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Mujahid
Rebels
The
leader of the "Mujahids rebels was Mir Cassim, an uneducated
fisherman. It was only an illusion of an uneducated man like Cassim
who wanted to turn a traditionally Buddhist land like Arakan, which
is full of temples, monasteries, monks and nuns, into a Muslim
state. As a result, in the 1950's these rebels were totally crushed.
Some surrendered while some fled to East Pakistan. Cassim fled to
East Pakistan and he was shot dead in Cox Bazaar by an unknown
person in 1966.
Both surrendered Mujahid and Bengali Muslim Settlers did not want to
be called Khawtaw Kala or Kala which according to their own
interpretation supposed to be derogatory because 'Kala' means
'dark' or 'Coloured' or 'Blackie' in the languages such as Hindi,
Urdu, Bengali . In fact, the literal pronunciation of the Burmese as
well as Arakanese word 'Kala' is 'Kula' and also written as
'Kula'. This term was derived from the Pali or Sanskrit word 'Kula
Puttra' meaning 'the son of a noble race' because Lord Buddha
himself was an Indian. Both Po and Sagaw Karen word for Indian is
'Kula' and the Thai word for Indian is 'Kal'. Hence, it is not
derogatory instead it is 'a word of courtesy'!
Anyway, Bengali Muslim Settlers did not want to be called 'Kala'.
As a result, they settled for the name "Rohingya". In the late
1950"s, the demand for the statehood of the Rakhaings (Arakanese)
and the Mons was at the peak. The Bengalis who started calling
themselves "Rohingyas" asked for the same status as the Arakanese (Rakhaings).
When their demands were turned down by the Burmese government on the
grounds that they were not an indigenous race of Arakan, some
educated Bengali Muslims like M. A. Tahir, well known through his
Burmese name Ba Tha, Maung Than Lwin and some Bengali Muslim
students from the University of Rangoon began to fabricate
historical facts to prove that they were "Indigenous Arakanese
Muslims" and started to fabricate stories that they and their
ancestors belonged to Arakan historically.
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