Abstract
This chapter analyzes the political interests of the political parties—particularly parties in power—of Bangladesh in hosting or not hosting Rohingya. With such analysis, it problematizes the claim of the response of the Bangladesh government as pure “humanitarian.” It contends that the analysis of Bangladesh’s response to the Rohingya refugees needs to take into account the interests of the ruling political party. The argument holds over a period of time. All three regimes (Ziaur Rahman (1978), Khaleda Zia (1991–1992), and Sheikh Hasina (2017) did not face much difficulty in responding positively to the Rohingya, as there was support—domestic and international—for such a policy. However, the pursuit of power and political legitimacy appears to have played a part, in different ways, in their “humanitarian response” (eventually, if not immediately).
By employing critical social constructivism and elite theory as the theoretical framework, this study suggests that the “humanitarian” response was not “fully benign” but “calculated,” and entailed political cost-benefit calculation on the part of all three regimes discussed here. The government’s production and perpetuation of particular narratives lend credence to their policies, and their power to do so. While applying “discourse productivity,” a way of studying discourse as suggested by Jennifer Milliken, as a research method, the data for this research has been collected from both primary and secondary sources.
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- 1.
Delwar Hossain is a professor at the Department of International Relations at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh.
- 2.
Afsan Chowdhury is a senior Bangladeshi journalist, academician, and political analyst.
- 3.
Major General A.N.M. Muniruzzaman is the president of Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies (BIPSS), Dhaka, Bangladesh.
- 4.
Haroon Habib is a senior journalist, author, and a former Bangladesh correspondent at The Hindu.
- 5.
Hassan Shahriar was a former executive editor at the Daily Ittefaq and a former International President Emeritus of the Toronto-based Commonwealth Journalists Association (CJA).
- 6.
Munshi Faiz Ahmad is former ambassador of Bangladesh to China [2007–2012] and the chairman at the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS), Dhaka.
- 7.
M. Humayn Kabir is former ambassador of Bangladesh to the USA [2007–2009] and vice president of Bangladesh Enterprise Institute, Dhaka.
- 8.
Julfikar Ali Manik is a former chief of correspondents at the Daily Star and Bangladesh correspondent at the New York Times.
- 9.
Muhammad Faruk Khan is the chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs. He is a senior AL politician.
- 10.
The concept of secularism in Bangladesh differs from the Western formulation. The Bengali word for secularism is dharmaniropekshata, which means religious neutrality. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of the nation, sought to propagate an understanding of secularism that did not entail absence of religion. Advocating this notion of secularism to his fellow citizens, he said “You are a Mussalmaan, you perform your religious rites. There is no irreligiousness on the soil of Bangladesh but there is secularism” (cited in Rahman, 2013, p. 145). Rahman (2013) describes Mujibur Rahman’s secularism as non-communal. The constitution of Bangladesh adopted in 1972 did not prioritize any religion. During the military regimes of Ziaur Rahman and Hussain Muhammad Ershad, however, this secular nature of the Bangladeshi constitution was rescinded. Though the Sheikh Hasina-led AL government resuscitated the principle of secularism in the constitution in 2010, it has retained Islam as the state religion.
- 11.
Zahirul Alam is a 29-years-old Bangladeshi who works as a security guard at a refugee camp in Balukhali, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
- 12.
During the 2018 general election, local AL and BNP leaders accused each other of “using” Rohingya refugees for their political gains (“Apprehension remains over,” 2018). The allegations of enrolling the Rohingya in the Bangladeshi voter list and getting them national identity card is not new. The Election Commission of Bangladesh (ECB) had dropped 45,866 Rohingyas’ names from the voter list of Cox’s Bazar district in 2010 (“45,866 Rohingyas off,” 2010, 5th August) and 17,000 in 2013 (“17,000 Rohingyas off,” 2016). The Sheikh Hasina government has taken strong measures to stop the Rohingya from getting enlisted in Bangladeshi voter lists and collecting national identity cards. These efforts were bolstered after the 2017 influx, with the ECB taking special measures to prevent the Rohingya from enrolling in voter lists (Alamgir, 2019; Irani, 2019).
- 13.
Sabuj Sen is a local high school teacher at Ukhiya, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
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Appendix: Questionnaire for Interview
Appendix: Questionnaire for Interview
Section 1: For Diplomats/NGO Officials/Journalists/Academicians/Locals
Bangladesh’s Response to Rohingya
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(a)
How do you see Bangladesh’s government response to the Rohingya refugees?
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(b)
What are the consistent and/or changing aspects of Bangladesh’s policies on hosting the Rohingya since the 1970s?
Factors Influencing Government Decisions
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(c)
Why has Bangladesh been providing shelter to the Rohingya refugees in spite of having a poor economy and security concerns relating to refugees? (Follow-up option: How similar and/or different is this rationale from that of other countries in the Global South that host refugees?)
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(d)
What are the key factors underlying Bangladesh’s refugee policies, specifically hosting Rohingya refugees? (Follow-up question: Do the factors remain the same in all three major influx of Rohingyas, particularly in 1978, 1991–1992, and 2017?)
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(e)
Bangladesh allowed the Rohingya without any hesitation in 1978 but was initially reluctant in subsequent years, specifically in 1991–1992 and 2017. Why is this so?
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(f)
Why did Bangladesh officially not allow the Rohingya from 2012 to 2016?
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(g)
Has the government’s refugee policy been used to serve larger foreign policy goals of Bangladesh? If yes, please explain?
Political Parties Interest
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(h)
What kind of impact have changes in the government—in terms of the political party in power—had on national policies regarding the Rohingya refugees?
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(i)
Have the political parties used the issue of Rohingya refugees to score points in the domestic arena? If so, how?
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(j)
Has the Rohingya refugee issue impacted on domestic politics of Bangladesh? If yes, how so?
Section 2: For Politicians
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(a)
What is your party’s stance in providing shelter to the Rohingyas?
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(b)
Has your party’s stance always remained the same? If so, why? If not, why not?
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(c)
Why did your political party decide to allow the Rohingyas to enter even though Bangladesh is a country with limited economic resources and has had security concerns related to refugees?
(Follow-up question: this has been popularly characterized as a “humanitarian” response—do you agree with this characterization? Why or why not?)
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(d)
Do you think that this decision aligns with the party’s interest as well?
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(e)
In what ways is your party different from the other major political party (Awami League vs BNP) regarding hosting Rohingyas?
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(f)
How has the Rohingya refugee issue impacted upon the domestic politics of Bangladesh?
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(g)
Has the decision of hosting the Rohingya benefited or harmed Bangladesh in the international arena? Please explain your response.
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(h)
Are you in favor of or against providing shelter to the Rohingya? Why?
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Islam, S. (2022). Regime’s Interests in Hosting Refugees: Bangladesh’s Response to the Rohingya. In: Bülbül, K., Islam, M.N., Khan, M.S. (eds) Rohingya Refugee Crisis in Myanmar. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6464-9_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6464-9_5
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