https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-01.htm#P98_21273
(Please check the HRW report if you want the full history. The highlighted stuff is just what I thought was relevant to this scenario)
What if the British stuck to their original promise and created a Muslim state for the Rohingyas within Myanmar/Burma?
(Please check the HRW report if you want the full history. The highlighted stuff is just what I thought was relevant to this scenario)
"Northern Arakan, consisting of contemporary Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships, has since the late eighteenth century been a region of intermittent unrest and refugee flows....
The Rohingya were once counted as a part of the Mrauk-U (Mrohaung) kingdom in Arakan which stood independent of both the Burman kingdoms in the Irrawaddy delta and central Burma as well as Bengal and the Moguls to the west. Muslim traders came to the area in the eighth century when the local dynasty was seated at Wesali, not far from contemporary Mrauk-U and some of the traders settled along the shores. More Muslim sailors made their way to the Arakan region during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Migrants also gradually filtered into Arakan from neighboring Muslim Bengal....
The British colonized Burma in a series of three wars beginning in 1824. During their rule, the Arakan problem declined as the British allowed for a relative degree of local autonomy. From 1824 to 1942, there were few recorded incidences of uprisings. This period witnessed significant migration of laborers to Burma from neighboring South Asia. The British administered Burma as a province of India, thus migration to Burma was considered an internal movement. The Burmese government still considers, however, that the migration which took place during this period was illegal, and it is on this basis that they refuse citizenship to the majority of the Rohingya. The reality is that the Rohingya have had a well established presence in the country since the twelfth century.
In 1942, Japanese forces invaded Burma and during the British retreat communal violence erupted. Attacks were made against those groups that had benefited from British colonial rule. Burman nationalists attacked Karen and Indian communities, while in Arakan Rakhine and Rohingya villagers attacked one another causing a displacement of Buddhist villagers to the south and Muslims to the north. Some 22,000 Rohingya are believed to have crossed the border into Bengal. The region remained under Japanese control until a British offensive drove out the Japanese in 1945. Prior to the Japanese invasion, the British, seeking to bolster support for their forces, had promised the Muslims of northern Arakan a Muslim National Area,6 and some of the displaced returned with the British. But Britain never delivered on its promise to create a Muslim National Area",
What if the British stuck to their original promise and created a Muslim state for the Rohingyas within Myanmar/Burma?