1971: A Blot of Shame

Posted on November 30, 2009
Filed Under >M.P. Bhandara, History, Pakistanis Abroad, Politics, Society
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M.P. Bhandara

(Editor’s Note: This is the second in our series of lessons to be learnt from the events of 1971. This particular piece was written by the late M.P. Bhandara, then member of the Pakistan parliament, for Dawn in 2005. The intensity of the sentiment on stranded Pakistanis remains equally valid today.)

There is a blot of shame on the fair name of Pakistan. And each one of us, who has the means and the power to do something about it but chooses to be silent, bears the burden of this guilt.

The story is familiar enough. On December 16, 1971, the Pakistan created by the Quaid-i-Azam, was lost. A sizable population who had migrated from Bihar to East Pakistan at the time of partition were declared non-citizens by the new Bangladesh government. Being culturally and linguistically different, they had not fully integrated with the people of East Pakistan.

During the civil war in East Pakistan between March and December 1971, they readily opted to defend a united Pakistan. The army used (and abused) them as human shields for the more dangerous operations.

For this crime, they have never been forgiven by the people of Bangladesh. After the war, they were herded into unsanitary ghettos on a virtually prison diet. They were branded as “traitors”, and this mark of infamy remains on their children and even their children’s children to this day.

These “traitors” are now considered as “pariahs” by Pakistan that has stopped owning them for the reason that, on migration here, they are likely to settle in Sindh and join the ethnic political ranks of New Sindhis. The estimate of those now eligible for repatriation is said to be between 100,000 and 150,000.

How cynical can we get as a nation? We can tolerate the presence of a million plus illegals from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Burma and Afghanistan in Karachi but we shut the door tight on our “own” citizens.

We don’t recognize them as ours on the specious plea that they had migrated to East Pakistan. The logical tailpiece of this reasoning is that our eastern province was never considered part of the nation.

We accepted four million Afghan refugees in the 1980s and beat our breast in the name of Islamic solidarity. The truth is there was little solidarity but a case of push come to shove on a porous border.

Pakistan’s selective Islamic solidarity extends to Palestinians and Kashmiris, but not to Kurds in Iraq (when they were gassed) or the Sudanese in Darfur (currently in the throes of a genocide) and above all, to our own stranded “citizens” who made the mistake of their lives by siding with the Pakistan army and not the Mukti Bahini during the 1971 civil war, which is now commonly referred to as war of the Bangladesh liberation.

We choose to look the other way. This ugly blip is longer on our political radar screen. Islamic solidarity has suddenly vanished. Our rejection of these people exposes a visible crack in the mirror of Pakistan.

It calls into question the two-nation theory. Let us be honest and say that this theory was a means to an end and not an end in itself. The theory apparently died long ago when Pakistan was transformed “from a homeland for the Indian Muslims” to a theocratic Islamic state.

In any case, mass migration in the subcontinent is no longer possible and in the context of over 125 million Muslims in India, the two-nation theory does not seem to be operative for the time being.

This dichotomy on what Pakistan is or is not is the root cause of our carefully developed hypocrisy, double standards and sectarian violence. We have moved from one concept to another but find ourselves in limbo.

No wonder, the better part of our educated youth is alienated. The Quaid’s concept of Pakistan was a liberal, humanizing, outward-reaching modern state, which was a homeland for those Muslims of the subcontinent who chose to migrate at the time of partition.

The Quaid gave us the right direction, but instead, we have entered a black hole of pseudo-religiosity and are struggling to get out of it. Our amnesia on the stranded Pakistani issue calls into question our singular devotion to the Kashmir cause.

How is a suffering Kashmiri any different from a ghettoed Pakistani in Bangladesh? Both are Muslim. Does this not smack of hypocrisy and double standards? The former is regarded as a mazloom, the latter a “pariah”.

It must be heartrending to hear these “pariahs” sing the Pakistani national anthem and see them hoist our flag in the ghettos of Bangladesh on our national days.

The Rabita Trust Fund founded in 1988 succeeded in repatriating a few hundred families. It was frozen in 2001 and the process has since stopped. It is a shame that we must invite outside money to bring home our own citizens.

Have we lost all honour? We seem to have plenty of funds for all types of grandiose projects under the sun but cannot allocate a couple of hundred million rupees each year to recommence the process.

The government should meet the costs of improving the living condition in camps in Bangladesh, open schools and vocational centers and take immediate steps to repatriate 200 to 300 families annually and settle them in the Punjab. Where integration is possible in Bangladesh this should be encouraged by fiscal and other means.

Our parliament has a Kashmir committee on which millions are spent on members romping the globe to highlight the Kashmir cause with marginal results; the National Assembly can spend time to discuss the shortage of Sui gas in some remote town, it can spend hours to discuss the infringement of minor privileges of members, but it has never found the time to discuss the issue of stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh.

Not being true to ourselves shames all of us.

28 responses to “1971: A Blot of Shame”

  1. Aftab Alam Ashrafi says:

    MUSLIM BIHARI AND PAKISTAN:

    I would like to open the eyes of those who claim Pakistan as a property of them or to those who think Muslim Biharis stranded in Bangladesh as a beggar or like people but they don’t know they are the really own the Pakistan because they have sacrificed for the creation of Pakistan and most of the people living in the present Pakistan even dont know the history of Pakistan Movement and the role of Muslim Biharis otherwise they never forget them and they must salute them as a true patriotic Pakistani:

    Lets see what the Father of the Nation Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah said for the founder members of this country while speaking at camp housing Moslem refugees from communal disorders in Bihar the Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah said:

    “The sufferings Moslems underwent in Bihar and elsewhere clearly showed we should have the separate state of Pakistan. I am really proud of the Bihar Moslems who sacrificed so much. Their sacrifices will not go in vain. They have brought the Pakistan goal nearer and have shown readiness to make any sacrifice for its attainment.”

    (Pottstown Mercury, Pottstown, PA. Monday Morning, February 24, 1947)

    Is there any community exist in the present Pakistan for whom such golden words are ever told by the Father of the Nation!

  2. Alam says:

    Dear Kohestani,

    I dont know what is the reason behind your nick/name but what I understand from your comments that you don not know the meanings of loyality, sacrifice. How can a person can understand the patriotism and loyality who have not lost a single peny or get any pain but when he get up in the morning heard that the place where he is living now an independent country.
    How can a person understand what is “Patriotism” who or whose family were licking the toe of the British Government and get rewarded vast fertile lands only because they had shown their loyality to them and deceived their own brothern. Most of them were the dog handler or cleaner of their Master (British Officer).
    I salute the Stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh.
    If those Stranded Pakistanis were not sided then Pakistan Army then not a single Military Officers could be return back to home!
    If those stranded Pakistanis were not sided the West Pakistan then people like Kohestani and others who are advising the Stranded Pakistanis to settle in Bangladesh were not be independent but again they would be a dog handler or dog cleaner as their family whose decendents they are!

    Think before what you comments on the loyality of others and beware of the Day when the God will ask you and Punish you for the words you were using for His chosen people!

  3. Aamir Ali says:

    The point about Afghan refugees versus Bihari refugees is a very good one. At least these Biharis like Pakistan, no Afghan I have ever met has a good thing to say about Pakistan even though they will hold Pakistani passports and have lived in the country for decades. Just another example of the tremendous damage lunatic Zia ul Haq and mullahs caused Pakistan.

    I have become convinced that the mullah is the deadliest and most committed enemy that Pakistanis and Muslims have in the subcontinent.

  4. Lubna says:

    Just read all three articles in this series.

    Good of you to carry there and congrats to the authors for the honesty with which they have written. We need to develop that at the national level.

  5. Humayun says:

    Very nice article.

    As he right points out, there is a hypocricy in our actions when we cry so loudly for Kashmiri Muslims but ignore Bihari Muslims.

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