&catid=36:rohingya&Itemid=36
54 Anthony Irwin, Burmese
Outpost, Collins, London (1945), p. 22.
55 Moshe Yegar, The
Muslims of Burma: A study of minority groups, Weesbaden: Otto
Harrassowitz (1972),
p. 111.
56 Ibid., p. 25.
57 Dr. Habib
Siddiqui, The Forgotten Rohingya: Their Struggle for Human Rights in
Burma, Amazon.com. As to the Burmese invasion of Arakan in 1784, the
following eye-witness report by Francis Buchanan provides a vivid picture of
the atrocities committed by the Burmese invaders: “Puran says that, in one
day soon after the conquest of Arakan the Burmans put 40,000 men to Death: that
wherever they found a pretty Woman, they took her after killing the husband;
and the young Girls they took without any consideration of their parents, and
thus deprived these poor people of the property, by which in Eastern India the
aged most commonly support their infirmities. Puran seems to be terribly
afraid, that the Government of Bengal will be forced to give up to the Burmans
all the refugees from Arakan.” (Francis Buchanan in Southeast Bengal
(1798): His Journey to Chittagong, the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Noakhali and
Comilla. Dhaka University Press, Dhaka, 1992: 82)
58 A.F.K. Jilani, A
Cultural History of Rohingya, op. cit., pp. 68-73.
59 G.E. Harvey,
History of Burma, London (1925), pp. 267-8; see also: M.S. Collis, Arakan’s
Place in Civilization of the Bay, Journal of Burma Research (JBRS), 50th Anniversary
Publications No. 2, Rangoon (1960), p. 499; Muhammad Ishaque, ed. Bangladesh
District Gazetteers, Chittagong Hill Tracts, Dacca (1971), p. 33. According to
a report of the East India Company, some 35,000 refugees entered Chittagong in
the British Bengal from Arakan in 1799 alone (Asiatic Annual Register 1799: 61;
Michael Charney, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1999).
60 Dr. Habib Siddiqui,
The Forgotten Rohingya: Their Struggle for Human Rights in Burma,
Amazon.com; Rohingya: The Forgotten People, http://www.rohingya.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=143&Itemid=74
; According to Farooque Ahmed, a former senior researcher at the JNU,
India, by 1798 two-thirds of the inhabitants of Arakan had left Arakan for
Bengal. The number of those Muslims who fled was 200,000.
61 G.E. Harvey,
Outline of Burmese History, op. cit., pp. 154-5.
62 Many of the
indigenous people had become Muslims before Narameikhla was restored to the
throne. Supposing that only 5000 of the Muslim soldiers that came with Generals
Wali Khan and Sandi Khan had settled in Arakan, this number alone under normal
kind of conditions could grow to 169,331 and 341,092 at an annual population
growth rate of 1% and 1.2%, respectively, in 1784.
63 M. A. Chowdhury,
op. cit.
64 Francis Buchanan,
The Languages of Burma, Asiatic Researches (Calcutta), vol. 5, 1801.
65 K.M. Saw claims
that during the British census, the British officials did not record anyone as
Rohingya. They recorded Arakanese (Rohingya) Muslims and Hindus according to
their religious persuasion. Such a categorization cannot be a criterion by
which one can deny their ethnic identity. Here in the USA, e.g., Muslim
Americans are often not recorded per their national origin. For example, in
census, one may be categorized as an Asian American, or at the most south Asian
(if one is from former British India).
K.M. Saw also says
that Buchanan had encountered those Rohingyas in Amarapura and not in Arakan.
How could they have ended up there if they did not exist in Burma? Like many
Arakanese, these natives of Arakan were brought by the forces of Bodow Paya.
His use of the term ‘slave of the slaves’ show his racist character that
approves of enslavement of other people, including the piracy of Magh marauders
in Bengal.
66 http://books.google.com/books?id=-jRKAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA305&lpg=PA305&dq=population+of+Arakan+in+1871&source=bl&ots=U7r2p
40NUF&sig=KrdLceigMXyXetb4BndnaA-Zv3w&hl=en&ei=nMuZTuCOFOW50QGjoJmHAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&sqi=2&ved=0CDoQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=population%20of%20Arakan%20in%201871&f=false
67 In his work ‘The Eastern Frontier
of British India,’ Calcutta (1964), p. 351, A. C. Benerjee also says that
that there was one Muslim for every two Arakanese
Buddhists
