Bhattacharjee
10.3389/fpos.2024.1144493
the social and political processes of forced migration and identity politics
that generate protracted displacement” is needed for studying the
Rohingya crisis (Farzana, 2017: 3).
The first displacement of Rohingya refugees started in 1978, and
200,000 escaped to Bangladesh. Subsequently, improved identity policies
from the Myanmar government, the situation of forced migration
happened and targeted those persons who were previously refugees.
Myanmar’s government denied their participation in the 1978
displacements, and the authority claimed that they were not accountable
for people who crossed the boundary to Bangladesh (Farzana, 2017: 50).
Boycotting the goods and trades of Rohingyas is an additional vital
phenomenon. “Several campaigns continue to call for a boycott of Muslim
businesses, including the foreign telecom giant Ooredoo; In any public
lecture events, disrupt Muslim or Muslim-sympathetic speakers; threaten
boycott against the 2014 census” (Zin, 2015). Moreover, the Myanmar
government is considering the Rohingyas as an extreme economic load
for the country due to their competition for the limited existing business,
jobs, and opportunities (Wolf, 2015).
The constitution of Myanmar safeguards the rights and
independence of all Burmese citizens, but Rohingyas are excluded
from these constitutional rights since they are not Burmese citizens.
Hence, Rohingyas achieved a small number of political and civil
rights, and they were permitted to vote in the 1990 election (Farzana,
2017: 52–53). Rohingyas were given white cards (provisional identity
cards), which permitted them to vote in the general election of 2008
(Albert and Maizland, 2020). The constitution of Myanmar stated that
the Union (i.e., Myanmar) “shall guarantee any person to enjoy equal
rights before the law and shall equally provide legal protection”
(Constitution of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar 2008,
September 2008: Paragraph 347). Consequently, Rohingyas failed to
enjoy equal rights before the law like the Burmese citizens, and the
provisional identity cards were automatically canceled in 2015 by
rejecting their right to vote. The Myanmar government ignored the
Rohingya community’s civil rights in other situations. Rakhine state
is one of the poorest states in Myanmar, where 78 percent of the
inhabitants are living beneath poverty brink. The massive mistrust
between the Muslim Rohingya and Buddhists in the Rakhine region
was generated due to the mixture of poverty, deficiency of proper
infrastructure, limited work opportunities, etc. (Albert and Maizland,
2020). Though the entire state suffers from the cited hindrances, the
stigmatized Rohingyas are leading the most vulnerable lives. The
reports of the Human Rights Watch show that from 25th August 2017,
ferocity, rape, and violence have been used against the Rohingya men,
women, and children within the Rakhine state by the militarydominated Myanmar government (Human Rights Watch, 2017).
Since the outburst of violence in 2012, the oppression of the
Rohingyas by local and national governments has forcefully exiled
thousands of Rohingya people. Strains touched a dangerous level in
2012 after ages of discrimination. Hundreds of Rohingya expired, and
a large number of people became homeless due to violent conflicts.
Several Rohingyas were imprisoned in inner displacement camps. The
violent conflicts between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingyas displaced
nearly 10,000 Rohingya people in June 2012 (BBC News, 2012).
During the time of violence, the United Nations guessed that
approximately 100,000 Rohingyas escaped from Myanmar via sea
route with life threats. Thus, the ignored and tortured Rohingya
people left Myanmar only for securing their life. Aljazeera reported
that around 110,000 Rohingya people left Myanmar through fragile
boats to neighboring states like Malaysia, the Philippines, and
decisions, for example, marriage and having children, and the
processes used by Myanmar military-dominated government in doing
so. The central research question of this paper is why and how the
Rohingyas are stateless. Therefore, this paper investigates the nature,
extent, and incidence of exclusion among the Rohingya community
through secondary data analyses and explains how multidimensional
exclusion makes them stateless and pushes them into vulnerable
conditions. The researcher developed an analytical framework to
answer the research questions. Finally, in this paper, the researcher
attempt to explain the processes of statelessness by using a pragmatic
theoretical framework to interpret these dynamics and processes.
This article is divided into eight sections. The first section deals
with the study objective and research question. The second section
discusses the historical background of the Rohingya statelessness. The
third section contextualizes statelessness from relevant theoretical
perspectives. The fourth section clarifies the research methodology.
The fifth section develops an analytical framework. The sixth section
details the findings. The seventh section consists of a discussion, and
the final section draws conclusions.
Rohingya statelessness: historical
background
There is a lot of academic research regarding the crisis of the
Rohingya community. The researcher initially reviewed significant
literature about Rohingya and their statelessness for writing this paper
(Ullah, 2016; Amnesty International, 2017; Beyrer and Kamarulzaman,
2017; Milton et al., 2017; Lewis, 2019; Albert and Maizland, 2020;
Hossain et al., 2022). Many scholars mentioned ethnicity and identity
crisis as the prime causes of the exclusion and vulnerability of the
Rohingya community (Ullah, 2016; Cheesman, 2017; Farzana, 2017:
21). Moreover, several former pieces of research established the
situation of Rohingyas as a humanitarian crisis (Ullah, 2011; Kingston,
2015; Kaveri, 2017). Categorizing by the administration, the
population of Myanmar consists of 135 different ethnic groups.
Rohingya is one of the marginal groups that are not accepted as an
ethnic group in Myanmar. They mainly live in Arakan or Rakhine
state, situated on the western side of the nation. The usage of the term
“Rohingya” was opposed by the Myanmar government, besides the
dominant ethnic Buddhist group in the Rakhine state, as it was
familiarized as a way of personal identification by the people of the
Rohingya community (Albert and Maizland, 2020). Ahsan Ullah
argues “that Rohingyas in Myanmar have been intentionally excluded
by its government.” He basically concentrated on the role of politicized
ethnicity. In his writing, he also focused on the importance of
politicized ethnicity for creating national unity. Furthermore, in
Myanmar, Political Buddhism, which is the combination of Buddhist
religious faith and nationalism, is used to oppress the Rohingya
Muslim minority people (Ullah, 2016).
Farzana explores the underlying causes of the displacement of the
Rohingya community of Myanmar in her book Memories of Burmese
Rohingya Refugees. She marks the processes by which Rohingya
identity has been politicized, and subsequently, it has brought the
consequences that affected the Rohingya community. She claims that
minority clusters replace with “identity-less parasites” by state policies,
but the victimized minority can preserve their identity through
memories and culture. The Rohingya community is an example of this
identity-less parasite. Furthermore, she argues that “more attention to
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