This short book, published as the situation in Cox’s Bazar exploded is a useful primer on the Rohingya situation. It provides a short historical overview before looking at the situation that the Rohingya in Myanmar faced in the run up to the crisis of 2017.

As I close this thread (at least for now) it seems fitting that we end with Azeem Ibrahim’s ‘The Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar’s Hidden Genocide’ (New Delhi: Tiger, 2017), picked up on a whim at an airport bookstall in Chennai on my way to a short consultancy in Cox’s Bazar in 2018.

Habiburahman provides a compelling account of his life in Myanmar from the 1970s until 2000 when he fled Rakhine and then gives a fascinating insight into the life of an undocumented and often illegal migrant living on the margins of international society.

What is notable about most of the books I have referenced is the lack of Rohingya voices in the literature. A notable exception to this is Habiburahman’s ‘First They Erased Our Name: A Rohingya Speaks’ (Haryana: Penguin, 2018) initially written in French with Sophie Ansel in 2018.

This Indian focus is a bit frustrating given the relatively small number of Rohingya in India compared to Bangladesh or more recently Indonesia and Malaysia. 2/2

The South Asian perspective of the Rohingya crisis is the focus of ‘The Rohingya in South Asia: A people without a State’ (New Delhi: Routledge India, 2018) edited by Sabyasaichi Basu Ray Chaudhury and Ranabir Samaddar. This multi author academic book examines the crisis through an Indian lens.1/2

The book's backbone is 76 micro-narratives, a couple of pages each, which do an excellent job of giving voice to the Rohingya. It also includes the most extensive annotated bibliography of the Rohingya issue I have seen. The book is worthwhile reading for these two bits of scholarship alone. 3/3

The book addresses the Protection dilemma faced by Rohingya and identifies the vulnerability of Rohingya whether in Bangladesh or Rakhine. The analysis of the threats faced by the Rohingya is extensive, but it is frustrating that wider regional and global actors are not really addressed. 2/3

Perhaps the most academic book in the collection is Imtiaz Ahmed and Niloy Ranjan Biswas’ ‘Rohingyas in Myanmar and Bangladesh: The Violence-Protection Dialectic and the Narratives of Certain Unsafety/Uncertain Safety’ (Dhaka: Centre for Studies, University of Dhaka 2022). 1/3

Buchanan does not mention the Rohingya but he outlines challenges faced by refugees who had recently fled across the Naf River following the Burmese invasion of Mrauk-U. He charts the challenges of integration and the social tensions caused by the first recorded refugee flow across the Naf River.

An interesting early modern account of the area we now call Cox’s Bazar District was published by the Dutch academic Willem van Schendel. ‘Francis Buchanan in Southeast Bengal (1798): His Journey to Chittagong, the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Noakhali and Comilla’ (Dhaka: University Press, 1992).

Published a year before the 2021 coup, the book seeks to explain Burmese antipathy towards the Rohingya, looking at the history of Arakan/Rakhine in the pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial periods. Usefully Galache looks at the emergence of ARSA in Rakhine and then the camps in Bangladesh.2/2

Spanish journalist Carlos Sardina Galache looks at the Rohingya issue through the Myanmar (or, as he says, Burmese) lens.‘The Burmese Labyrinth: A History of the Rohingya Tragedy’ (London: Verso, 2020) is an attempt to understand the largely Islamic Rohingya inside a majority Buddhist culture.1/2

It picks apart a history of persecution, outlining the traumas and insecurities faced. Imtiaz is sympathetic to the Rohingya plight. The failure of the International Community and Burmese extremism are blamed but a solution of more international focus is a bit utopian in the light of events. 2/2

Dhaka’s view of the Rohingya has been consistent since 1947. ‘The Plight of the Stateless Rohingyas: responses of the State, Society & the International Community (Dhaka: University Press:2010) edited by Bangladesh genocide scholar Imtiaz Ahmed summarises Bangladesh’s pre 2017 crisis perspective.1/2

Singh starts with a short background to the crisis. The British (again) do not come out well with regard to divide and rule policies but the attitude of Myanmar and Buddhist extremism also play a role. However, Rohingya entering India are seen as a security threat part of a wider Islamic threat. 2/2

The Indian's view the Rohingya differently to the international and Bangladeshi perspectives. R. A. Singh’s ‘The Rohingya Crisis – Demographic Invasion by Illegal Immigrants’ (New Delhi:Raj,2018) is a summary of the Indian approach: sympathy for Rohingya but seeing them as an existential threat.1/2