Ram Puniyani
Most of the countries of South Asia have faced the barbaric problem of violence
targeted against religious minorities. The form of this may have been
different, but the outcome has been similar, the brutality against religious
minorities, violence against innocent human beings. The current times (Mid
2013) may be one of the worst when in the spate of short span of we are witness
to violence in Pakistan, Bangla Desh, India and Myanmar, more or less running
parallel. Many a times when talk about violence involving Muslims has been
under discussion, some propagandists have tried to associate Islam with violence
and so the strife. Similarly some others may say that Hinduism permits violence
as in Gita or so and so is the problem. In popular perception Buddhism is the
religion of peace. The truth is that while the religious precepts are for
morality, the part of religion invoked for violence has more to do with
contemporary political issues, which are given the garb of religion. While Lord
Gautama Buddha is surely the major apostle of peace, one has seen violence by
Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka ,
Thailand and now overtly in Myanmar (March
2013).
Troops are keeping a vigil,
martial law has been declared to stop the communal rage which has lasted for
three days in Meikhatila in Myanmar .
This violence has involved the Buddhists and Muslims. Here the official
toll stands at 31 dead, while the unofficial figures are higher. A state
of emergency has been declared in this state. As usual a trivial incident
involving the argument between the Buddhist couple and a Muslim owner of gold
shop resulted in the triggering of simmering dislikes and discord between these
two communities resulting in violence. While one Buddhist monk has also been
killed the major victims of the violence are Muslims. This bring to our memory
the communal clash of June -July (2012) in Rakhine
State in western Myanmar . In
that violence officially 110 people were killed and it left 120,000 people
homeless. Those killed and left homeless were mostly stateless Rohingya
Muslims.
Interestingly the communal strife
was under the wraps during the preceding dictatorial regime. With the efforts
to bring in democracy in some form these strife’s are coming to surface due to
the diverse and plural nature of Myanmar society, which is majority
Buddhist but has substantial number of Muslim minorities. Rohingiya Muslims are
probably the most persecuted minority in the world. Being a substantial number
in Myanmar ,
they are from Indo-Aryan group, who settled in this part over a period of last
couple of centuries, during the British rule, primarily. While the majority
Buddhists are of Sino-Tibetan stock. Muslims live in the Western state of
Rakhine state on country’s Western border. They have been adversely
affected by the 1982 citizenship law, which has deprived them of the
citizenship; there is a total violation of their human rights due to this
unjust law. They are subjected to forced labour and have to work for the
Government without any pay. The UNHCR has noted that since 1991 their
freedom of movement is restricted. They are treated like second class citizens.
Facing this adverse situation of gross violation of their rights many of them
are trying to flee to Thailand ,
Malaysia
and other places amongst others.
In 2012, June-July the violence
between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims was triggered by the rumour of
rape of a Buddhist girl. As such it was a case of Muslim boy and Buddhist girl
falling in love and eloping to get married. The boy was murdered and two of his
friends who helped him to elope are facing death sentence.
Overall this reflects the
unsolved problem of secularization and democracy in the region. The common
factor in whole of South Asia is the migration
of people for economic reasons, and with independence coming many of the
dominating communities wanted to associate citizenship rights based on
religion. Due to this some communities got deprived of citizenship formally or
informally. Some were relegated to second class citizenship in practice. In Sri Lanka , the
large number of Tamils who had gone there as plantation labour was denied equal
rights and denied equality leading the extreme reaction in the form of
formation of Liberation Tiger of Tamil Elam (LTTE).
In Myanmar 5% of the people are
Muslims. Many of them had been the residents of this region from centuries.
Denying them full citizenship defies all the logic of a modern democratic
state. During the regime of military junta, which ruled the country for
decades, a wrong precedent has been set, that of linking citizenship with
religion. It requires deeper investigation as to why many a monks have an anti
Islamic attitude. One knows similarly many a monks had played anti-Tamil role
in Sri Lanka .
There must be deeper societal processes which are at work and are usurping the
democratic norms of equality of religions. One knows that democracy is coming
up in Myanmar
after long decades after long battles, but still the remnants of the communal
divide are dogging this nascent democracy. In a way this is also the colonial
legacy which subtly promoted the divisiveness in the society.
With this violence in Myanmar coming to the fore the whole South Asia has to wake up and come to the grips of the
legacy of the colonial past, a legacy perpetuated due to economic and political
policies of rulers, rulers who have in a short-sighted manner resorted to abuse
of religious identity for their political goals. Some political tendencies have
thrived on the identity of religions and spread the ‘Hate’ about ‘other’
community. It is retarding the process of development in each of South Asian
countries and also putting strong brakes on the same. South
Asia should have been striving towards the process of formation of
South Asian Federation, which can expedite the processes leading to peace in
the sub continent. Regional peace in turn is a prerequisite for development of
the regions. We need to look beyond the narrow religious identities and promote
the freedom of religion, equality of religions and dignity and honour for
people of all the faiths for a better environment in those countries and a more
congenial atmosphere for enhancement of human rights of weaker sections of
society.
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