Arakan Library - Rakhaine

Arakan: - One Who Preserves and Takes Care of Their Own Nationality.

Publication by Arakan Action Association (AAA.)

Arakan Library was founded by a group of Arakan Action Association (AAA) in exile in Thailand from Burma in 2007 doing to voice for the knowledge, the people democratic and human rights.

Arakan Action Association (AAA)

Chotana Road , Chaing Mai ( 50301 ), Thailand.

Email : arakanactionassociation@walla.com , +66—089-637-4383, +66—053-409-577

THE MAGHS

Rakhaine

The Magh residents of Cox's Bazar district and Greater Patuakhali are known as Rakhaine. It has been held by Phayre that the name 'Rakhaine' comes from that of a tribe in Arakan known as Rakhaine and from that of their country designated as 'Rakhainepray' the said tribals supposedly being the aboriginals of the land. Phayre further says that during his stay in Arakan he saw a group of people at Pegu known as Rakhaine who, according to an oral tradition, protected their age-old culture with zeal and sincerity and had no connection with Buddhistic faith. These Rakhaines used to call their native land as Rakhapura(Sanskrit Rakshapura) and so he is inclined to trace the derivation of the term 'Arakan' from 'Rakhaing', the archaic from of modern 'Rakhaine'.

According to a Muslim tradition, the ancient name of Arakan is 'Arikhongpray' (land of wealth) which, in its turn, comes from the Arabic word 'Al-Rukun'. On the basis of this oral tradition, some Muslims seek to designate Arakan as 'Arikistan'. Historically, Muslim settlements in Arakan are not traceable before the eighth century, while philologically, Arikistan is a corrupt from of Rakhaing and some Muslims of Arakan want to designate themselves as 'Rohangya' claiming a separate identity from the Buddhists who call themselves as Rakhaings. The fact remains that the Muslim nomenclature 'Rohangya' is derivable from the Buddhist designation Rakhaing and in support of this it may be mentioned that 'Rohang' a Tibeto-Burman word, itself demotes Arakan, the land of both Rakhaings and the Rohangyas. Incidentally, the people of the Chittagong district even today use the term 'Rohang' 'Rosang' and 'Rokam' denote Arakan or its part are significant. Thus, 'Rakhainepray', the original name of Arakan, whose inhabitants were older than Rohang seem to be the known 'Rakhaing country'.

That this older name 'Rakhainepray' has been underlying the Arakanese immigrants of the Magh residents of Cox's Bazar district and Greater Patuakhali like to introduce themselves as Rakhaine although they have a curious predilection for the Burmese culture as a whole and not for the culture of Arakan in particular, and, Rangoon is their focal point of cultural attraction.

In fact, as stated above, the forebears of the Maghs were immigrants from Arakan. They also regard the word 'Magh' as a derogatory appellation. And therefore in the following pages the ethno-cultural designation 'Marma-Rakhaine' has been used to denote the Arakanese people who migrated to east Bengal or the present day Bangladesh in different stages of history.

In 1760 a treaty was signed between the East India Company and Nawab Mir Kasim. According to the provisions of this treaty, the tracts later known as the districts of Burdwan, Midnapur and Chittagong were ceded to the East India Company. Henry Verlest took the charge of the administration of Chittagong district and decided inter alia to develop friendly relations with Arakan and to put a stop to the depredation of the Arakanese pirates. Verlest was not fully aware of the limits of the territory under his jurisdiction; Ramu and Teknef were parts of the British territory and this came to be known only in 1790.

During the timer of Natial Bateman (1775-77), the successor of Verlest, a group of about two thousand Arakanese arrived at a place called Borpholaung near the later-day Cox's Bazar; Bateman allowed them to settle at pargana Anandapur, mauza Chambal, Puichari, Sonaichari, Lolakota and Manikpur under the leadership of Taj Mohammed, Atikullah, Takur Chand, Sadullah, Azizullah, Fakir Mohammed and Raosan. Bateman invited the refugee leaders at the Chittagong town in order to know the real cause of their migration. They told him that the political instability forced them to leave their motherland. While he allowed them to stay at the above noted place included in the Joynagar Mahal (a revenue unit), he added at the same time that the leaders would be treated as the subordinate zamindars of the saide mahal. This order of the collector Bateman did not satisfy them, because in Arakan they were in a batter administrative position and hence, with the exception of Taj Mohammed, all left Chittagong while some died meanwhile. TajMohammed also followed their leaders expectelly. The important cause of the en masse departure, if we rely on the English collector, was the infertile soil which was covered with stones and other hard materials, as well as their failure to enlist the support of the local population. From 1775 to 1784 there was no exodus Arakanese migration began when Arakan was subjugated by the Burmese monarch Bodawpaya (1782-1819).

The main reason of this migration was the tyrannical Burmese rule in Arakan. Indeed, at one stage the Arakanese found it better to leave their country and to settle in the not-far-off British territory where they could at least live the life of the human without fear. As a desolate country. Being in geographical proximity, Chittagong became a land of preference and from 1784 to 1794 nearly two-third population of Arakan settled in the south-eastern part of Chittagong, now known as Cox's Bazar district. In one year, we are told, a body of not less than ten thousand entered Chittagong. And according to the testimony of Captain Cox in 1799 forty to fifty thousand Arakanese entered the district. The British Government, However, granted them asylum and provided food partly on humanitarian ground and partly to increase the population of the sparsely populated areas. By 1814 the Arakanese refugees within eighteen kilometers of Ramu near Cox's Bazar was estimated at about 1,00,000. Thereafter, another phase of migration is heard of Hlawa Morang, a relative of the last Arakanese king Thamada, who crossed the river Naaf with 3,500 followers and took shelter in the British territory. In course of time his descendants became the zamindars of Neela and Teknaf; his grandson Charipru Chaudhury acted as an Honorary Magistrate for some time. During the period (1784-1814), five hundred refugees who had taken shelter at Harbang moved to Teknaf for settlement under the leadership of Nga Chin Pyan popularly known as king Berring. The British Government granted ninety sq. kilometers of land to them as a reward for their services in the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-25).

One of the earliest accounts of Cox's Bazar informs us that. Mr.Pechell, Magistrate of Chittagong in 1817 , recommended to the Government that the town of Cox's Bazar should be freehold of the Arakanese refugees in perpetuity. Since then the Arakanese refugees enjoyed it rent-free each person occupying his house as his own property. Besides, the Arakanese were also allowed to buy land from the local inhabitants as will be evident from Weymo, a refugee leader and his followers.

Intrepid and freedom-loving, as the Arakanese were, they rose against the Burmese rule whenever they found their independence in peril. All these unsuccessful risings of the Arakanese including the one led by Nga Chin Pyan and the grant of asylum to him by the British may be regarded as one of the causes of the First Anglo-Burmese War of 1824-25 in which Burma was defeated and had to sign a treaty at Yandaboo (1826) by a provision of which Arakan and Tenasserim were annexed to the British dominion. As a result, the Arakanese refugees got a permanent foothold in the areas of Chittagong and because of the geographical proximily between Arakan and Chittagong, trade and commerce too considerably developed.

Demographically, the main concentration of the Arakanese in southern Chittagong, comprising the district of Cox's Bazar, which is called by the Arakanese as Phalaung shey (residence of the prince), is found in the following areas: Harbang, Manikpur, Ramu, Cox's Bazar, Kurushkul, Chowfaldandi, Maheshkhali, Kharangkhali, Neela, Chaudhurypara and Teknaf. And total population has been estimated at 7176.

The next Arakanese settlement is Banderban which they call Bohmong taung; (i.e., Residence of the Bohmoug Chief). The Arakanese residents of this hill area who designate themselves as Marma are comparatively widespread throughout this district. It is generally held that the Marmas at the beginning did not settle at Banderban, but at Ramu and Idgarh in the Cox's Bazar area and first set their foot on the soil of the bank of the Matamuhuri river. Around 1804 they moved towards Maheshkhali where also they did not stay for long. Thereafter they shifted to the east and set up their headquarters at Banderban in 1822 after clearing its jungles. From this area the Marmas gradually spread in other directions. The total number of the Marmas is about 59,288.

The other area of concentration of the Marmas is the Khagrachari district and the area is called Plaung taung meaning the resident of the Plaung tha clan. They are supposedly the descendants of a group of the Arakanese refugees who entered the British territory around 1784 through the Matamuhuri Valley with their leader Marachi. Like the Banderban Marmas, they also established themselves first in the neighbourhood of Cox's Bazar. Shorty, afterwards, they moved to the Sitakund region sometime between 1787 and 1800 and to Ramgarh in Chittagong Hill tracts in 1826 and from Ramgarh they spread over the entire district. The present population of this group is about 42,178.

A group of the Arakanese is also found in Greater Patuakhali (Present Patuakhali and Barguna districts). The area is called Awazonway, that means 'the off-shore island'. The ancestors of this group migrated in two waves: one from Cox's Bazar and the other directly from Arakan, but the history of this settlement is not precisely known. The late-seventeenth-century Portuguese traveler F.Manrique knew the tract as depopulated owing to the Magh depredations. In Rennell's Map of 1794, the area is marked as a desolute one. It has been suggested by a recent scholar that the Arakanese (i.e. Rakhaine) settled here from Rangoon around 1789, but no historical evidence has been cited by him in favour of this argument.

The observation of H.Beveridge, the collector and Magistrate of Barisal in 1872, on this issue approximates to reality. According to him, none of their settlements is more than seventy years old and in support of his statement he cites a petition filed by one Thungari Mug to the Board of Revenue on 24th March, 1824 in which he calls himself an Arakanese and states that he had brought two hundred and thirty families of settlers at a great expense from Ramu when his monarch was dethroned and he had availed himself of the asylum offered by the British Government. Besides, he also refers to a letter of 31 December, 1812 which informed that he was not the first settler: but Anju Chaudhury and Anuparit Chaudhury being among the first settlers and Rangabali and Bara Baizdiya near Patuakhali being the first settlers and Rangabali and Bara Baizdiya near Patuakhali being the first Arakanese settlements testify to the migration of some Rakhaines from Ramu to Greater Patuakhali. W.W. Hunter, however, seeks to trace the beginning of the Arakanese settlement in Greater Patuakhali to a slightly remoter period. While visiting the southern part of the district of Greater Patuskhali in 1872, he met several Arakanese women (all around seventy yesrs) in the Lota Chapli Union who told him that they had been there (i.e., the Lota Chapli Union) since their adolescent days. Hunter maintains that the present Maghs are not the descendants of the Arakanese pirates and their ancestors were brought to Greater Patuakhali by the Government of the East India Company during the beginning of the last quarter of the eighteenth century from Ramu for the clearance of the jungles and reclamation of land. Hunter's view is in agreement with that of G.E. Harvey which dates the Arakanese settlements in south Bengal in 1789 when the British administration was granting Magh families fertile lands in the Bakarganj Sunderbans, the south-ernmost Gangetic delta which was then uninhabited and swampy, but had rich forest. If such views are relied upon, the Arakanese residents of Greater Patuakhali are to be taken as a branch of the Arakanese refugees of Cox's Bazar and Ramu.

Indeed, what has been said above does not seem to be far from truth; the Arakanese refugees came to Greater Patuakhali and its environs in and around 1789. My personal investigation in Greater Patuakhali leading to the discovery of a manuscript in Burmese character of a work named Awazon Rajwang has thrown welcome light on this issue. Of anonymous authorship, this work while speaking about the Arakanese settlement refers to an era of political trouble (1784-1824) in Arakan and states that a batch of Arakanese under the leadership of captain of one hundred and fifty families crossed the Bay of Bengal and reached Rangabali island, now in Galachipa Police Station. It further states that the British government granted them asylum. The tradition is supported by a village in the Rangabai island named Gombagri enshrining the memory of one of the preceding Arakanese leaders, although at present there is no Arakanese family in this village. The Arakanese immigrants named the whole tract as Awozonway (i.e., off-shore island). The Arakanese colonies thus grew up in Greater Patuakhali in the beginning of the late eighteenth century. At present the Arakanese are found within Greater Patuakhali comprising the following places: Khepupara, Satanpara, Taltalipara, Gorathakurpara, Aila, Agathakurpara, Saudagarpara, Kabirajpara, Naiharipara, Kalachandpara, De Amkholapara, Gora Amkholapara, Kuakata, Misreepara, Bailyatalipara, Sonapara, Pakkhiyapa, Haripara and Lalua. The figure of the population of the Arakanese has been estimated at 3520.

The above three tables show a sharp fall in the number of the Marma-Rakhaine population. And the phenomenon can be explained by a number of causes. First, the southern part of Bangladesh, particularly its coastal areas, have always been exposed to cyclones and inundations and consequently the Rakhaines of the Greater Patuakhali region, for instance, have suffered most at the cruel hands of nature. Of late between 1960 and 1970 several cyclones and tidal waves lashing at the southern part of Greater Patuakhali are known to have killed numerous members of the tribe. Seecondly, during the period 1955-65 an extensive area in the Rakhaine territory remained uncultivated due to drought and saline water entering paddy fields. As a result, people of this tract faced serious economic hardship; but the non-Rakhaines, professing Hinduism and Islam, tackled the situation by adopting new occupations like fishing, day-labouring and boatmanship, the Rakhaines stuck to their traditional occupation of tilling soil, and at the time of economic distress, used to spend accumulated money, sell gold and silver ornaments and domestic animals. Those who failed to cope with the situation migrated to Burma. Thirdly, in the Banderban district most of the Marmas and other tribes who were dependent on jhum cultivation were put to difficulty by the introduction of rubber and teak plantation. In other works, they were confronted with the shortage of flat land for cultivation and were thus forced to find shelters elsewhere. As a result, the Banderban town, which was once preeminently a town of the Marma tribe, has now the Marma constituting one-third of its total population. This is also true of the trade centres like Lama and Naikkhongchari, which were hitherto noted strongholds of the Marmas, but have now been reduced to two ordinary bazaars. So also is the fate of Cox's Bazar twon, Ramu and Teknaf from the Marma point of view. A majority of the members of this tribe have gone back to Arakan and Burma. Fourthly, in the pre-partition days, some Rakhaine of Cox's Bazar district had considerable income from trade and commerce which they used to carry on with Burma. But the occupation of Burma by Japan in 1942, partition of India in 1947 and the ultimate emergence of the Union of Burma in 1948 stopped the trade relations between Burma and the erstwhile East Pakistan leading to the deterioration of their economic condition and their consequent migration elsewhere. Fifthly, the Marma-Rakhaines were simple in nature and habit and failed to combat the local rogues and land grabbers and were eventually evicted from their land. A couple of examples is cited here. In Greater Patuakhali, more often not they were deprived of their legitimate produce of their own land by marauders during harvesting seasons. In such circumstances, most of the Marma-Rakhaines had no other alternative than to migrate from the former East Pakistan and the present-day Bangladesh to Burma. The asylum in Burma was but natural, in as much as a vast tract of land there remains uncultivated and the population of Burma is less than half of the total population of Bangladesh. Seventhly, for the Marma-Rakhaines the scope for employment in areas they lived in was always limited because of the absence of factories or mills or even of cottage industry establishments. In addition came the language barrier which made them almost socially and economically isolated from the majority of their neighbours. Feelings of such socio-economic isolation among them were intensified in the post-independence era. For example, during the British rule there was an officer called 'colonization officer' who used to settle all disputes among the Rakhaines of Greater Patuakhali without any delay, and mostly on the spot, but in 1958 the then Government of East Pakistan replaced this officer by a Resident Magistrate who forced them to undergo all the official formalities, interrogation and usual harassment in legal and revenue matters. In such a situation of psychological pressure, the Marma-Rakhaines preferred to the ethnic mainstream and a majority of them emigrated to Burma. Finally, the Marma-Rakhaines experienced a feeling of insecurity when Pakistan's relations with Burma and India deteriorated. For example, though they are Buddhists, they are hardly allowed to visit Buddhist holy places such as Rajgir, Nalanda, Bodhgaya, Kusinara and Saranath in India: and they also could not easily visit their relatives in Burma and Arakan who were linguistically and culturally close to them. Further, Pakistan's denial of the country by declaring the state as an Islamic Republic and denying a non-Muslim to be the President of the country relegated the Marma-Rakhaines to the position of the second class citizens. Although the Hindus were the principal victims, communal riots that broke out at Narayanganj and Khulna in the 1960's greatly alarmed also the Buddhists including the Marma-Rakhaines to Burma. A confidential Government Report says that in 1966 alone about two hundred Rakhaine families from Greater Patuakhali returned to Burma.

All the above causes have combinedly contributed to the gradual decline in the Marma-Rakhaine population of Bangladesh. The political status of the minorities and their integration into the mainstream of national life, a fundamental question has yet to be solved. Initially, in the constitution Bangladesh was declared as a secular state. But after the political change in 1975, the term secularism was withdrawn from the constitution and some Islamic provisions were introduced in it and indeed the declaration of Islam as the state religion of Bangladesh generated some sense of insecurity and mistrust among the different minority groups. This attitude which the Ershad Government had shown to the minorities gave them an impression of their being a 'Protected Minority'. Even the fall of the Ershad regime in 1990 and the subsequent amendment of the Constitution have not substantially effected the former position of the minorities. Their status remains the same as it was in the past. As a result, the process of their migration still continues. It is true that of late the Government appears to have become alive to the problems of minorities. For instance, it has established a Minority Cell in the Ministry of Home Affairs in order to develop 'Minority areas', maintain local law and order and promote cultural life of the minorities. But all these measures proved to be the palliative tablets, and even they are not working properly. Unless the fundamental issues are solved, it is likely that the Marma-Rakhaine population in Bangladesh would continue to decline.