The Independent September 30 2017 The Independent September 30 2017 | Page 5

The Independent, the Diaspora’s Multicultural Voice September 30 2017 5
Rohingya, India's 'favourite whipping boy'?
Comment
At home in Myanmar, they are unwanted and with a banned militant group Jamaat-ul Mujahideen
less as well. Now the government says that Rohingya the July 2016 cafe attack in Dhaka in which 20
denied citizenship. Outside, they are largely friend-
living in India pose a clear and present danger to na-
Bangladesh (JMB), which was held responsible for
hostages died. Delhi believes groups like Arsa pose a
tional security. threat to regional security.
earlier this month when he announced that India ible intelligence India has on Rohingya refugees on
thought to number about 40,000, including some They say India has fought long-running home-
First, a government minister kicked up a storm
would deport its entire Rohingya population,
16,000 who have been registered as refugees by the
UN.
But critics of the move wonder how much cred-
its soil with terror links.
grown
with rebel groups in
The Rohingya are seen by many of Myanmar's
Buddhist
majority
Bangladesh.
Fleeing
persecution at home,
as
illegal
migrants
insurgencies
the
from
north-east
Maoists
Soutik Biswas
in
and
central
India, which have ar-
guably
posed
a
they began arriving in India during the 1970s and are greater threat to na-
squalid camps. what they say is a rag-
now scattered all over the country, many living in
The government's announcement has come at
what many say is an inappropriate time, as violence
in Myanmar's western Rakhine state has forced more
tional security than
tag and scattered Rohingya population.
Also, many question a proposed move to punish
a community for the perceived crimes of some - in
than 400,000 Rohingya Muslims across the border other words, is it right to consider all Rohingya a se-
Who are the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army? On the other hand, India's Home Minister Raj-
into Bangladesh since August.
When petitioners went to the Supreme Court
challenging the proposed ejection plan, Narendra
curity threat?
nath Singh insists Rohingya are not refugees or asy-
lum-seekers. "They are illegal immigrants," he said
Modi's government responded by saying it had intel- recently.
with global terrorist organisations, including ones legally bound by the UN principle of "non-refoule-
ligence about links of some community members
based in Pakistan.
It said some Rohingya living here were in-
dulging in "anti-national and illegal activities", and
But critics say this is untenable because India is
ment" - meaning no push-backs of asylum seekers to
life-threatening places.
Also, India's constitution clearly says that it
could help stoke religious tensions. "shall endeavour to foster respect for international
emergent Rohingya militant group, the Arakan Ro- ples with one another".
Experts agree the threat from Myanmar's newly-
hingya Salvation Army (Arsa), should not be
law and obligations in the dealings of organised peo-
Like much of Asia, which is home to a third of
underestimated. Analyst Subir Bhaumik describes the more than 20 million displaced people in the
size and influence remain unclear. protection.
Arsa as "strong and motivated", although its exact
The current crisis began in Rakhine in August
with an Arsa attack on police posts which killed 12
security personnel. Reports say the group has at least
600 armed fighters.
world, India has a curious track record in refugee
Although the country is not party to the 1951 UN
Refugee Convention and its 1967 protocol and does-
n't have a formal asylum policy, it hosts more than
In Myanmar, Rohingya are seen as illegal migrants from Bangladesh
UNHCR. (These include more than 100,000 Tibetans
from China and more than 60,000 Tamils from Sri
lum seekers, according the UN refugee agency,
Love and courage.
Journalists like me are temperamentally, if not genetically, conditioned
to scoff at politicians who invoke these words in response to hate and
cowardice.
And so it was, after Jagmeet Singh, a Sikh-Canadian who is vying to
become the next head of Canada's on-life-support socialists - and the first
visible minority ever to lead a federal political party - kept repeating the
two words like a soothing mantra when a racist leapt from the audience
at a campaign rally earlier this month to spew her venom at him.
Video of the racist's lunatic performance and Singh's calm, resolute
response went, as they say, viral. The racist's aim: goad Singh - verbally
and physically - to respond in kind. She failed, pathetically. Armed with
two powerful words, Singh remained steadfast. Love and courage, Singh
made sure, would define the terms of their brief exchange, and, ultimately,
the outcome.
Defeated and deflated, the racist stopped spouting stupidities about
Sharia law and slithered back into irrelevance and, no doubt, the comfort-
ing cocoon of her ignorance and the welcoming embrace of Canada's ran-
cid reactionary press.
Meanwhile, the encounter boosted Singh's profile not only in Canada,
but abroad. People across the globe took notice of and applauded a young,
eloquent man with a taste for a rainbow of neon-bright turbans and the
admirable sense to defy a racist provocateur with aplomb and intelligence.
Of course, some journalists, while lauding Singh's adeptness at diffus-
ing a potentially combustible moment, found his employ of love and
courage in that moment too sentimental, too calculated, too disingenuous
and too politically self-serving.
The more appropriate response to such an overt expression of hate was
to denounce and rebut it, bluntly and unequivocally. Singh ought to have
clocked - rhetorically, rather than coddled, the racist interloper.
Doubts persist about whether Singh is a bonafide socialist or another
centrist-hugging chameleon with a Justin Trudeau-like penchant for self-
ies and sartorial peccadillos - splashy socks meet splashy turbans.
Shree Paradkar, a consistently astute Toronto Star columnist, hit on
the stubborn double-standard and dilemma Singh faced if he had put that
admonition on public display, particularly in the middle of a competitive
leadership campaign with a white-dominated, predominately right-wing
corporate press ready to pounce.
"Anger expressed by white people is passion. The same emotion from
a Black man or a turbaned man is a threat," she wrote.
This is undeniable, even in a country like Canada that considers itself,
and is viewed by so many others, as a happy bastion of diversity, tolerance
and understanding. It is a risible myth.
Still, given my combative nature, I wish Singh had been more forceful
mik, "a favourite whipping boy for the Hindu right-
Lanka.) wing to energise their base".
40,000 in India legal migrant was invoked by Mr Modi and his party
The Rohingyas are thought to number about
At the same time, India has always taken in
refugees based on political considerations. It took in
tens of thousands of refugees from Bangladesh dur-
ing the country's 1971 war of independence from
"Remember how the issue of the Bangladeshi il-
during the 2014 election campaign?" he said, referring
to the prime minister's efforts to generate support
from his Hindu base in areas with many migrants.
In the end, many say, what is is deeply troubling
Pakistan even as it trained and supported pro-libera- is a country talking about returning Rohingya people
Many like Michel Gabaudan, former president what the UN says "seems a textbook example of eth-
tion guerrillas, for example.
to Myanmar even as they appear to be the target of
of the advocacy group Refugee International, believe nic cleansing".
partly "because it [has] received little recognition for bility, to consider security risks, but that cannot be
that India distrusts the international refugee process
taking in refugees" in the past.
A 2015 paper by a group of Indian researchers
"Any nation has a right, and indeed a responsi-
confused as an excuse to knowingly force an entire
group of people back to a place where they will face
said the image of Rohingya in India was "unenviable certain persecution and a high likelihood of severe
national, illiterate, impoverished and dispersed Refugees International told me.
- foreigner, Muslim, stateless, suspected Bangladeshi
across the length and breadth of the country".
"This makes them illegal, undesirable, the other,
Battling racism with love
Bangladeshi officials claim that Arsa has links
200,000 refugees, returnees, stateless people and asy-
This also makes them, says analyst Subir Bhau-
a threat, and a nuisance," the paper said.
human rights abuses and death," Daniel Sullivan of
That is something India would possibly do well
to remember.
Andrew Mitrovica
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh
and defied the racist caricatures and the usual gallery of rank, ivory
polemicists who would surely have tarred any "angry outburst" as possi-
bly disqualif ying.
Singh chose a more measured and generous riposte - authentic to him
and born, as he explained, out of experience. Growing up in Windsor, On-
tario, this accomplished lawyer and politician from an immigrant family
tasted bigotry and ridicule all too often because of the shade of his skin
and the length of his hair. Those bitter, indelible experiences from yester-
day have informed his answer to prejudice today.
Sadly, but not surprisingly, Singh was obliged, yet again, to address
questions about whether a Sikh and his turban could appeal to and attract
votes from Quebec, with its mix of deep Roman Catholic traditions and
roots, and secularism. The smear, disguised as a query, was posed just 10
days ago by a philosophical "friend", not foe: A New Democrat Member
of Parliament from la belle province.
Singh rejected politely the ugly claim that his faith and the religious
symbols associated with his faith would alienate Quebecers, insisting that,
"the people of Quebec have a rich history and heritage of being open-
hearted and open-minded."
But it was Singh's encounter with naked hate and his signature re-
sponse to it that has become the memorable,
defining moment during a protracted contest
to choose a successor to Thomas Mulcair - who was promptly and wisely
shown the exit door by disappointed party members after The New Dem-
ocratic Party's (NDP) depressing election results in October, 2015.
Propelled, in part, by the support and out-sized attention he accrued
from the now notorious episode, Singh appears poised to win and perhaps
resuscitate the NDP's near-invisible profile, fast evaporating influence
and empty bank account.
But doubts persist about whether Singh is a bonafide socialist or an-
other centrist-hugging chameleon with a Justin Trudeau-like penchant for
selfies and sartorial peccadillos - splashy socks meet splashy turbans.
More avowedly progressive NDP supporters also worry that there may
be more Tony Blair in Singh than Jeremy Corbyn.
A cautionary sign of Singh's palatability is the effusive accolades he's
earned from the same band of establishment writers and establishment
newspapers that once praised Mulcair for his "statesman-like" reluctance
to condemn Israel during its grotesque invasion of Gaza in 2014 and for
systematically draining the NDP of its other "militant", "retrograde" poli-
cies.
Indeed, one predictably hyperbolic scribe lauded Singh recently for
having "transgressed radical-chic decorum by travelling to Israel with
several other [Ontario politicians] on a routine fact-finding tour".
In an editorial, Canada's largest circulation newspaper, the Toronto
Star, well known for its rather limp "liberal" sympathies and energetic de-
votion to the governing Liberal Party, urged NDP members to back the
"charming" Singh "with flair to spare", despite the "big risks" his candi-
dacy apparently poses for the party's future.
"But at this point the NDP can't afford to take the safe route. It needs
to bet on the future, and Jagmeet Singh offers the better chance of a path
back to political relevancy," the paper advised.
Canadians may learn on October 1 whether or not New Democrats
have heeded the Star's perfidious advice. That's when the results of the
first round of voting will be revealed. Given the party's system of ranked
balloting, it could take several ballots and weeks before a winner is finally
declared.
When that happens, Jagmeet Singh will know if he's made history; an-
swered the lingering doubts about his hazy, ideological purity; and if love
and courage have prevailed.
Andrew Mitrovica is an award-winning investigative reporter and
journalism instructor.