Stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh

In pre-independence British India, there was an Urdu-speaking Muslim minority in the Hindu majority state of Bihar.[9] In 1947, at the time of partition of India, many Bihari Muslims, many of whom were fleeing the violence that took place during partition, fled to the newly independent East Pakistan, while others went to West Pakistan where they are commonly known as Muhajirs. They held a disproportionate number of positions in the new country due to the fact that Urdu was made the national language of the new state and as such was, for many Biharis, their mother tongue. This led to much resentment from the native Bengalis, who had to acquire a new language and were at a disadvantage on their own soil.

In 1971, when the Bangladesh Liberation War broke out between East and West Pakistan, the Biharis sided with West Pakistan, opposed the Bengali demand of making Bengali an official language, and chose to maintain Urdu as the state language as for many Bihari, it was their mother tongue. With covert and later overt Indian support, East Pakistan became the independent state of Bangladesh. During the war there were "many attacks on the Bihari community as they were seen as symbols of West Pakistani domination."[10][11]

Due to their initial pro-Pakistan stance, the Biharis were consistent in their wish to be repatriated to Pakistan. Initially, 83,000 Biharis (58,000 former civil servants and military personnel), members of divided families and 25,000 hardship cases were evacuated to Pakistan. The remaining Biharis were now left behind as the Pakistani army and Pakistani civilians evacuated, and they found themselves unwelcome in both countries. The Pakistani government, at the time, was "struggling to accommodate thousands of Afghan refugees".[12] Additionally, the Pakistani government believed that since Bangladesh was still the successor state of East Pakistan, it had to fulfil its duty in absorbing these refugees just as Pakistan (West) did with the many millions of refugees (incidentally, including some Bengalis) who fled to West Pakistan. Some groups in Pakistan have urged the Pakistan government to accept the Biharis.[13][14]

In an agreement in 1974 Pakistan accepted 170,000 Bihari refugees; however, the repatriation process subsequently stalled.[15]

Post-independence Bangladesh scorned the Biharis for having supporting the Pakistan army. With neither country offering citizenship, the Biharis were stateless. Organisations like Refugees International urged the governments of Pakistan and Bangladesh to "grant citizenship to the hundreds of thousands of people who remain without effective nationality".[16]

In 2006 a report estimated between 240,000 and 300,000 Biharis lived in 66 crowded camps in Dhaka and 13 other regions across Bangladesh.[17] In 2003, a case came before a high court in which ten Biharis were awarded citizenship according to the court's interpretation of the constitution. Subsequently, however, little progress was made in expanding that ruling to others. Many Pakistanis and international observers believe the plight of the Biharis has been politicized with political parties giving the refugees false hopes and impracticable expectations. In recent years, several court rulings in Bangladesh have awarded citizenship to Biharis living in Bengali refugee camps, as the majority of these refugees were born there. International observers believe that Bangladesh, as the successor state needs to fulfil its international obligations and grant citizenship to this officially stateless ethnic group or arrange for the peaceful repatriation to their native state of Bihar, over the border in India from where they originally hail from.

In a visit to Bangladesh in 2002 Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf said while he had every sympathy for the plight of thousands of people in Bangladesh known as 'stranded Pakistanis', he could not allow them to emigrate to Pakistan as Pakistan was in no position to absorb such a large number of refugees.[12] He encouraged his Bengali counterpart not to politicize the issue and accept the refugees as citizens being the successor state of East Pakistan. Pakistani government officials have threatened to deport the more than 1.5 million illegal Bengali refugees living in its country if the issue is not resolved acceptably.[12]

In May 2003 a High Court ruling in Bangladesh allowed ten Biharis to obtain citizenship and voting rights;[18] the ruling also exposed a generation gap amongst Biharis, with younger Biharis tending to being "elated" with the ruling but with many older people "despair[ing] at the enthusiasm" of the younger generation.[19] Many Biharis now seek greater civil rights and citizenship in Bangladesh.[20]

• Of Martyrs and Marigolds, a novel by Aquila Ismail, highlights the atrocities committed by Bengali nationalists against Biharis during the Bangladesh Liberation War.[21]

• In 2007, prominent Bangladeshi filmmaker Tanvir Mokammel made a documentary film titled The Promised Land.[22] The film highlights the current stateless status of Biharis and their despair of not being able to settle in Pakistan., which they see as a betrayal of Pak government.[23]

• Bangladesh–Pakistan relations
• Persecution of Biharis in Bangladesh
• Bengalis in Pakistan
• 1971 Bangladesh genocide

• Stateless people In Bangladesh
• The Forgotten People: Bihari Refugees of Bangladesh, UCANews