Indian Muslim mass protest rally during a protest against the persecution of Myanmar's Rohingya Muslim minority in Kolkata, India, September 11, 2017. NurPhoto/Press Association. All rights reserved.There is something surreal about the photo-op of a smiling Rohingya refugee family heading back to conflict-torn Myanmar. In a similar case of mixed signals, Myanmar’s social welfare minister Win Myat Aye’s visit in April to the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh spoke a language of resettlement but its message was a deeply unsettling one.
He announced that his country would take back only those Rohingya refugees who could furnish a proof of residency in Myanmar. In the complex game of political signals all nations play, this was as clear a warning shot as any, of trouble ahead. But one wonders how many in the Indian policy establishment heard it at all, given its increasing tone-deafness to both nuance and subtext.
Could this misplaced complacency arise from the fact that Myanmar’s securitised narrative on the Rohingya issue is a lot similar to that of the Indian state? If this is indeed the case, what Delhi has deluded itself into believing is that a shared language translates into a shared understanding. If anything, Myanmar’s securitised narrative on the Rohingya issue will potentially affect India’s interests in damaging ways. For instance, the verification process will no doubt involve an opaque process of separating the ‘good’ refugees from the ‘bad’ ones.
