Myanmar: Ethnic Cleansing of Rohingya. From Ethnic Nationalism to Ethno-Religious Nationalism

Abstract

Rohingya, an ethnic minority group in the Rakhine state of Myanmar, has been levelled as one of the most persecuted ethnic groups in contemporary time. For the last five decades, they have been undergoing systematic torture ranging from deprivation of citizenship to mass killing and forceful eviction from their inhabitants. The army of Myanmar spearheads this persecution, which is deemed as genocidal. However, the engagement of radical Buddhist groups and support from the local Burmese population worsened the situation. Along with army intervention and ethnic differences, some economic and geostrategic question is highlighted behind this inhuman situation. But Myanmar consists of more than 100 ethnic groups, and there are other similar areas with similar economic and geostrategic importance. Though there are several instances of conflict in some of those areas, they are almost unparalleled comparing that of the Rakhine state. Having acknowledged the multiple genealogies of this conflict, this paper focuses more on the state/nation building process of Myanmar to understand the exceptionalism of Rohingya persecution. We want to argue that rather than ethnic tension or geostrategic interest, the nation/state-building of Myanmar in different phases of its history can put more light on the unique suffering of the Rohingya population in Myanmar. Analyzing the key historical transition of Myanmar, we attempt to trace the gradual exclusivity of the Rohingya people in the evolution of State manufactured discourse on the question of nation and their deliberate enactment of specific identity while alienating the other.