The People
That Pakistan Forgot
By Dr Ahmad Faruqui
Dansville, CA
Since December 1971, about 250,000 Pakistanis
have been stranded in Bangladesh, confined to
living under subhuman conditions in 66 camps spread
across 13 districts. Their only crime was being
on the losing side of a political argument. When
Bangladesh was born, thousands of these people
were killed on the streets, maimed, raped and
looted. Their homes, businesses and properties
were confiscated and they lost their jobs. Even
little kids were expelled from schools. What befell
them was nothing short of a holocaust but history
forgot them.
Ultimately, the survivors were moved to internment
camps. More than a generation later, they are
still confined to these camps and consigned to
a life of grinding and abject poverty, as portrayed
graphically in www.strandedpakistani.org. They
are economically exploited, with no access to
education, health care, or even clean drinking
water. The country whose citizenship they hold
has abandoned them. The country in which they
reside has turned them into social outcasts. They
are living in a twilight zone.
In common parlance, they are referred to as Biharis
since most of them are the descendents of about
a million people who migrated to East Pakistan
in 1947 from the Indian province of Bihar. They
lived happily in East Pakistan until the civil
war broke out in March 1971. After the defeat
of the Pakistan army in December, 535,000 of them
registered with the International Committee of
the Red Cross and expressed a desire to relocate
to Pakistan. However, the Pakistani government
accepted the return of only 173,000.
Those left behind in Bangladesh became stateless
people because neither Bangladesh nor Pakistan
accepted them as citizens. The UN High Commissioner
on Refugees did not recognize them as refugees
either, since they have not fled from any nation.
As one of these unfortunate people put it, it
is their nation that has fled from them. At one
point, the Indian province of Bihar with a majority
Hindu population was ready to accept them back
but this was over-ruled by then Indian Prime Minister
Indira Gandhi. In the years that followed, about
100,000 repatriated themselves to Pakistan, where
they now live a stateless existence without nationality
or any civil rights.
In 1978, the government of Pakistan through a
questionable presidential ordinance stripped all
remaining stranded Pakistanis of their Pakistani
nationality. In 1992, the governments of Bangladesh
and Pakistan signed a joint declaration to resolve
outstanding issues between the two countries.
In 1993, a token batch of 321 Pakistanis representing
50 families was repatriated on humanitarian grounds
but the process stalled soon afterwards.
The government of Bangladesh is anxious to repatriate
these individuals to Pakistan and has taken up
the matter several times with the government of
Pakistan, most recently when General Musharraf
visited Bangladesh in 2002. However, there has
been no movement on the issue. Within Pakistan,
five objections have been raised to bringing them
over, some officially and some unofficially.
The first objection is that Pakistan cannot absorb
these individuals since it is poor. To keep things
in perspective, it is important to note that between
1971 and 2005, the population of Pakistan grew
by 88.5 million, or 2.6 million per year. During
the Afghan war, Pakistan absorbed an additional
3 million refugees. Moreover, Pakistan has absorbed
some one million Bangladeshis as domestic help,
even though most have no visa. So the argument
that it cannot accommodate another 250,000 individuals
has no merit.
The second objection is that it would be very
expensive to relocate them across a thousand miles.
In reality, many of these people may be able to
find sponsors to finance their travel costs. Many
groups in the Islamic world have expressed their
willingness to fund the logistics of repatriation.
According to Syed Kemal, almost a billion rupees
are sitting in a bank account solely for this
purpose since 1988.
The third objection is that they speak Urdu and
their absorption will disturb the ethnic balance
in Pakistan. This objection was first raised during
the language riots in Sindh. It is specious, since
there are some 15 million Urdu speaking people
in Pakistan and adding another 1.7 percent will
have no impact on the ethnic balance.
The fourth objection is that they will disturb
the peace when they arrive in Pakistan, because
they have lived most of their lives in camps.
But they are unlikely to be troublemakers, since
even while living in camps they have not engaged
in violence. Once they make a transition to a
normal economic environment, they are likely to
become productive members of society, as they
were between 1947 and 1971.
The fifth objection is that after living for such
a long time in Bangladesh, they should apply for
Bangladeshi citizenship. This is easier said then
done, since they are forever tarred with betrayal.
They have engaged in various protest measures,
including hunger strikes and demonstrations, to
press for their return to Pakistan or alternatively,
for the granting of Bangladeshi citizenship. In
2001, a small group filed suit in the Bangladesh
High Court seeking the right to vote, which was
granted in 2003. While this represented the first
time that the stranded Pakistanis were recognized
as citizens of Bangladesh, it is unlikely to establish
a precedent.
None of the five objections to repatriating them
to Pakistan stands up to scrutiny. They are based
on prejudice and not on facts. Can anyone imagine
the state of Israel turning its back on those
Jews who settled in Gaza or the West Bank and
who wanted to move back to Israel proper? But
this is exactly what Pakistan is doing to its
citizens, by turning its back on them. Not only
does Pakistan’s lack of interest in repatriating
these stranded people undermine its national identity,
it is also morally reprehensible.
Refugees International, based in Washington, DC,
has called upon the governments of Bangladesh,
Pakistan and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
to grant them citizenship in either country or
make arrangements for a third country to do so.
Islamabad should act on this request promptly.
Pakistan needs to take the high road on this issue,
just as it does when it pleads the case of human
rights of the people living in Indian Jammu and
Kashmir. It should accept with open arms all of
its citizens who are interested in coming back
home. By so doing, it will end one of history’s
great injustices.
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