In the tumultuous years leading up to Myanmar’s independence in January 1948, one region was fatefully overlooked: Arakan. British officials preoccupied with the far larger transition in India and Pakistan paid little attention to the political fractures deepening on Myanmar’s western frontier. This neglect, repeated by Aung San and leaders of the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League (AFPFL), would have profound consequences. As Myanmar expert Martin Smith observes in Arakan (Rakhine): A Land in Conflict on Myanmar’s Western Frontier, the crisis in Arakan “was fatefully ignored,” and the political distinctions emerging then still shape Rakhine State today.

During the final phase of the Second World War, Rakhine nationalists acted swiftly. On 1 January 1945, the Arakan Defence Army launched a revolt that helped drive out Japanese troops even before the AFPFL’s nationwide uprising. Instead of recognition, however, Rakhine fighters were disarmed by returning British forces, a move that deepened resentment and sowed mistrust. Rakhine politics soon fractured. A pro-British parliamentary wing emerged under Sir Paw Tun and U Kyaw Min, while the older Arakan National Congress, aligned closely with Aung San, maintained influence. At the same time, a militant faction under U Seinda broke away to form the Arakan People’s Liberation Party, which quickly turned to armed struggle.

Rather than addressing these competing currents together, AFPFL leaders chose to work only with the Arakan National Congress. This decision excluded significant Rakhine voices at a moment when unity was crucial, further complicating the political landscape on the eve of independence.

While Rakhine groups were fragmenting, Muslim communities in north Arakan were confronting their own political awakening. The communal violence of 1942, the disruption of war and the drawing of new borders between Burma, India and the soon-to-emerge East Pakistan generated anxiety and urgency. Historian Jacques Leider has called this period the “political coming of age of the Muslims.” Seeking representation and security, Muslim organizations across the country united in 1945 under the Burma Muslim Congress, which joined the AFPFL to signal loyalty and commitment to the emerging state. For Muslims in central Myanmar, this offered a measure of visibility. But the situation in the northern Mayu frontier was far more precarious.

Partition redrew boundaries that had never acted as cultural or demographic barriers. The Naf River had long connected, rather than divided, the peoples of Arakan and Chittagong. Suddenly, as scholar Rajashree Mazumder notes, communities found themselves arbitrarily positioned as minorities in new political entities. Many families remained displaced, administration had broken down and accusations of “illegal immigration” began to take root amid the chaos of population movements.

On the East Pakistan side, significant numbers of Arakan-related Buddhist populations, including the Marma people, remained settled. Their status was not questioned. In contrast, Muslims on the Myanmar side of the border long rooted in the region found their identity increasingly stigmatized and their future uncertain.

It was in this environment of shifting borders, rising nationalism, and widespread anti-Indian sentiment that Muslim leaders in north Arakan realized they needed something more than religious or communal identity. To survive in the emerging ethnicized politics of the new Union of Burma, they required a defined nationality an identity that could claim statehood, autonomy and political voice. 

This realization gave rise to new political thinking. Ideas circulated about an independent Mayu frontier region, an autonomous Muslim-majority zone within Burma or a union with the newly formed East Pakistan. None of these aspirations materialized, and Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah himself rejected any proposal to annex north Arakan. But the search for security and recognition gained momentum.

As the British departure approached, discussions intensified among Muslim leaders about affirming the name they used for themselves: Rohingya. It became not only an identity but an assertion of belonging, a claim to history and a bid for political representation in a nation reorganizing itself along ethnic lines.

BOB Post

                                                                                  By Aman Ullah

                                                                                 Rohingya historian & Columnist