Author: Ishtiaq Ahmed
Publication: Daily Times
Date: November 2, 2003
URL: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_2-11-2003_pg3_3
The Muslims of South Asia do not
have any automatic right to enter Pakistan as the Jews have to enter Israel
under the so- called Law of Return. Is this consistent with the founding
ideology of Pakistan, the two-nation theory?
Among the various tragedies attendant
upon the break-up of Pakistan in 1971, when East Pakistan became Bangladesh,
is the unresolved status of some 250,000 Biharis stranded in Bangladeshi
refugee camps. The Biharis, an Urdu-speaking people originally from the
north-eastern Indian state of Bihar, migrated to East Pakistan when the
subcontinent was partitioned in 1947 between Hindu-majority India and Muslim-
majority Pakistan.
Most of the Biharis sided with Pakistan
during the 1971 Bengali uprising. That made them a pariah group in Bangladesh.
Most of them want to immigrate to Pakistan and have refused to acquire
Bangladeshi citizenship, claiming that they are Pakistanis and therefore
entitled to set up hearth and home in Pakistan. Under international law,
if the Biharis wish to remain Pakistanis there is no reason to refuse them
permission to settle in Pakistan. Some Bihari families have been allowed
to join their kin in Pakistan but the bulk has been denied this birthright.
Does this make sense? No. We have
brought Pakistan almost to the point of veritable economic ruination by
our uncompromising support for the Kashmiris' right of self-determination
but we do not give most of our bona fide citizens their basic right to
clean water, education and a meal because our priority is 'defence spending'
for an inevitable war with arch-enemy India.
But letting Biharis relocate in
Pakistan would surely not cost dearly. They are only 250,000 altogether.
Thanks to lack of education about family planning we are adding 250,000
babies every week if not every day to our burgeoning population, so why
not let the Biharis who fought alongside our glorious army to save Pakistan,
become Pakistanis in the proper sense? There is no reasonable answer. There
cannot be one.
From what I have gathered listening
to well-informed Pakistanis the implicit understanding is that since Bangladesh
is a Muslim country the Biharis should seek Bangladeshi citizenship and
try becoming a part of that nation -which would mean learning Bengali and
assimilating into that culture. This is perfectly reasonable advice and
the Biharis must consider it seriously.
But we don't give a similar advice
to the Kashmiri Muslims to seek a future within the Indian union. The reason
ostensibly is that India is not a Muslim state and therefore the situation
of Biharis is not comparable. Granted that is true, but what about Indian
Muslims wanting to come to Pakistan? Well, they did not do that in 1947
and now it is too late. Moreover, they are 140 million and that is too
many!
The only conclusion we can draw
from such evasive gibberish is that the Muslims of South Asia do not have
any automatic right to enter Pakistan as the Jews have to enter Israel
under the so-called Law of Return. Is this consistent with the founding
ideology of Pakistan, the two-nation theory?
When Iqbal in 1930 presented his
idea of a Muslim state (confined only to north-western India, excluding
the Muslims of Bengal and the Hindu- majority provinces) at the annual
session of the All-India Muslim League in Allahabad the quorum of 70 members
was not complete. Hafeez Jalladhari had to keep on reciting his 'Shah Nama'
while the organisers frantically searched for individuals to fill the quorum
so that the resolution could be passed.
Chowdhari Rahmat Ali coined the
name PAKISTAN in 1933. His idea was dismissed as a student's wild dream.
That did not discourage Rahmat Ali who developed a whole range of pious
names - Siddiqistan, Farooqistan, Hyderastan, Osmanistan and so on - for
independent Muslim enclaves in Hindu majority areas. He even proposed a
Guruistan for Sikhs and some name for a state for the Dravidian peoples
of South India. The Muslim League leaders dismissed him as an eccentric
and a charlatan and he in turn never forgave Jinnah for accepting a Pakistan
consisting only of the north-eastern and north-western zones of India.
With the wisdom of the hindsight
we can argue that Jinnah's Pakistan was more realistic even though its
realisation resulted in a huge loss of life and the biggest forced migration
in history. Rahmat Ali's scheme of mini Muslim states amid predominantly
Hindu-majority regions would certainly have multiplied communal killings
and magnified the scale of ethnic cleansing. Such a scheme would have surely
hurt Muslims the most since they were surrounded by Hindu majorities.
That did not deter Rahmat Ali. He
wrote letter after letter to conservative British lords pleading for their
support and patronage for his idea of several Muslim states. Why he should
have hoped for the support of arch imperialists is a mystery which has
never been clarified. Some people allege that Rahmat Ali was in the pay
of the colonial office which used him from time to time to say things that
would keep Hindus and Muslims at loggerheads. However, there is no solid
evidence to prove this.
Apart from East Punjab where ethnic
cleansing was almost complete, several of the staunchest protagonists of
the Pakistan demand, among them Raja Sahib Mahmudabad, Hasrat Mohani, Begum
Aizaz Rasul, Nawab Mohammad Ismail Khan, Raja of Pirpur (author of the
Pirpur Report of 1937) and Mohammad Asadullah of Assam, chose to stay in
India. Some left for Pakistan later but others who had gone to Pakistan
returned to India. Why? I don't know, but it is something on which more
research needs to be done. On the whole it was primarily the upper middle-class
and the salariat that immigrated to Pakistan.
Pakistan came into being in those
areas where Muslims were in a majority. Such areas did not need as much
protection from Hindu Raj as those in which Muslims were in a minority.
Most of them were converts from Dalit and other depressed sections of society.
They needed more help than anyone else in coming to Pakistan, but they
were advised to become good and loyal Indians. I am sure the Biharis stranded
in Bangladesh also come from the poorest sections of society and therefore
they too have no takers in Pakistan.
(The author is an associate professor
of Political Science at Stockholm University. He is the author of two books.
His email address is Ishtiaq.Ahmed@statsvet.su.se)
