A people ravaged by history

BENGALIS are poised to celebrate their independence day on December 16. But what are some 2.5 lakh ‘Pakistanis’, stranded in Bangladesh since 1971, doing here?

“They have been forced to live in animal-like condition for the last 32 years and will, in all probability, be live on and die in congested ghettos at makeshift camps and shanties all over Bangladesh”, observes Slate, a Dhaka-based monthly publication, in its December issue.

“Poverty is not all that holds them back. They are denied an education, opportunities, a future, and an identity. They only exist as numbers in ration cards, relief programmes and slum-arson stories,” says Mahatab Haider, a young, passionate writer in Slate, after visiting a camp in Dhaka.

With no running water, no drainage, a solitary school, and a population steadily growing within walls that shrink every day due to forced evictions and illegal occupation, the camp — known as Geneva Camp is a heart-rending symbol of the fate of this dispossessed community. No municipal services reach the locality. ”Why would they?” asks Ehtesham Khan, vice-president of the Stranded Pakistanis General Repatriation Committee (SPGRC). “We have become a burden that no one wants to carry. To the world outside, we don’t exist. We are the leftovers of history.”

Less than 10 per cent of the children living in camps have the opportunity to go to school. Until 1996, the only school run in the Geneva Camp used to receive an annual allotment of primary school textbooks from the local thana education officer since primary education has been declared mandatory and free for all. ”Since 1996, we have stopped receiving this allocation, on the pretext that our school is not registered,” says the headmaster of the school.

To get free books, the school has to get registered; and to get itself registered, the school has to produce a deed of ownership for the land it is built on. “But we don’t own this land. We are only temporary residents in this camp. So our fate remains sealed as a poor, uneducated community, that will descend to greater depths of ruin with each successive generation.”

The tragedy of the stranded (or Bihari) community unfolds as far back as 1946, with thousands of Muslims massacred in an organized pogrom in Bihar of India. Families by the thousands left their ancestral lands to take refuge in the erstwhile East Pakistan between 1947 and 1952.

In the decades following partition, a large number of the octogenarian residents of today’s Geneva Camp settled in areas like Mirpur and Mohammadpur in Dhaka, and thrived in business and trade. During Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971, most of these people ideologically opposed the idea of Bangladesh’s independence and actively supported the military operations of General Yahya Khan’s junta.

After independence, the government of Bangladesh offered the community two options — staying back in Bangladesh as its nationals or repatriation to Pakistan. A total of 5,29,669 non-Bengalis expressed their desire to go to Pakistan.

In 1973, under a tripartite agreement between Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, the Pakistan government accepted a total of 1,26,941 individuals and a further 18,000 were repatriated to Pakistan in 1979, some 9,000 in 1982 and 325 in 1993. Then the process stopped. In 1993, the number of stranded Pakistanis in 66 camps was 238,000.

After 32 years of broken promises by successive Pakistani governments, the bitterness is now apparent. “The ruling elite of Pakistan, especially the politicians and bureaucrats, are responsible for the plight of the stranded Pakistanis”, comments Nasim Khan, president of the SPGRC.

“Over Rs 100 crore has been collected in Pakistan for the cause of our repatriation and settlement, but till today we have neither been repatriated nor helped financially with that money,” says his deputy Ehtesham Khan. “In 2002, we met Gen. Musharraf when he visited Dhaka and urged him to resolve our longstanding problem. He assured us of repatriation, emphatically, and asked us to leave it to him. Not once, thrice! Today all I want to ask him is, ‘Gen. Musharraf, we left it to you Sir but who did you leave it to?”

The SPGRC leaders also met Pakistani Foreign Minister, Khurshid Kasuri, who visited Dhaka earlier this year. Once more they were given assurances of action upon his return, and once again, the Islamabad has remained silent on the issue.

Meanwhile, as the years have progressed, the point of view of the SPGRC leadership and the general populace that it assumes to represent has diverged. The aspirations of the generation that has grown up in independent Bangladesh belies the term ‘stranded Pakistani.’ In their interactions with the world outside the camp, these young men and women try desperately to shake off their identity as ‘stranded Pakistanis’ in an effort to escape the stigma associated with the term.

Already, there is talk of new political factions. A group, which introduces itself as Student Unity, is fast gaining popularity among the younger section of the camp residents. This group opposes the idea of returning to Pakistan. “Bangladesh is where I have been born and grown up. I have no dream of going to Pakistan to become a refugee once again,” says a member of the group. “I am a Bangladeshi, whether you accept it or not.”

Such talk however finds little favour among the senior leadership of the SPGRC. But is it permissible in official Bangladesh circles? Bangladeshi establishments? The answer is, perhaps no. So, as Bangladesh celebrates its 32nd anniversary, the stranded non-Pakistanis in the Geneva Camp, suffering from poverty and illiteracy, strive for an identity.

PCB chief’s job is not a bed of roses

TAUQIR Zia is a friend of mine and since this friendship was not conditional on his being the chairman of the cricket board, it will continue. Shaharyar Khan too is a friend of mine and we go back many years. They are both ardent cricket fans and it is the love of the game that has provided the bond.

Cricket has many magical qualities but a shared passion for the game is a sound basis for lasting friendships.

The chairman of the cricket board is a high-profile job and it carries the risk of instant accountability. Ironically when the team does well the credit goes to the players but when it does badly the blame goes to the cricket board.

The expectations of the cricket public, which has become quite knowledgeable thanks to television, have always remained high so that the pressure on the chairman is relentless. No resting on his laurels for him.

Tauqir was a hands-on chairman. This is a double-edged sword particularly when you are dealing with a team that has mood-swings, soaring to great heights and plumbing to the depths in the same series. He had his share of success and failures and in this respect his record was a mixed one if one wants to go only by the performance of the national team.

Pakistan’s showing in the World Cup 2003 was a disastrous one but then so too was that of the host South Africa and England. Tauqir took that performance with huge disappointment but he could have hardly be blamed for the squad selected for the World Cup could not have been faulted.

The players failed to click as a team and when things go badly, the team seems to fall apart. He reacted somewhat in haste by undertaking a re-building process by sacking most of the senior players in one swoop.

Re-building was necessary but it should have been done in stages. Still, the new-look team is a good one. We can always quarrel with one or two players being left out, Saqlain Mushtaq and Shahid Afridi come to mind but it is a balanced team.

Tauqir did a great deal in building up the infrastructure and the setting up of academies will bear fruit in the future but a cricket academy is a finishing school for those on the fringes of international cricket.

The talent has to be found elsewhere and we are sadly wanting in a credible format of domestic cricket and this was an area that was not addressed. Recent attempts have produced mishmash.

Mr Khan is no stranger to cricket. He was manager of the team that toured India as well of the World Cup 2003 squad. He will know only too well that his job is not a bed of roses. More than that his first challenge is a formidable one.

The Indians will be touring Pakistan early next year and he knows that he will have to get it right at every level. Particularly a rampaging Indian team that has beaten Australia in Adelaide so emphatically.

But he brings a good deal of administrative experience and diplomatic skills to the job. As a person he is someone who is easy in his skin, not likely to flap. He has an easy charm and is soft-spoken but this can be mistaken. He has held some tough jobs and has had a distinguished career.

He telephoned me and we will have lunch and no doubt we will talk of cricket and I will give him my input. But he will be his own man. That’s the way it should be.

It is not often that a team that scores 556 runs in the first innings loses a Test match and this gives one an idea of the magnitude of India’s win against Australia. It was not a fluke. Australia may have been without Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee (and Shane Warne) but India was without Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh.

Australia losing on its home soil is something that rarely happens. But it was comprehensively outplayed and all the more remarkable that Sachin Tendulkar had only a marginal role to play and that too as a bowler. Anil Kumble took five wickets in the first innings and Ajit Agarkar six in the second.

V.V.S. Laxman scored a splendid century and brought momentum when India was feeling the pressure in the chase to victory. But it is Rahul Dravid who lived up to his nickname-the Fort. He got a double century and steered India with 76 not out to an historic win. This could have been a great week for cricket in the subcontinent.

Sri Lanka failing to get the last three England wickets have only themselves to blame. Sri Lanka seems to have lost its self-belief. It plays brilliant cricket but is too timid to drive home the advantage.

Both at Galle and Kandy, England managed to hold on by the skin of the teeth, the tail-enders putting up stout resistance. I thought too that the umpiring in this match was below par and Daryl Harper had a bad match.

It was also a bad-tempered match and not surprisingly it was Nasser Hussain who started it. We know that he is a fierce competitor but he is a former England captain. Is it a case that he has to prove his Britishness, be more loyal than the king? He is at the fag end of his career. He should have grown up by now.

Sri Lanka should have been two-up instead of going into the Colombo Test match nil-nil and having surrendered the psychological advantage.