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81-608: Buthidaung is one of the 16 towns in Rakhine state. Buthidaung is situated about 16 miles from Maungdaw, and similarly to this town has no train station or airport. Buthidaung has a majority Rohingya population, of which many have fled since the 2012 Rakhine State riots. Buthidaung has the second largest population of Rohingya after Maung Daw. During the 2016–17 Northern Rakhine State clashes , three police stations in Buthidaung were reportedly surrounded by Rohingya insurgents. As

162-497: A coup in 1962 , the government systematically dissolved Rohingya political and social organizations. The end of the liberation war in neighbouring Bangladesh strengthened the Burmese government's fears of "foreign invaders" infiltrating their country. Therefore in 1977, the government began its preparations for Operation Dragon King, which commenced at the start of the following year. The official purpose of Operation Dragon King

243-785: A Rohingya rebel attack that killed 12 security forces on 25 August 2017, the Myanmar military launched "clearance operations" against the Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state that, according to NGOs, the Bangladeshi government and international news media, left many dead, and many more injured, tortured or raped, with villages burned. The government of Myanmar has denied the allegations. The modern term Rohingya emerged from colonial and pre-colonial terms Rooinga and Rwangya . The Rohingya refer to themselves as Ruáingga /ɾuájŋɡa/ . In Burmese they are known as rui hang gya (following

324-635: A South African anti-apartheid activist . The most recent mass displacement of Rohingya in 2017 led the International Criminal Court to investigate crimes against humanity, and the International Court of Justice to investigate genocide . The Rohingya maintain they are indigenous to western Myanmar with a heritage of over a millennium and influence from the Arabs , Mughals , and Portuguese . The community claims it

405-566: A few Rohingya trace their ancestry to Muslims who lived in Arakan in the 15th and 16h centuries, most Rohingyas arrived with the British colonialists in the 19th and 20th centuries. Most have argued that Rohingya existed from the four waves of Muslim migrations from the ancient times to medieval, to the British colony. Gutman (1976) and Ibrahim (2016) claiming that the Muslim population dates before

486-712: A focus for grass-roots Burmese nationalism, and in the years 1930–31 there were serious anti-Indian disturbances in Lower Burma, while 1938 saw riots specifically directed against the Indian Muslim community. As Burmese nationalism increasingly asserted itself before the Second World War, the 'alien' Indian presence inevitably came under attack, along with the religion that the Indian Muslims imported. The Muslims of northern Arakan were to be caught in

567-631: A historian at Kanda University in Japan, has written that as a consequence of acquiring arms from the British during World War II, Rohingyas tried to destroy the Arakanese villages instead of resisting the Japanese. Chan agrees that hundreds of Muslims fled to northern Arakan, though states that the accounts of atrocities on them were exaggerated. In March 1942, Rohingyas from northern Arakan killed around 20,000 Arakanese. In return, around 5,000 Muslims in

648-527: A political movement that started in the 1950s to create "an autonomous Muslim zone" in Rakhine. The government of Prime Minister U Nu , when Burma was a democracy from 1948 to 1962, used the term "Rohingya" in radio addresses as a part of peace-building effort in Mayu Frontier Region. The term was broadcast on Burmese radio and was used in the speeches of Burmese rulers. A UNHCR report on refugees caused by Operation King Dragon referred to

729-549: A quarter million per year. The numbers rose steadily until the peak year of 1927, immigration reached 480,000 people, with Rangoon exceeding New York City as the greatest immigration port in the world. This was out of a total population of only 13 million; it was equivalent to the United Kingdom today taking 2 million people a year." By then, in most of the largest cities in Burma, Rangoon , Akyab , Bassein and Moulmein ,

810-623: A result of British policy or they were a new migrant population with no ancestral roots to Arakan. The British census of 1872 reported 58,255 Muslims in Akyab District. By 1911, the Muslim population had increased to 178,647. The waves of migration were primarily due to the requirement of cheap labour from British India to work in the paddy fields. Immigrants from Bengal, mainly from the Chittagong region, "moved en masse into western townships of Arakan". Albeit Indian immigration to Burma

891-518: A result of the clashes in Buthidaung and much of the surrounding area, many Rohingyas have left their homes. On May 18, 2024, the town was captured by the Arakan Army during its Rakhine State offensive . It was the birthplace of King Min Razagyi . 20°52′N 92°32′E  /  20.867°N 92.533°E  / 20.867; 92.533 This Rakhine State location article

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972-669: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Rohingya people The Rohingya people ( / r oʊ ˈ h ɪ n dʒ ə , - ɪ ŋ j ə / ; Rohingya : 𐴌𐴗𐴥𐴝𐴙𐴚𐴒𐴙𐴝 (romanization: ruáingga), IPA: [rʊˈɜi̯ɲ.ɟə] ) are a stateless ethnic group who predominantly follow Islam and reside in Rakhine State , Myanmar . Before the Rohingya genocide in 2017, when over 740,000 fled to Bangladesh, an estimated 1.4 million Rohingya lived in Myanmar. Described by journalists and news outlets as one of

1053-605: Is descended from people in precolonial Arakan and colonial Arakan ; historically, the region was an independent kingdom between Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent . The Myanmar government considers the Rohingya as British colonial and postcolonial migrants from Chittagong in Bangladesh. It argues that a distinct precolonial Muslim population is recognized as Kaman , and that the Rohingya conflate their history with

1134-607: Is not clear who the original settlers of Arakan were. Burmese traditional history claims that the Rakhine have inhabited Arakan since 3000 BCE but there is no archaeological evidence to support the claim. By the 4th century, Arakan became one of the earliest Indianized kingdoms in Southeast Asia. The first Arakanese state flourished in Dhanyawadi . Power then shifted to the city of Waithali . Sanskrit inscriptions in

1215-613: Is scant historical data and archaeological evidence about the early political and religious history of the Arakan people and the Rakhaing region. The limited evidence available suggests that Buddhism, possibly the Mahayana tradition, was well established by the 4th-century in the region under the Candra Buddhist dynasty. Muslim community's expansion and the growth of Islam into the region came much later with Bengali Muslims from

1296-417: Is the easternmost point of Islamic expansion, not to say further into Arakan. The alternate view contests that Islam arrived in the Arakan region in the 1st-millennium. According to this view, this Rohingya history is not based on any evidence, rather is based on "fictitious stories, myths and legends". According to Southeast Asian Buddhism history scholar and an ordained Buddhist monk Ashon Nyanuttara, there

1377-570: The 1956 Burmese general election and subsequent by-elections. Sultan Mahmud , a former politician in British India, became Minister of Health in the cabinet of Prime Minister of Burma U Nu . In 1960, Mahmud suggested that either Rohingya-majority northern Arakan remain under the central government or be made a separate province. However, during the 1960 Burmese general election , Prime Minister U Nu's pledges included making all of Arakan into one province. The 1962 Burmese coup d'état ended

1458-569: The Arakan Mountains in the 9th century. The Rakhines established numerous cities in the valley of the Lemro River . These included Sambawak I, Pyinsa, Parein, Hkrit, Sambawak II, Myohaung, Toungoo and Launggret. Burmese forces invaded the Rakhine cities in 1406. The Burmese invasion forced Rakhine rulers to seek help and refuge from neighbouring Bengal in the north. Early evidence of Bengali Muslim settlements in Arakan date back to

1539-594: The Battle of Khajwa . Shuja and his entourage arrived in Arakan on 26 August 1660. He was granted asylum by King Sanda Thudhamma . In December 1660, the Arakanese king confiscated Shuja's gold and jewellery, leading to an insurrection by the royal Mughal refugees. According to varying accounts, Shuja's family was killed by the Arakanese, while Shuja himself may have fled to a kingdom in Manipur . However, members of Shuja's entourage remained in Arakan and were recruited by

1620-748: The British Raj . The Bamar executed thousands of men and deported a considerable portion of the population to central Burma, leaving Arakan a scarcely populated area by the time the British occupied it. According to an article on the " Burma Empire" published by the British Francis Buchanan-Hamilton in 1799, "the Mohammedans , who have long settled in Arakan ", "call themselves Rooinga , or natives of Arakan ". However, according to Derek Tokin, Hamilton no longer used

1701-677: The British Raj . In 1799, Francis Buchanan wrote an article called "A Comparative Vocabulary of Some of the Languages Spoken in the Burma Empire", which was found and republished by Michael Charney in the SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research in 2003. Among the native groups of Arakan, he wrote are the: " Mohammedans , who have long settled in Arakan , and who call themselves Rooinga , or natives of Arakan ." The Classical Journal of 1811 identified "Rooinga" as one of

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1782-571: The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) invaded British-controlled Burma . The British forces retreated and in the power vacuum left behind, considerable inter-communal violence erupted between Arakanese and Muslim villagers. The British armed Muslims in northern Arakan in order to create a buffer zone that would protect the region from a Japanese invasion when they retreated and to counteract the largely pro-Japanese ethnic Rakhines . The period also witnessed violence between groups loyal to

1863-473: The Legislative Council of Burma and Legislature of Burma . During the 1936 Burmese general election , Advocate U Pho Khaine was elected from Akyab West and Gani Markan was elected from Maungdaw - Buthidaung . In 1939, U Tanvy Markan was elected from Maungdaw-Buthidaung. Their elections in the Burmese native category set them apart from immigrant Indian legislators. During World War II,

1944-565: The MLC Transcription System ) ( Burmese : ရိုဟင်ဂျာ /ɹòhɪ̀ɴd͡ʑà/ ) while in Bengali they are called Rohingga ( Bengali : রোহিঙ্গা /ɹohiŋɡa/ ). The term "Rohingya" may come from Rakhanga or Roshanga , the words for the state of Arakan . The word Rohingya would then mean "inhabitant of Rohang", which was the early Muslim name for Arakan. The usage of the term Rohingya has been historically documented prior to

2025-575: The Minbya and Mrauk-U Townships were killed by Rakhines and Red Karens . As in the rest of Burma, the IJA committed acts of rape, murder and torture against Muslims in Arakan. During this period, some 22,000 Muslims in Arakan were believed to have crossed the border into Bengal , then part of British India, to escape the violence. The exodus was not restricted to Muslims in Arakan. Thousands of Burmese Indians, Anglo-Burmese and British who settled during

2106-739: The Persian alphabet on the other. Arakan's vassalage to Bengal was brief. After Sultan Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah 's death in 1433, Narameikhla's successors invaded Bengal and occupied Ramu in 1437 and Chittagong in 1459. Arakan would hold Chittagong until 1666. Even after independence from the Sultans of Bengal, the Arakanese kings continued the custom of maintaining Muslim titles. The Buddhist kings compared themselves to Sultans and fashioned themselves after Mughal rulers. They also continued to employ Muslims in prestigious positions within

2187-542: The Sittwe District , where there were mass round ups of civilians. In the span of over three months, approximately 200,000 to 250,000 refugees, mostly Rohingya Muslims, fled to Bangladesh . The government of Burma estimated that 150,000 fled during the operation, and proclaimed that the mass exodus signified that Rohingyas were in-fact "illegal immigrants". The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and

2268-497: The V Force , instead of fighting the Japanese, destroyed Buddhist monasteries, pagodas, and houses, and committed atrocities in northern Arakan. The British Army 's liaison officer , Anthony Irwin, on the other hand, praised the role of the V Force. During the Pakistan Movement in the 1940s, Rohingya Muslims in western Burma organised a separatist movement to merge the region into East Pakistan . The commitments of

2349-520: The 7th-century. The Arab traders were also missionaries and they began converting the local Buddhist population to Islam by about 788 CE, states Syed Islam. Besides these locals converting to Islam, Arab merchants married local women and later settled in Arakan. As a result of intermarriage and conversion, the Muslim population in Arakan grew. This claim by Sayed Islam saying that, by 788 CE, locals in Arakan were converting to Islam clearly contradicts historian Yegar's findings which say, even in 1203, Bengal

2430-508: The Bay of Bengal to reach Arakan. A southern branch of the Silk Road connected India, Burma, and China since the neolithic period. Arab traders are recorded in the coastal areas of southeast Bengal, bordering Arakan, since the 9th century. The Rohingya population trace their history to this period. According to Syed Islam, the earliest Muslim settlements in the Arakan region began in

2511-561: The British and the Burmese nationalists. The Arakan massacres in 1942 involved communal violence between British-armed V Force Rohingya recruits and pro-Japanese Rakhines , polarising the region along ethnic lines. Tensions boiling in Arakan before the war erupted during the Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia and Arakan became the frontline in the conflict. The war resulted in a complete breakdown of civil administration and consequent development of habits of lawlessness exacerbated by

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2592-465: The British regarding the status of Muslims after the war are not clear. V Force officers like Andrew Irwin felt that Muslims along with other minorities must be rewarded for their loyalty. Muslim leaders believed that the British had promised them a "Muslim National Area" in Maungdaw region. They were also apprehensive of a future Buddhist-dominated government. In 1946, calls were made for annexation of

2673-687: The Burmese army. It was transferred to the Ministry of Home Affairs in 1964 by the Union Revolutionary Council . The socialist military government inducted the zone into Arakan State in 1974. Racism towards people with links to the Indian subcontinent increased after the 1962 Burmese coup. The socialist military government nationalised all property, including many enterprises of the white collar Burmese Indian community. Between 1962 and 1964, 320,000 Burmese Indians were forced to leave

2754-626: The Indian immigrants formed a majority of the population. All of Burma was officially a Province within the British Indian Empire ('the Raj') from November 1885 until 1937, when Burma became a separate Crown colony within the British Empire . The Burmese under British rule felt helpless, and reacted with a "racism that combined feelings of superiority and fear". Professor Andrew Selth of Griffith University writes that although

2835-718: The Kingdom of Mrauk U. The Mughal expedition continued up till the Kaladan River . The Mughals placed the northern part of Arakan under its administration and vassalage. Following the Konbaung Dynasty 's conquest of Arakan in 1785, as many as 35,000 people of the Rakhine State fled to the neighbouring Chittagong region of British Bengal in 1799 to escape persecution by the Bamar and to seek protection under

2916-531: The Mughal nobility. A notable royal slave was Alaol , a renowned poet in the Arakanese court. The slave population were employed in a variety of workforces, including in the king's army, commerce and agriculture. In 1660, Prince Shah Shuja , the governor of Mughal Bengal and a claimant of the Peacock Throne , fled to Arakan with his family after being defeated by his brother Emperor Aurangzeb during

2997-711: The Myanmar security forces have been conducting " summary executions , enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture and ill-treatment, and forced labour " against the community. Before the 2015 Rohingya refugee crisis and the military crackdown in 2016 and 2017 , the Rohingya population in Myanmar was close to 1.4 million, chiefly in the northern Rakhine townships, which were 80–98% Rohingya. Since 2015, over 900,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to south-eastern Bangladesh alone, and more to other surrounding countries, and major Muslim nations. More than 100,000 Rohingyas in Myanmar are confined in camps for internally displaced persons . Shortly before

3078-476: The Rohingya as ethnic cleansing . The UN human rights envoy to Myanmar reported "the long history of discrimination and persecution against the Rohingya community... could amount to crimes against humanity ", and there have been warnings of an unfolding genocide . Probes by the UN have found evidence of increasing incitement of hatred and religious intolerance by "ultra-nationalist Buddhists" against Rohingyas while

3159-542: The Rohingya-majority northern areas of Arakan existed between 1961 and 1964. Known as the Mayu Frontier District , the zone was set up by Prime Minister U Nu after the 1960 Burmese general election, on the advice of his health minister Sultan Mahmud. The zone was administered directly from Rangoon by the national government. After the Burmese military coup in 1962, the zone was administered by

3240-550: The Rohingyas who were displaced by World War II and began to return to Arakan after the independence of Burma but were rendered as illegal immigrants, while many were not allowed to return. ICG adds that there were "some 17,000" refugees from the Bangladesh liberation war who "subsequently returned home". On 25 September 1954, the then Prime Minister U Nu in his radio address to the nation talked about Rohingya Muslims’ political loyalty to predominantly Buddhist Burma. This usage of

3321-483: The U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar has agreed. Jacques Leider writes that many Muslims in Rakhine simply prefer to call themselves "Muslim Arakanese" or "Muslims coming from Rakhine" instead of "Rohingya". The United States embassy in Yangon continues to use the name "Rohingya". The Rohingya population is concentrated in the historical region of Arakan , an old coastal country in Southeast Asia. It

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3402-512: The abandonment of even more of the Muslim population as well as an increase in inter-communal violence. Moshe Yegar, a research fellow at Truman Institute, Hebrew University of Jerusalem , noted that hostility had developed between the Muslims and the Buddhists who had brought about a similar hostility in other parts of Burma. This tension was let loose with the retreat of the British. With

3483-412: The approach of the Japanese into Arakan, the Buddhists instigated cruel measures against the Muslims. Thousands, though the exact number is unknown, fled from Buddhist-majority regions to eastern Bengal and northern Arakan with many being killed or dying of starvation. The Muslims in response conducted retaliatory raids from British-controlled areas, causing Buddhists to flee to southern Arakan. Aye Chan,

3564-428: The arrival of ethnic Rakhine in the 9th to 10th century. Suggesting the Rohingya are descendants of a pre-Arakan population who existed for 3 thousand years and waves of Muslim who intermingled forming modern Rohingya. The impact of this immigration was particularly acute in Arakan. Although it boosted the colonial economy, local Arakanese bitterly resented it. According to historian Clive J. Christie, "The issue became

3645-523: The availability of modern firearms . The Japanese advance triggered an inter-communal conflict between Muslims and Buddhists. The Muslims fled towards British-controlled Muslim-dominated northern Arakan from Japanese-controlled Buddhist-majority areas. This stimulated a "reverse ethnic cleansing" in British-controlled areas, particularly around Maungdaw. Failure of a British counter-offensive, attempted from December 1942 to April 1943, resulted in

3726-526: The capitals known to history have been in the north near modern Akyab ". Due to its coastline on the Bay of Bengal , Arakan was a key centre of maritime trade and cultural exchange between Burma and the outside world, since the time of the Indian Maurya Empire . According to Syed Islam, a political science scholar, Arab merchants had been in contact with Arakan since the third century, using

3807-627: The colonial period emigrated en masse to India. To facilitate their reentry into Burma, the British formed Volunteer Forces with Rohingya. Over the three years during which the Allies and Japanese fought over the Mayu peninsula, the Rohingya recruits of the V-Force, engaged in a campaign against Arakanese communities, using weapons provided by V-Force. According to the secretary of the British governor ,

3888-758: The country in 1962, the Rohingya have been systematically deprived of their political rights. In 1962 military dictator General Ne Win, took over the government and started implementing a Nationalist agenda, which had its roots in racial discrimination. In 1978 military government launched operation Nagamin to separate nationals from non-nationals. This was the first concerted large scale violent attack on Rohingya. National Registration Cards (NRC) were taken away by state actors never to be replaced. Violence that followed forced 200,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh. Bangladesh denied Rohingya admission into her territory and blocked food rations leading to death of 12,000 of them. After bilateral negotiations Rohingya were repatriated. In

3969-647: The country's Westminster -style political system. The 1982 Burmese citizenship law stripped most of the Rohingyas of their stake in citizenship. Rohingya community leaders were supportive of the 8888 uprising for democracy. During the 1990 Burmese general election , the Rohingya-led National Democratic Party for Human Rights won four seats in the Burmese parliament. The four Rohingya MPs included Shamsul Anwarul Huq , Chit Lwin Ebrahim , Fazal Ahmed and Nur Ahmed . The election

4050-450: The country. As a result of Operation King Dragon by the Burmese junta, the first wave of Rohingya refugees entered Bangladesh in 1978. An estimated 200,000 Rohingyas took shelter in Cox's Bazar. Diplomatic initiatives over 16 months resulted in a repatriation agreement, which allowed the return of most refugees under a process facilitated by UNHCR . The return of refugees to Burma has been

4131-487: The crossfire of this conflict." In the 1931 census, the Muslim population of Burma was 584,839, 4% of the total population of 14,647,470 at the time. 396,504 were Indian Muslims and 1,474 Chinese Muslims, while 186,861 were Burmese Muslims. The census found a growth in the number of Indian Muslims born in Burma, primarily due to their permanent settlement in Akyab. 41% of Muslims of Burma lived in Arakan at that time. Due to

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4212-404: The deputies of General Ne Win, in 1961 explained Rohingya as; “On the west, May Yu district borders with Pakistan. As is the case with all borderlands communities, there are Muslims on both sides of the borders. Those who are on Pakistan’s side are known as Pakistani while the Muslims on our Burmese side of the borders are referred to as ‘Rohingya’. But since Burma's military junta took control of

4293-658: The difficult terrain of the Arakan Mountains , the Arakan region was historically most accessible by sea. In British Arakan Division, the port of Akyab had ferry services and a thriving trade with the ports of Chittagong , Narayanganj , Dacca and Calcutta in British India ; as well as with Rangoon . Akyab was one of the leading rice ports in the world, hosting ship fleets from Europe and China. Many Indians settled in Akyab and dominated its seaport and hinterland. The 1931 census found 500,000 Indians living in Akyab. Several Rohingyas were elected to Burmese native seats in

4374-542: The ethnicity. Sultan Ahmed, who served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Minorities, was a member of the Justice Sir Ba U Commission charged with exploring whether Arakan Division should be granted statehood. During the 1951 Burmese general election , five Rohingyas were elected to the Parliament of Burma , including one of the country's first two female MPs, Zura Begum . Six MPs were elected during

4455-486: The government of Bangladesh provided emergency relief to the refugees, but were overwhelmed by the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis. Bangladesh requested assistance from the United Nations , and a UNHCR relief mission was sent to the region. On 31 July 1978, the governments of Burma and Bangladesh reached an agreement regarding the repatriation of Rohingya refugees, and 180,000 returned to Burma following

4536-407: The history of Arakan Muslims in general to advance a separatist agenda. In addition, Myanmar's government does not recognise the term "Rohingya" and prefers to refer to the community as " Bengali ". Rohingya campaign groups and human rights organizations demand the right to " self-determination within Myanmar". Various armed insurrections by the Rohingya have taken place since the 1940s and

4617-430: The languages spoken in the "Burmah Empire". In 1815, Johann Severin Vater listed "Ruinga" as an ethnic group with a distinct language in a compendium of languages published in German. In 1936, when Burma was still under British rule , the " Rohingya Jam’iyyat al Ulama " was founded in Arakan. According to Jacques Leider , the Rohingya were referred to as " Chittagonians " during the British colonial period, and it

4698-435: The most persecuted minorities in the world, the Rohingya are denied citizenship under the 1982 Myanmar nationality law . There are also restrictions on their freedom of movement , access to state education and civil service jobs. The legal conditions faced by the Rohingya in Myanmar have been compared to apartheid by some academics, analysts and political figures, including Nobel laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu ,

4779-456: The population as a whole has faced military crackdowns in 1978 , 1991–1992 , 2012 , 2015 , and particularly in 2016–2018 , when most of the Rohingya population of Myanmar was driven out of the country, into neighbouring Bangladesh. By December 2017, an estimated 625,000 refugees from Rakhine, Myanmar, had crossed the border into Bangladesh since August 2017. UN officials and Human Rights Watch have described Myanmar's persecution of

4860-402: The prelude to independence, two Rohingyas were elected to the Constituent Assembly of Burma in 1947, M. A. Gaffar and Sultan Ahmed . After Burma became independent in 1948, M. A. Gaffar presented a memorandum of appeal to the Government of the Union of Burma calling for the recognition of the term "Rohingya", based on local Indian names of Arakan (Rohan and Rohang), as the official name of

4941-399: The region indicate that the founders of the first Arakanese states were Indian. Arakan was ruled by the Chandra dynasty . The British historian Daniel George Edward Hall stated that "The Burmese do not seem to have settled in Arakan until possibly as late as the tenth century CE. Hence earlier dynasties are thought to have been Indian, ruling over a population similar to that of Bengal. All

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5022-449: The region that is now a part of Bangladesh. Further, the term "Rohingya" does not appear in any regional text of this period and much later. That term was adopted by "a few Bengali Muslim intellectuals who were direct descendants of immigrants from Chittagong district [Bengal]" in the 20th-century, states historian Aye Chan. The Rakhines were one of the tribes of the Burmese Pyu city-states . The Rakhines began migrating to Arakan through

5103-401: The royal administration. Some of them worked as Bengali , Persian and Arabic scribes in the Arakanese courts, which, despite remaining Buddhist, adopted Islamic fashions from the neighbouring Bengal Sultanate. The population increased in the 17th century, as slaves were brought in by Arakanese raiders and Portuguese settlers following raids into Bengal. Slaves included members of

5184-432: The royal army, including as archers and court guards. They were king makers in Arakan until the Burmese conquest. The Arakanese continued their raids of Mughal Bengal. Dhaka was raided in 1625. Emperor Aurangzeb gave orders to his governor in Mughal Bengal, Shaista Khan , to end what the Mughals saw as Arakanese-Portuguese piracy . In 1666, Shaista Khan led a 6000 man army and 288 warships to seize Chittagong from

5265-467: The second largest repatriation process in Asia after the return of Cambodian refugees from Thailand. In 1982, the citizenship law enacted by the Burmese military junta did not list the Rohingya as one of the 135 " national races " of Burma. This made much of the Rohingya population in Burma stateless in their historical homeland of Arakan . General Ne Win drafted the Citizenship Act in 1982, which denied citizenship rights to any community/group that

5346-412: The shrine is a rectangular structure measuring 33 ft by 47 ft ." King Min Saw Mon ceded some territory to the Sultan of Bengal and recognised his sovereignty over the areas. In recognition of his kingdom's vassal status, the Buddhist kings of Arakan received Islamic titles and used the Bengali gold dinar within the kingdom. Min Saw Mon minted his own coins with the Burmese alphabet on one side and

5427-437: The term to refer to the Muslims in Arakan in his later publications. Sir Henry Yule saw many Muslims serving as eunuchs in Konbaung while on a diplomatic mission to the Burmese capital, Ava. British policy encouraged Bengali inhabitants from adjacent regions to migrate into the then lightly populated and fertile valleys of Arakan as farm labourers. The East India Company extended the Bengal Presidency to Arakan. There

5508-428: The term ‘Rohingya’ is important in the sense that today Myanmar denies to accept this category altogether and calls them ’Bengali’. During the same time a separate administrative zone May Yu was established comprising most of the present North Rakhine State, which had Rohingya as its majority ethnic group. One of the objectives of this Muslim majority zone was to ‘strive for peace with Pakistan’. Brigadier Aung Gyi, one of

5589-402: The territory by Pakistan as well as of an independent state. Before the independence of Burma in January 1948, Muslim leaders from Arakan addressed themselves to Muhammad Ali Jinnah , the founder of Pakistan, and asked his assistance in incorporating the Mayu region to Pakistan considering their religious affinity and geographical proximity with East Pakistan. The North Arakan Muslim League

5670-418: The time of Min Saw Mon (1430–34) of the Kingdom of Mrauk U . After 24 years of exile in Bengal, he regained control of the Arakanese throne in 1430 with military assistance from the Bengal Sultanate . The Bengalis who came with him formed their own settlements in the region. The Santikan Mosque built in the 1430s, features a court which "measures 65 ft from north to south and 82 ft from east to west;

5751-419: The victims as "Bengali Muslims (called Rohingyas)". Nevertheless, the term Rohingya wasn't widely used until the 1990s. Today the use of the name "Rohingya" is polarised. The government of Myanmar refuses to use the name. In the 2014 census, the Myanmar government forced the Rohingya to identify themselves as "Bengali". Many Rohingya see the denial of their name similar to denying their basic rights, and

5832-567: Was a military operation carried in 1978 out by the Tatmadaw and immigration officials in northern Arakan, Burma (present-day Rakhine State , Myanmar ), during the socialist rule of Ne Win . The Rohingya people are an ethnic minority that live in northern Arakan, Burma (present-day Rakhine State , Myanmar ), who have suffered historical persecution by the Burmese government and Buddhist majority. After General Ne Win and his Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) seized power in

5913-465: Was a nationwide phenomenon, not just restricted to Arakan. For these reasons historians believed that most Rohingyas arrived with the British colonialists in the 19th and 20th centuries with some tracing their ancestry much further. According to Thant Myint-U , historian and adviser to President Thein Sein , "At the beginning of the 20th century, Indians were arriving in Burma at the rate of no less than

5994-477: Was charged under Section 18 of the controversial 1982 Burmese citizenship law and sentenced to 47 years in prison. In 2015, a ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party MP Shwe Maung was disbarred from the 2015 Burmese general election , on grounds that his parents were not Burmese citizens under the 1982 citizenship law. As of 2017, Burma does not have a single Rohingya MP and the Rohingya population have no voting rights . A separate administrative zone for

6075-513: Was founded in Akyab (modern Sittwe) two months later. The proposal never materialised since it was reportedly turned down by Jinnah, saying that he was not in a position to interfere in Burmese matters. The numbers and the extent of post-independence immigration from Bangladesh are subject to controversy and debate. In a 1955 study published by Stanford University , the authors Virginia Thompson and Richard Adloff write, "The post-war (World War II) illegal immigration of Chittagonians into that area

6156-427: Was no international boundary between Bengal and Arakan and no restrictions on migration between the regions. In the early 19th century, thousands of Bengalis from the Chittagong region settled in Arakan seeking work. It is hard to know whether these new Bengal migrants were the same population that was deported by force to Bengal's Chittagong during the Burmese conquest in the 18th century and later returned to Arakan as

6237-399: Was not controversial to refer to them as "Bengalis" until the 1990s. Leider also states that "there is no international consensus" on the use of the term Rohingya, as they are often called "Rohingya Muslims", "Muslim Arakanese" and "Burmese Muslims". Others, such as anthropologist Christina Fink, use Rohingya not as an ethnic identifier but as a political one. Leider believes the Rohingya is

6318-547: Was not listed in a survey conducted by British in 1823. All other ethnic groups were considered aliens to the land or invaders. Eight major ethnicities Arakan, Chin, Kachin, Karen, Kayah, Mon, Shan, and Burmese were broken into 135 small ethnic groups. Groups like Rohingya who do not belong to any of these 135 ethnicities were denied citizenship rights. Operation Dragon King Insurgent groups Refugee crisis Massacres Operation Dragon King ( Burmese : နဂါးမင်း စစ်ဆင်ရေး ), officially known as Operation Nagamin ,

6399-567: Was on a vast scale, and in the Maungdaw and Buthidaung areas they replaced the Arakanese." The authors further argue that the term Rohingya, in the form of Rwangya, first appeared to distinguish settled population from newcomers: "The newcomers were called Mujahids (crusaders), in contrast to the Rwangya or settled Chittagonian population." According to the International Crisis Group (ICG), these immigrants were actually

6480-407: Was to register citizens in northern Arakan and expel so-called "foreigners" from the area prior to a national census . Immigration officials and military personnel conducted the operation together, with the latter being accused by Rohingya refugees of forcibly evicting villagers through intimidation, rape and murder. The operation began on 6 February 1978, beginning in the village of Sakkipara in

6561-545: Was won by the National League for Democracy led by Aung San Suu Kyi , who was placed under house arrest and not permitted to become prime minister. The Burmese military junta banned the National Democratic Party for Human Rights in 1992. Its leaders were arrested, jailed and tortured. Rohingya politicians have been jailed to disbar them from contesting elections. In 2005, Shamsul Anwarul Huq

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