Enduring Entanglement: The Multi-Sectoral Impact of the Rohingya Crisis on Neighboring Bangladesh

A humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions has been unfolding along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border since late August 2017. To date, some 700,000 Rohingya men, women, and children have fled their homes in Rakhine state of Myanmar to Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh after the Myanmar military—also known as the tatmadaw—began "clearance operations" in the aftermath of a small-scale insurgent attack by a separatist group known as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA). The indiscriminate, horrific, and rapid state-led violence has provoked wide-spread condemnation, not least because it is evocative of "textbook" ethnic cleansing campaigns such as those during the break-down of the former Yugoslavia. Violence against the Rohingya—who are a religious, linguistic, and ethnic minority—is hardly new. The ongoing cross-border crisis, however, is unprecedented in its scale and pace and, thus, has rightfully drawn international scrutiny about the future of democracy and the record of human rights in Myanmar. An underexplored but nevertheless important question relates to how the refugee influx has impacted Bangladesh, which has borne the brunt of Myanmar's expulsion of the Rohingya. In this article, I seek to address this lacuna by shining a spotlight on Bangladesh's role and experience in the on-going crisis.

Bangladesh's ability to absorb such a vast number of Rohingya people is commendable. Despite the lack of space and resources necessary to cope with a disaster of this magnitude, Bangladesh is, in some ways, well positioned to respond to disasters thanks to recent and historical experience. As one of the leading troop-contributing countries to UN peacekeeping missions around the world, the Bangladesh military, which is helping to manage security and infrastructure of camps, is equipped to deal with an evolving humanitarian emergency. Moreover, the people of Bangladesh are no strangers to ethnic cleansing and forced displacement. The legacy of the 1971 Liberation War, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Bengalis and forced some ten million Bengalis to flee to India,¹ looms large in the public imagination. This history has served as a source of much sympathy toward the Rohingya among both state leaders and ordinary citizens.

But Bangladesh is very small, under-developed, and overpopulated. The government, and broad swathes of the public, is growing increasingly exasperated with having to serve as the host nation for the displaced Rohingya. In late November 2017, Bangladesh and Myanmar reached a hastily negotiated bilateral "arrangement" on repatriation that was supposed to commence in January 2018. Implementation has been delayed not least because the terms are ambiguous and unrealistic, but also do not take into consideration the needs and aspirations of the displaced population. In the meantime, Bangladesh continues to struggle with the enormity of the refugee influx, which at its peak saw some ten-thousand people arriving per day, and consensus emerges that the situation is untenable.²

In the following analysis, I document and analyze a range of political, legal, economic, social, and environmental effects of the Rohingya influx, and I call for greater attention to how these short- and long-term consequences are affecting Bangladesh in order to prevent the situation from worsening for both refugees and local communities. The findings of this article are based on a combination of journalistic reporting as well as ethnographic fieldwork in Rohingya settlements in the border region between Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Political Impact

The Rohingya crisis is not only a humanitarian catastrophe but also a cross-border political crisis that is extremely complex. Even though it has not spiraled into cross-border violent confrontation between Myanmar and Bangladesh, tensions are at an all-time high. Becoming a host nation to the fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world has also brought with it noteworthy political impacts for Bangladesh, both domestically and on the international stage.

When the Myanmar military began to raze hundreds of villages in northern Rakhine in late August 2017, the government of Bangladesh was at first disinclined to permit Rohingya refugees into the country. Rohingya have been seeking shelter in Bangladesh since 1978 as a result...