Why India Wants Them Out?

Host to 200,000 refugees from across the world, India is vehemently unwelcoming of the Rohingya fleeing Myanmar, even calling them a national security threat. Is there more to it than meets the eye?

- Kaushik Deka

On September 30, St Hugh’s, one of the colleges in Oxford, removed a portrait of the more renowned old scholars from its privileged place at the main entrance. The reason for the symbolic fall from grace was not announced, but since we are talking about Aung San Suu Kyi, it’s a fair guess that this was a reaction to allegations of ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims by the Myanmar army, forcing millions to flee their homes.

This miliary action came in response to attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a Rohingya insurgent group, on several security checkpoints, killing of scores of police officers first in October 2016 and then August 25 this year when 12 security personnel died in a coordinated attack. Both times, Myanmar’s security forces responded with massive “clearance operations” to root out ARSA, forcing over 500,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh. However, K.K. Sharma, director-general, Border Security Force, points out that only 200 Rohingya refugees have come into India in the past two years of whom only 12 have been apprehended this year. The UN said the military’s response was “clearly disproportionate” to the attacks and warned that Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya appeared to be a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing ”.