The Rohingya crisis: A chance to reshape the conversation

The interim Bangladeshi government’s decision to appoint Khalilur Rahman as both National Security Advisor and High Representative on Rohingya issues marks a significant shift in how the state is positioning the crisis. It’s not just a bureaucratic shuffle -- it’s a consolidation of security and refugee policy under a single official, at a time when the situation in Myanmar and the wider region is changing rapidly.

 

 

Nearly eight years after three-quarters of a million Rohingya sought refuge in Bangladesh, the stalemate over their return continues. Repatriation agreements have stalled. Myanmar’s junta remains unwilling to offer citizenship or basic guarantees. In the meantime, frustration grows in the camps, and host communities bear the  pressures of a protracted crisis.

 

 

The pairing of national security and Rohingya policy under a single adviser suggests a deliberate shift in how the Bangladeshi state views the crisis. For years, refugee policy has been dispersed across ministries - foreign affairs, disaster management, home affairs, and defence. Now, the unification of these agendas signals that refugee management is being redefined as a matter of national security. The move may also reflect internal political calculations by the interim government.

 

 

This is not surprising. The securitization of the Rohingya crisis, already evident in public discourse, media narratives, and camp policies, has long cast the refugees not just as victims but as potential sources of instability. With Khalilur Rahman’s elevation, this framing is now formally institutionalised at the highest level.

 

 

A changing landscape in Rakhine

This appointment comes at a time when the political landscape across the Naf River has dramatically changed. The Arakan Army (AA), a powerful ethnic armed organization, now controls large parts of Rakhine State after routing junta forces. Importantly, the AA has at times signalled a willingness to engage diplomatically on the Rohingya issue -- though this openness has not always been consistent or clearly defined.

 

 

Over the past several years, the group has repeatedly reached out to Dhaka. But those overtures were never taken seriously. Although there was some informal contact at the intelligence level, no real diplomatic track was opened -- largely because Bangladesh was unwilling to move beyond its reliance on the junta in Naypyidaw, despite its hostility and bad faith.

 

 

This reticence stands in sharp contrast to India’s more flexible approach. Despite its formal support for the junta, India has engaged the Arakan Army to safeguard the Kaladan Multimodal Transit Project, a crucial trade corridor. China, too, maintains strategic ties with both the junta and various armed actors in Myanmar, pursuing its long-term interests. Both countries have adapted to new power dynamics in Rakhine.

 

 

No path to immediate repatriation

It is tempting to see this additional appointment as a potential breakthrough in the Rohingya repatriation effort. But we must be clear: Any repatriation plan that does not include full citizenship, freedom of movement, and safety guarantees is not a solution. It is a return to statelessness and vulnerability.

The real opening here is not a fast-track to repatriation, but a chance for Bangladesh to adopt a new diplomatic strategy. By acknowledging the Arakan Army’s growing role and initiating a broader engagement with Myanmar’s political actors -- not just the military junta -- Dhaka could begin to reshape the conditions for long-term political solutions.

 

 

This would mean moving beyond a binary framework of state-to-state negotiations and embracing a multi-track approach that includes ethnic armed groups, regional players like India and China, and, crucially, the Rohingya themselves.

 

 

Security logic or strategic diplomacy?

Khalilur Rahman’s dual title raises an important question: Will this be a deepening of the security-first approach or the beginning of a more strategic, inclusive response?

 

For years, the Rohingya have been managed primarily through a lens of control: Biometric surveillance, internet blackouts in the camps, restrictions on movement, and militarization. These measures have not solved the crisis -- they have hardened it. Refugees remain trapped in limbo, denied rights, and increasingly desperate. In effect, the Rohingya have been treated as what scholars call a “surplus population” -- a group seen as no longer politically or economically useful to the nation-state, except as a problem to be managed. 

 

 

They are excluded from formal protections, yet at times absorbed into informal labour markets or used as leverage in aid and diplomacy. This contradiction lies at the heart of Bangladesh’s current strategy. The concern now is that, by merging national security and Rohingya affairs, this logic of surplus management will only deepen rather than shift.

 

 

But there is another, more troubling dimension to this shift. Over the past year, Bangladesh has allowed certain Rohingya armed groups to operate openly in the camps, holding mass meetings and engaging in recruitment with little interference. Individuals with links to the Myanmar military -- including informants -- have been allowed to position themselves as community leaders commanding armed actors.

 

 

Groups like the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) - part of the “Four Brothers Alliance” tied to Dil Mohammed, a known Myanmar army collaborator -- have been given space to rattle their sabres under the watch of Bangladeshi authorities. This proxy strategy -- using armed groups to pressure or counter the Arakan Army -- may serve short-term geopolitical goals, but it deepens insecurity in the camps, and undermines the state’s claim to neutrality or humanitarian concern.

 

 

In this context, the appointment of a security advisor to oversee the Rohingya issue may not be about diplomacy at all -- it may signal deeper entrenchment of militarized containment and covert confrontation. If the new national security appointment is meant to consolidate this militarized approach, then it signals not de-escalation, but entrenchment. It risks transforming the Rohingya crisis into a tool of regional competition rather than a question of justice.

 

 

A role with real possibility or real risk

Khalilur Rahman’s dual appointment may reflect a growing recognition that the current approach has failed. Regional players are already moving around the edges of formal diplomacy. If Bangladesh wants to regain strategic footing, it must adopt a multi-track policy that includes both state and non-state actors and re-centres the Rohingya as political subjects, not just humanitarian recipients.

 

 

But even that won’t be enough. The Rohingya crisis is not just a diplomatic problem - it is a human catastrophe unfolding inside Bangladesh. Lives are being wasted in the camps. An entire generation is growing up without education, employment, or hope. Whether or not diplomatic channels are opened, the system of containment and marginalization must be dismantled.

 

 

This is also not an opening to send the Rohingya home tomorrow. But it is a chance to reshape the conversation -- to move away from managing a “refugee problem” and toward a political vision that challenges the logic of exclusion and begins building the conditions for a rights-based return.

Whether this moment leads to meaningful change, or hardens the current system of securitised governance, depends on the choices made now.

Shafiur Rahman is a journalist and documentary filmmaker focusing on the politics of refugee management in South and Southeast Asia. He writes the Rohingya Refugee News newsletter.