Rohingyas are a Muslim minority community, consisting of 1.1 million members, living as stateless persons in the south-western Rakhine province of Buddhist majority Myanmar. Faced with long term discrimination, exclusion and state repression, a section of Rohingya youth adopted extremist path, which gave further justification to Myanmar establishment to launch military offensive in August-September, 2017 for the summary execution of entire ethnic group. The United Nations has termed this incident as ‘ethnic cleansing’. Myanmar authorities justified their armed aggression on the basis of maintaining ‘stability and order’ in society. Thousands of Rohingyas have been killed and nearly 4 lakh have fled to Bangladesh and other neighbouring countries to save their lives. The plight of Rohingyas is ironical as Buddha (the founder of Budhdhism, the majority religion in Myanmar) preached peace, nonviolence and compassion to all living creatures and the present civilian leader of Myanmar, Aung Sn Suu Kyi was awarded Noble Peace Prize by global community. Rohingya refugee crisis raises three fundamental issues of common concern: 1. How to harmonize the national interests of states with global norms and human concerns? 2. How to address a ‘populism’ masquerading as national interest as majority Buddhist community also demands stern action against Rohingyas? The present civilian leader of Myanmar, Aung Sn Suu Kyi seems to have succumbed to this populist pressure. 3. How adequate are the mechanisms of international community to address these challenges? The present paper is an exercise to explain and analyze above issues with the specific and unique case of discrimination and forced migration of Rohingyas. The plight of Rohingyas is unique in comparison to other cases of refugees (Middle East) as well as racial discrimination under apartheid in South Africa as Rohingyas are ‘stateless’ people. No country, including Myanmar, is willing to grant them citizenship. The Middle East refugees are citizens of their parent countries and Blacks under Apartheid were at least second rate citizens of South Africa. The study is analytical and comparative with the study of facts and information collected from various sources like journal and news papers as well as national and international agencies. 

Keywords: Statelessness; Ethnic Cleansing; Global Norms of Refugees; Populist Nationalism.