By Ashis Biswas
Once more, the Bangladesh Government finds itself embroiled in a tricky public debate with civil rights groups — this time over a touchy matter involving the quantum of food supply to the stranded 1.1 million strong Rohingya population.
The bone of contention: whether the Rohingyas produce too many children because some of them eat too much ! The Government is seriously considering a reduction in existing supplies for Rohingya refugees through the rationing system so that excess deliveries can be avoided. The excessive consumption of food, it is being suggested, could well be a cause for the relatively higher birth rate among the stateless refugees. However, no one has yet put forward any specific evidence of a positive co-relation between child births and food intake.
The delicacy of the issue would have made it politically/diplomatically difficult for any ruling dispensation to initiate a public discussion. Bangladesh has been no exception. But facts are facts. Dhaka-based rulers, after following recent trends of rising population among the Rohingyas decided to stir up a hornet’s nest, never mind the cost.
Accordingly, to Home Minister Mr Asadzzaman Khan fell the unenviable task of articulating Dhaka’s growing unease over emerging demographic trends among the Rohingyas and steps that were urgently needed to be taken to ensure that matters did not get out of hand. A failure to act now could lead to a Rohingya population explosion which would cost the people of Bangladesh very heavily indeed — so ran the narrative in Dhaka political circles.
Ironically such perceptions about then high population growth among the Rohingyas put the Bangladesh government internationally seen as the saviour of the much persecuted community, on the same footing as successive Burmese administrations — there was a general agreement that the Rohingyas bred faster than others, no matter the type of government in charge !
Recently attending a routine meeting to review the Rohingyas’s security, administrative coordination and related issues of their settlement, Mr Khan hinted that food supplies through rations may be reduced to ensure that birth rates among the Rohingyas did not spiral out of control. Bangladesh had always followed strict family planning norms for its citizens stringently. In the process the Government earned the opprobrium of hardline Muslim fundamentalist organisations.
There was a suggestion that similar steps be introduced among the Rohingyas as well. However the fact that the stateless ethnic group originating from the Rakhine province in Myanmar were not Bangladeshi citizens also meant that that any direct intervention was out of the question. Larger issues were involved.
According to sources in Bangladesh, the number of stateless Rohingyas was now around 1.2 million. There has been no census in recent years. The biggest exodus from Myanmar came in the wake of the anti-Muslim violence unleashed by Myanmar troops in 2017 . Over 750000 people crossed over in batches.
During the last 4/5 years according to some estimates, over 100, 000 children had been born within the displaced community putting up at an island (Bhashan char) and various camps . However, estimates vary. Some UN affiliated agencies and HR people assert that there hve been around 75,000 births, notmore during the mentioned period.
Whatever the actual figure, there was no arguing that the situation was alarming: the emergence of a new generation of Rohingyas born stateless in temporary settlement camps where living conditions despite the best official efforts undertaken were far from ideal, carried its ominous warning regarding the future of the community as well as the reluctant host country.
In this context, Mr Khan according to Dhaka-based media accounts , spoke the dreaded words : referring to the higher births figure, he articulated the controversial notion of reducing existing ration supplies as a means to reduce the mounting number of childbirths. The government claimed that on average 35000 children were born every year among the Rohingyas .
Media reports stated that at present, children and adults received the similar quantities of food items under the rationing system. The financial allocation for each ration card every month was around Taka 1100 or thereabouts. Each individual card holder, adult or child, was assured of receiving around 14 kilos of rice, and 20 other items including fish, meat, veggies , sugar and so on. After Khan’s announcement, a fresh debate has started.
Many argue that a monthly supply of around 14 kilos of foodstuff was hardly princely, rather the quantity should be supplemented if anything. The stateless Rohingyaas had it tough: they could not undertake local work normally, and at best could work only as part time labour on a casual basis. Even the small shops some of them opened in their camps could not run for long. The community was totally dependant on the Government for its physical survival. To even think of curtailing existing supplies would be truly draconian, Further, it would seriously hurt women and children and affect future generation of Rohingyas .
The counter argument ran , it was common for Rohingyas to sell part of their rice and other supplies informally among locals, which suggested that there was often a surplus. Further the quantum consumed by children and adults could not be equal at any level. The 30,000 figure was an obvious exaggeration . Some experts were certain that the actual number of births annually was around half of that or less.
The debate will continue even as most settled Rohingyas as well as Bangladeshi officials remain engaged with how the Myanmar army rulers respond to their urgent demand to accelerate the process of repatriation and rehabilitation of lakhs of stranded Rohingyas back to the Rakhine province.
Bangladesh has long been complaining of endless delaying tactics adopted by Naypitaw authorities on the critical question of the return of the Rohingyas. It also proposed that with so many children being born annually in the camps, the Myanmar authorities were asked to declare their position on the status of the new batches of children.
Senior Rohingya community leaders in Bangladesh feel that the new born children according to all existing laws and conventions should all be counted as Burmese citizens, But they acknowledge, whether the army authorities ruling Myanmar or even other political parties and civil groups would be willing to accept these children as Burmese citizens at all, anytime soon, is a question nobody can answer for now. (IPA Service)
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