Bangladesh’s new citizens

The Statesman Editorial - 24th May, 2008,

The emotive issue of “Urdu-speaking Bihari Muslims” in Bangladesh is as old as the country itself and has been a permanent irritant in subcontinental equations. Yet the judicial intervention after 37 years addresses only part of the problem. By virtue of last Sunday’s order of the Bangladesh Supreme Court, children of Urdu-speaking Bihari Muslims ~ a euphemism for stranded Pakistanis ~ are to be granted Bangladeshi citizenship. The operative part of the ruling is that it will benefit those born after 1971. Which begs the question as to whether this needed to be reinforced by a judicial pronouncement. Under international law, they are citizens by birth, and it follows ipso facto that they are citizens of Bangladesh. More than labouring the obvious, the judgment has ensured that this post-liberation generation will form a vital segment of the electorate as the ruling comes with the icing of voting rights. This is calculated to benefit the present establishment under the influence of an army with pro-Pakistan leanings. Critical too is its timing as it comes months ahead of the elections scheduled for December.Comforting as it might appear to be on the face of it, the problem might fester for a long while yet. And most crucially, and also of course damagingly, for India as it has been a major factor behind the relentless influx since the late seventies. An estimated 150,000 Bihari Muslims will now become lawful citizens. The crux of the matter relates to the rest of the approximately 300,000, specifically the previous generation who migrated to East Pakistan after Partition, remained there during the liberation struggle, and who are believed to have backed the Pakistani army during the war. They have been reduced to a stateless category in Bangladesh, nowhere men whom Pakistan will not accept. Which precisely has compelled hundreds of them to take advantage of the porous border for an exit route to West Bengal.For 37 years, Pakistan has ignored the issue. So the fundamental problem shall fester as there has never been an inclination on the part of Dhaka, still less of Islamabad, to work out an agreement on repatriation. They have been stranded in Bangladesh since 1971, and those among them who have not illegally crossed over to India are languishing in the squalid refugee camps set up by its government and the UNHCR. The ruling makes it plain that Bangladesh will accept the younger generation not least because they constitute a potential vote-bank. Their forebears have not been recognised and are doomed to remain stateless. The fact of the matter remains ~ West Bengal has borne the brunt of the problem as tens of thousands of unrepatriated and “stranded” Pakistanis have sneaked in over the past three decades. That, in sum, is the reality of what passes for South Asian regional cooperation.

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