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By Jacques P. Leider Policy Brief Series No. 123 (2020)
Myanmar’s Rakhine State (‘Arakan’ until 1982) borders on Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal. Muslims of diverse origins and occupations were acculturated since the times of Buddhist kings, and their descendants lived on near the old capital Mrauk U and along the coast.1 The growth of a majority Muslim community in North Arakan down the border with Bengal’s Chittagong district, however, was brought forth by the expansive agriculture under British rule. Complicated by geography, migratory backgrounds, and social stratification, much of the history of Muslim communities in these coastal borderlands remains to be explored.
The Rohingyas, today the largest Muslim community in Myanmar and estimated at one third of Rakhine State’s mixed population (census 2014), form a distinct chapter of the region’s post-independence history. They became known to a global audience as a discriminated minority following communal riots in Rakhine State in 2012. Their mass flight to Bangladesh in 2016-17 (the third one in 30 years) burnished the group’s image of ongoing victimhood grounded in a record of rights violations and a process of legal exclusion accelerating after 1982. Atrocities generated accusations of genocidal intent on behalf of the security forces.2 Narratives of Rohingya victimhood commonly start with the putsch of General Ne Win in 1962 and designate the army as an inveterate perpetrator. But requests for their recognition as an ethnic Muslim community with ancient roots in Rakhine State go back to the aftermath of World War II.
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