The abandoned Pakistanis of 1971 |
While noting the jubilations over the renewal of direct flights between Pakistan and Bangladesh, and the opening of an expensive designer store in Dhaka, I could not escape the tragic story of some 324,000 people who have been punished for more than fifty-four years for loving Pakistan unconditionally. Their story has yet to gain the status of newsworthiness or a place on the agenda of the Foreign Office.
Over the last fifteen years, I have sought to unveil the deeper architecture of their abandonment: policy paralysis, diplomatic indifference, and a sustained ethical withdrawal by the state that once claimed them as its own. I insist: the Biharis were not collateral damage of 1971 alone. They became victims of what followed a long, deliberate silence.
In the aftermath of Pakistan's dismemberment, those who survived the targeted violence of Indian trained Bengali Mukti Bahini were confined to "camps" across Bangladesh, without citizenship, protection or durable solutions, and were rendered stateless overnight. While Bangladesh rebuilt itself and Pakistan reoriented its foreign policy, the Biharis were left suspended in time, politically inconvenient, diplomatically expendable.
Between 1973 and 1974, the Delhi Agreement, a tripartite arrangement between Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, was framed as a humanitarian mechanism for the repatriation of prisoners of war and "stranded civilians". The results, however, revealed a stark asymmetry. Over 121,000 Bengalis returned to Bangladesh with dignity and assets intact, while only about 108,000 non-Bengalis were taken to Pakistan, leaving behind an........