36 years ago, on December 16, 1971, then East Pakistan became Bangladesh.
Last year Adil Najam had a very touching post on the same topic and I’ll strongly recommend a revisit to it here. Raza Rumi had also written a post after revisiting Dhaka recently.
I belong to a generation which did not see those times. My knowledge about this significant event of our history comes from the books I’ve read, things I have heard on the media and from elders, and from Pakistani and Bengali friends I’ve talked to.
A lot of water has passed under the bridges since then. Both nations have gone through a lot in these 36 tumultuous years. Whatever the past may have been - the good times and the bad - we at ATP pray for a bright future for both Pakistan and Bangladesh. We want to wish good luck to Bangladesh and its citizens for a bright future.
This December 16 is also time to seriously think about those Pakistanis who remain stranded in Bangladesh living in camps.
These are people who consider themselves Pakistanis, want to live in Pakistan, and whom we have ignored and forgotten. It is time to welcome them. If Pakistan can give refuge to millions of people from its western bordering country, we can welcome the few thousand who are our own, who remain stranded and stateless in Bangladesh, and who want to return to Pakistan.
Its time to bring them home!
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Watan Aziz, India has so many examples. Their current PM, Manmohan Singh was born in Pakistani Punjab and he is even not a hindu , KL Advani who is candidate of PM of BJP was born in Sind Pakistan. They have so many army chiefs and leaders who were born in Pakistan and their families migrated to India at partition. But in India, ppl see them as their own people, not different just because they are migrated at partition.
One one hand we have 2 million illegal afghans and 1 million illegal bangalis in Pakistan, but bringing back half million starnded pakistanis creates all kind of ethinic and economic problems.
But i think, i has been 36 years. We should not give them false hope. Some parts of Paksistan can not toloreate these people. Bangalis should give them citizenship and should apologize them for their massacre of behari, just like Musharaf opologized Bengalis for “operation search lights”.
Those of us who cry all the time about these stranded pakistanis, should create some program and fund to help these people to settle in Bangladesh.
As for Watan Aziz, well there is a flaw in your arguement. What you said applied to migrant of another country,race or civilization. India was one country with all muslims sharing not just religion, but shared 1000 years of history. All muslims of India together struggle for Pakistan.
It is time we bring them home.
“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it”
{George Santana}
“We learn from history that we learn nothing from history”
George Bernard Shaw or Hagel
Pls correct me if I am wrong about sources.
Never, in the history of voluntary migration, have the Ansars opened and welcomed the Muhajirs as it happened in Pakistan and continues today. (notwithstanding the original event, for which there is also no comparison).
Cite me one example in history of mankind where the voluntary migrants got equal treatment for jobs and property, etc. by mere show of papers.
Cite me one example, where they became Prime Ministers, Governor Generals, Presidents, Ministers, Secretaries of Departments and ranked Officers of the Armed Services on mere arrival. Even as we speak!
Pakistan is a land of opportunity and gratitude as well of ungrateful people, both muhajir and ansar.
Pakistan Zindabad
Pakistan Pa’indabad
Dear Stranded Pakistani. I can only imagine the pangs of strandedness and like just about everyone else here I agree fully with the sentiments of original post. Irrespective of who is or is not a better Pakistani, we as a national have a duty and responsibility to bring all those stranded Pakistanis who consider themselves Pakistani back home. Their strandedness is a national disgrace and should be remedied. That is what the post was about also.
Having said this, I am a little surprised at how you start your comment. It seems to me that all except one comment above sympathize with the stranded Pakistanis and agree that those who want to return to Pakistan should be allowed to and assisted in returning.
I am taken aback by the contempt and hatred shown by some of the posters here for those who sacrificed their lives and property to save East Pakistan.
The “Biharis” are better Pakistanis than the feudals who maraud Pakistan and its tax-payers….
“I personally have no objection for anyone to move in and out of the country. Nation states are just borders of economic activity that try to integrate linguistic and cultural variations in order to create a myth of one nation”.
Wow Jamshed Nazar. What profoundness on your part. No objection to move “in and out” of the country!!! So should Pakistan open its doors and let any body and every body in? Don’t you think there is enough chaos in the country already that you want make the doors wide open?
“Nation states are just borders of economic activity” and “a myth of one nation”. If you are not a Pakistani then I have nothing to say to you. But if you are, then it makes me sad that you hold such a low and warped opinion about your country and your nation. I like to impress upon you that borders of Pakistan are not “just borders of economic activity”. Not to this reader at least. Borders of Pakistan are sacred and must be defended at all costs. Pakistan is not a myth. It is a reality.
And about ethnic Bihari and Assami Muslims in Bangladesh. A 36 years old should be uprooted from his place of birth and moved 1000 miles away to a country he knows nothing about? Is it not a shame that this 36 years old person is forced to live in a refugees camp and denied his rights of citizenship at his place of birth? Bangladesh needs to absorb these people and restore their rights of full citizenship just like Pakistan did for all those who chose to migrate to Pakistan in 1947 and few years after that.