kabarmakyay

The Development of a Muslim Enclave in
Arakan (Rakhine) State of Burma (Myanmar)1

 

Aye Chan
Kanda University of International Studies

 

Who are the Rohingyas? Burma gained independence from Great Britain in 1948 and this issue is a problem that Burma has had to grapple with since that time. The people who call themselves Rohingyas are the Muslims of Mayu Frontier area, present-day Buthidaung and Maungdaw Townships of Arakan (Rakhine) State, an isolated province in the western part of the country across Naaf River as boundary from Bangladesh. Arakan had been an
independent kingdom before it was conquered by the Burmese in 1784. Rohingya historians have written many treatises in which they claim for themselves an indigenous status that is traceable within Arakan State for more than a thousand years. Although it is not accepted as a fact in academia, a few volumes purporting to be history but mainly composed of fictitious stories, myths and legends have been published formerly in Burma and later in the

United States, Japan and Bangladesh. These, in turn, have filtered into the international media through international organizations, including reports to the United Nations High Commissioner fo Refugees (Ba Tha 1960: 33-36; Razzaq and Haque 1995: 15).2

 

အျပည့္အစံု ဆက္ဖတ္ရန္

The present paper was written for distribution and discussion at a seminar in
Japan. During the seminar, there was a debate between the author and
Professor Kei Nemoto concerning the existence of the Rohingya people in
Rakhine (Arakan). Nemoto, in a paper written in Japanese, agreed with the
Rohingya historians that the Rohingyas have lived in Rakhine since the eigth
century A. D. The author contests the vailidity of these claims. The present
paper was also read at the 70th Conference of Southeast Asian historians of
Japan, held at the University of Kobe, on 4 to 5 February 2003.
©2005 AYE CHAN