News Analysis |
India’s government said on Monday it has evidence showing some Rohingya in the country have ties to “terror organizations” and pose a security threat that justifies a mass deportation of the ethnic group.
The Rohingya refugee crisis is expected to harden Hindutva attitude in India which is already under the thrall of anti-Muslim campaigns such as Gau Raksha and Love Jihad
India’s home ministry said it would confidentially share intelligence information with the Supreme Court showing Rohingya links with Pakistan-based armed groups, in a bid to get legal clearance for plans to deport 40,000 Rohingya. “The court has no business to interfere in such matters of what they call illegal immigrants or illegal migrants,” the government said in the affidavit.
The Supreme Court is hearing an appeal lodged on behalf of Rohingya against the deportation plan proposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.
Read more: Rohingya is a humanitarian issue not a Muslim one!
The recent crisis sparked by influx of large numbers of Rohingya into India, began four to five years ago, long before an exodus that saw more than 400,000 Rohingya flee to Bangladesh since August 25 to escape a Myanmar military offensive which is the latest manifestation of the oppression of the ethnic community by the Myanmar state and its sponsored groups. The Rohingya have been designated one of the most persecuted groups by the UN and there is a consensus in the global community that the Rohingya are facing ethnic cleansing.
The BJP government is in a bind over the Rohingya refugees. The BJP’s Hindutva ideology is based on Islamophobic and anti-Muslim sentiment
Despite all this, there has been a lackluster response by the neighboring countries, and from within Myanmar itself. Many of the countries that the Rohingya have set out to reach are either slow or completely refusing to accommodate them, leaving untold numbers stranded in dangerous situations. The Myanmar authorities are refusing to even talk about the Rohingya who they claim are not even citizens of Myanmar.
Read more: The disinformation behind linking the Rohingya issue with Pakistan
The BJP government is in a bind over the Rohingya refugees. From the very outset, weeks before accusations of Pakistani links, PM Modi had treated the issue with insensitivity bordering on contempt. Govt’s attitude had sparked strong protests from Indian civil society. But BJP has a political problem; its Hindutva ideology is based on Islamophobic and anti-Muslim sentiment. It has continuoiusly used anti-Muslim slogans to gain votes from its Hindu nationalist vote bank in which “threat of increasing Muslim population” plays a crucial role. Muslims have been portrayed as outsiders and invaders. BJP, in the past, used “Bengali Muslim migration” into Indian Bengal as a conspiracy against India’s Hindu majority. To many Hindutva ideologues, the Rohingya refugees are a new mortal threat to Indian Hindu dominance.
The Rohingya have been designated one of the most persecuted groups by the UN and there is a consensus in the global community that the Rohingya are facing ethnic cleansing
India’s home ministry said the same in its affidavit to the court arguing the hardline stance was justified by the security threat posed by illegal immigrants from the majority-Muslim Rohingya ethnic group, hundreds of thousands of whom have fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh, from where many have crossed into India.
Read more: Violence escalates in Myanmar: Will Rohingya Muslims continue to face persecution?
Pakistani analysts have always treated claims of Indian police and agencies with deep suspicions but accusations linking Rhonigya Muslims, from far away from Burma, with Pakistan has set new standards
In a sort of proof, there is news of an “Al Qaeda” operative caught by the Indian police who was in a bid to radicalize Indian Muslims. However, cynics allege this to be a stunt as previously many Muslim youths have been arrested and exhibited as hardcore “Islamic terrorists” only to be absolved years later. Pakistani analysts have always treated claims of Indian police and agencies with deep suspicions but accusations linking Rhonigya Muslims, from far away from Burma, with Pakistan has set new standards.
The Rohingya refugee crisis is expected to harden Hindutva attitude in India which is already under the thrall of anti-Muslim campaigns such as Gau Raksha (Cow Vigilantism) and Love Jihad.