Left Behind By the Nation: ‘stranded Pakistanis’ in Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper draws on the figure of the 'stranded Pakistani' or 'Bihari' to interrogate the peculiar silence around the partition of British India in 1947 in the nationalist historiography of Bangladesh. The striking inability of nationalist accounts to accommodate partition, I contend, can be traced to the (apparent) incongruity of East Bengal's active embrace of the idea of Pakistan in 1947. As the paper makes evident, there cannot be a single narrative of the partition of 1947. Its many contentious histories continue to shape community and nation making practices in South Asia. Tracking the trajectories of 'stranded Pakistanis' (a category that was meaningful only after 1971) allows us to map the ways older meanings of partition, and so of Pakistan, were disrupted, displaced or reconstituted by the 1971 war. Bangladesh's sovereignty ruptured the identity of Urdu-speaking migrants to the former East Pakistan. Those who had previously mediated belonging and citizenship through the idiom of sacrifice for Pakistan found themselves excluded by the terms through which the new nation was redefined in 1971. If the singularity of Bengali nationalism cannot but disavow the moment of partition it is also the case that the histories of 1947 and 1971 cannot be understood apart, as separate and contradictory events. Indeed, I argue that 1947 remains critically important for understanding the cultural politics of citizenship, belonging and national identity in Bangladesh today. The consul banged on the table and said: 'If you've got no passport, you're officially dead': But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive. W.H.Auden1 'We never left Pakistan, Pakistan has gone and left us. ' Geneva Camp Resident

Challenges & Prospects of Bihari Camp Residents in Bangladesh: A Report on a Pilot Survey Project in Center Community Relief (CCR) Camp and Mohammadpur Market Camp in Bangladesh

“…The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Society (ICRC) enlisted 540,000 Biharis in the camps who desired to repatriate after 1971. However, Pakistan accepted Urdu-speaking people who had played a significant role with the Pakistani army during the liberation war (Siddiqi, 2013). Between 1972 and1993, only 178,069 Biharis were repatriated from Bangladesh to Pakistan in different political regimes, and the remainders started living in multiple camps in Bangladesh (Rahman, et al, 2020).…”

Passage through Partition: Stories of Five Families

“…For many, that hope was a short-lived one. Researchers have addressed the issues of 'Biharis' in East Bengal/Bangladesh, examining their experiences of Partition and their shattered dreams (Hashmi, 1996;Ahmad 2012;Siddiqi 2013;Sajid and Ferdous 2021). Among the domiciled Bengalis of East Bengal, the majority were peasants.…”

“…For the rest, Pakistan became their default choice at Partition. But, for the latter as well, the hope they had at the beginning about 'our land' or 'land of eternal eid' (Kamal 1989, in Siddiqi 2013 was about to crumble. Alongside discriminatory economic policies, the central government ruthlessly cracked down on the freedom of expression of the Bengalis (Ferdous forthcoming).…”

Identification of Housing Crisis in a Confined Settlement: A study of Mohammadpur Geneva Camp

“…(Wikipedia, 2019;Sholder, 2011) In 1971 during the liberation war, a section of the Urdu-speaking community played an antiliberation role by siding with the West Pakistan army. Consequently, at the end of the war, they lost their homes, businesses, properties and employment (Siddiqis, 2013). They were scattered and in 1974 the International Committee of the Red Cross along with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) built settlements mostly on public land and buildings to provide shelter, food and medical support to the displaced people.…”