Cruelty and Brutality : The Root of Forced Migration

Cruelty and Brutality: The Root of Forced Migration

( by Suhana Ahmed )

The world is a vast place with different cultures and traditions, but it all began from nomadic life. Back then, the masses' major priorities were to fill their stomachs and continue their species. Before fire and agriculture were invented, the people solely depended on the forest for food, and when the food seemed to lack, they tended to immigrate to other places.

Slowly when development and progress took place and people's priorities changed, life started changing too. To this day, people migrate from their native places in search of education, work etcetera, but the cultural development led to clashes between multiple cultures and caused havoc- stealing people's houses and curbing their rights.

Migration is not a problem until it is limited to choice. Most of the choice migrations happen in small groups or family but forced migration happens in masses.

Why does forced migration happen?

Instability in the social, political, and geographical structure of an area is the main reason for migration. People from the area move in masses to find shelter and food. Often these migrations happen from one country to another.

Other than the natural causes of migration like earthquakes, lack of food etcetera, there are a huge number of migrations that happen due to community hatreds which leads to riots, causing migration.

Sometimes the migration seems planned and consensual whereas in reality, it is in many ways just as much a forced migration. Division on the basis of ethnicity, caste or creed leads to the migrations, where borders are set and the land is divided; like in the case of partition of India and Pakistan in 1947.

There are also migrations happened to produce bondage laborers- where people of a particular race or caste were forced to move to another country to become slaves; like the African slavery- when the American whites basically abducted Africans to be their slaves.

 

Some famous forced migrations:

Migration of Kashmiri Pandits from Kashmir:

It is a well-known fact that the demography of Kashmir (formerly the part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir) has been largely changed because the Kashmiri Pandits were forced to leave their homes in order to save their lives.

 Kashmiri pandits and Kashmiri Muslims had been in a long heated tension. There were murders, rapes, and other brutalities going on and the groups had intense hate amongst themselves, and as a result, the pandits were forced to leave Kashmir. This massacre made Kashmiri pandits migrants on their very own land of India.

Migration of Rohingya Muslims:

 Similar type of migration recently happened in Myanmar where a community of Rohingya Muslims were forced to leave Myanmar. The major groups involved in tension are Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists of the country. The Buddhist leader Virathu led a countrywide movement to expel the Rohingyas from the country.

 The population of Rohingya Muslims lies around the area of the Rakhine state of Myanmar, which is close to Indian borders. A large number of Rohingya migrated to India for shelter which changed the demography of many states of India. It also became a topic of political discourse because migration did influence the elections and political status of an area.

 

Making of Israel:

One of the most famous and controversial migrations would be of Jews coming to the area near Jerusalem in hope of creating a country exclusively for the Jews. It also affected the previously living Palestine community and made them migrate.

 The areas nearby Jerusalem were British and French colonies and the British promised the Jews that they would make a separate country for them near Jerusalem if they would fight for the British in the Second World War. On the other hand, Jews were persecuted all over the world and they got an opportunity to live at their desired sacred place of Jerusalem.

Later, after the Second World War, Jews migrated to Palestine in large numbers and clashes between the communities led Palestinian natives to migrate from their country. Even now, this conflict hasn't been solved and doesn't seem to be in the near future.

 

Migration as bondage laborers:

 In the British India, people were taken to Fiji, Mauritius and other countries on bondage to work as laborers. They were later forced to stay there and were paid really less. It changed the whole statistics of these countries. Later realizing the issues in bondage laborers, the Indian government banned this system.

As mentioned earlier, something similar happened with the black people, where, as a cause of apartheid, they were forced to serve the whites as bondage laborers.

 

Partition of India and Pakistan:

The haunting massacres at the times of The partition of India is clearly known to everybody. When the demand for separate country for Muslims was raised and promoted by Muslim leaders and British, it created a rioting environment in the country, leading to mass-murdering and mass evacuation from people's own homes.

There are many such cases of people being forced to abandon their places and every reason branches out from one- hate.

 

What are its consequences?

 There are limited resources available everywhere and the local community always feels that it has the first right over the available resources. When migrants immigrate to a place, it becomes a need to use the resources and seek for employment which generally leads to clashes between the two communities and later resulting in riots or along almost never-ending hatreds and rivalry.

Migration to different countries would be the severe kind as it makes the migrants exile with no citizenship, making them Stateless, and it isn't a hidden fact how they usually are treated.

There’s a need to understand. that the world is for everyone and everyone has the right to live. It’s high time now, the hatreds should come to an end.

 The development of resources at the local level has to be done so that fewer people are forced to migrate in search of work.

Most of the migration is a result of riot, the political leaders and the other community leaders tend to give gaslighting speeches leading to riots. The people trying to spread hate and using religion, caste, race or anything natural or personal as a hate weapon, they are to be shunned and ignored

Lastly, understanding that the refugees are humans too is very much needed. They would have lost their homes and most everything that they'd have and they were given no choice in it. In these times, if nothing, kindness would help them very much.

 

Disclaimer:-

The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Light de Literacy and LDL does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.