The Rohingya migration issue is once again hotly debated in political and media circles. More light is being thrown on its various aspects. The issue new came into the limelight in the aftermath of the Pahalgam massacre of 28 tourists on May 22 last year.
The Rohingya are Muslim citizens of Myanmar (formerly Burma), who are reported to have been extirpated by the military regime. The regime contends that they are not the original citizens of Myanmar but are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. However, whether they are the alleged illegal immigrants or not is not what essentially concerns us.
The Myanmar military regime contends that the Rohingya are engaged in criminal acts, narcotic trade and anti-regime activities. We will not go into the merits or demerits of these allegations either. The regime claims to be justified in throwing them out because they are involved in many criminal and anti-national activities.
We are not qualified to debate the legal aspects of the issue, but a large number of Rohingya headed towards J&K, and there several questions arise. Firstly, who advised or persuaded them to head towards J&K State, which is located thousands of miles away and which remains affected by terrorist-sponsored violence? Who provided them with means of transportation, and who reported their presence in the state? These questions suggest that there could be an unknown agency working behind the curtain and issuing directions to the migratory Rohingya.
We are aware that some “well-wishers” of the immigrating Rohingya have been making serious efforts to bring the issue before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and other international platforms. It indicates that some agencies operating in the name of human rights are showing political rather than humanitarian interest in the narrative about the Rohingya.
Knowledgeable sources reveal that they have been provided with official documents that will enable them to claim the citizenship of J&K. Among the documents recovered from them are Aadhaar cards, enlistment as voters, ration cards, gas cards, electricity and water entitlement and admission of their children in government schools where they do not have to pay any fees.
During her tenure as chief minister of J&K (2016 – 2018), Mehbooba Mufti emphasised humanitarian consideration for the Rohingya refugees while opposing their deportation. She kept that position in contrast to her coalition partner, the BJP. She maintained that “no adverse intelligence reports were linking the Rohingya in Jammu to militancy or terrorism”. Yet, investigations revealed that the ground situation did not corroborate the chief minister’s statement.
In January 2017, Mehbooba informed the Legislative Assembly that there were four or five thousand Rohingya refugees in J&K, and that they were allowed to stay on humanitarian grounds. She did not disclose the exact number, nor did she identify the location where they had taken up residence. But she did mention an exact number of 7,690 Tibetans living in the Jammu and Samba districts of the state.
Obviously, her point was that if the Tibetan refugees were not deported in J&K, why should anybody object if the Rohingya were also allowed to stay in the State? This is not a fair and justifiable comparison. China annexed Tibet. Unable to withstand the oppressive measures, the Tibetan Buddhists left their country and found asylum in India. A few of them might have moved to J&K. They are international refugees in accordance with the definition of the UN Human Rights Council. Contrarily, the case of the Rohingya is that of illegal migrants indulging in criminal and anti-national activities in a country which is not their land of origin. Therefore, focusing on national security, the Myanmar government decided to deport them. Mehbooba should understand that the comparison is incongruous.
Other questions arise. Rohingya are all Muslims. If the humanitarian element was uppermost in providing them succour, according to Mehbooba Mufti, then the right place for them was the Kashmir valley and not the Jammu region. The valley’s Muslim population could give them a warm welcome and provide them with many facilities to reduce their hardship. The Kashmiris are known for their hospitality, as can be gauged from their treatment of the “mujahedin” from PoK and Pakistan in the 1990s, and thereafter, down to the present day. The Jamaat-i-Islami of J&K, which usually espouses the cause of Muslims, should have volunteered to take them to Kashmir and assuaged their suffering. However not a wrod was said from that side.
The Mehbooba Mufti government not only resettled them in Jammu instead of Kashmir because she intended to add a few thousand more Muslim votes to the electorate in the Jammu region; she also settled them along the LoC, where Pakistan’s forward military posts are close to the line of control. Pakistani terrorists have been using the Samba-Kathua border for illegal entry into the Indian side. It is along this line that Pakistani infiltrators have been digging tunnels for clandestinely crossing the Indian side to carry out their nefarious designs.
It should be remembered that more than a year ago, following the attack on a security base in Sunjuwan, on the outskirts of Jammu, the investigating authorities found a connection to the Rohingya refugees settled in Jammu. The report was quickly suppressed, and nothing more was heard about it.
Regarding the recent Red Fort car blast in Delhi, the needle of suspicion has been pointing towards Kashmir. That has led the security establishment to undertake an extensive investigation of the overground conduits and their connections.
There is a lot of speculation about the exact number of Rohingya who have settled in the Samba–Jammu border sector. The J&K government has not divulged the precise number, but reports from various non-official sources put it at eighty thousand souls. (Confirmation awaited).
Mehbooba Mufti steadfastly opposed their deportation. She also showed no interest in resettling them in the valley. The army has had serious concerns about the security of the border area and does not want any civilian habitation close to the border that might hamper surveillance and random inspections. The solution to this problem is that the illegal migrants should be deported to Bangladesh, which is the country of their origin, or transported to the Kashmir valley and temporarily relocated so that they become a dependable labour force to work in the agricultural and horticultural areas.
The manner in which the Rohingya have been patronised and helped to secure documents for proving their state citizenship does not reflect well on the PDP-BJP coalition government in 2016-2018 when this episode unfolded. It is a sad illustration of the valley-based leadership publicly swearing by secularism but being unable to cover up its hypocrisy.
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