Rohingya Muslims? Shut Up Pakistan!

by Tipu Salman Makhdoom

Rohingya Muslims are ethnically Bengalis. After first Anglo-Burmese war in 1892, British annexed a part of Burma (Myanmar) and encouraged migrations from Bengal to work as farm labourers. And they continued to live there.

During World War II, Burma's Rakhine state massacre in 1942 involved communal violence between Rohingya and Buddhists. This increased and solidify the ethnic tensions.

In 1982 a nationality law was passed in Burma which denied citizenship to Rohingya people, who are mostly muslims.

In 2012 large scale attacks on Rohingya erupted following a gang rape of the Buddhist woman, allegedly by some Rohingya culprits.

Since most of the Rohingya in Myanmar (Burma) are living in miserable stateless conditions, in camps, of and on many of them try to cross neighbouring borders illegally. 

The current lot who are trapped in sea are about 8,000 Rohingya reported to have been taken on boats by human smugglers to illegally cross the Thailand's border. Thailand, however, has recently begun to crack down on such smugglers. Consequently, the smugglers have abandoned them at sea.

Pakistan and Pakistanis are raising hue and cry in favour of Rohingyas and against Myanmar (Burma). But does it suit us?

At the time of partition, hundreds of thousands of Biharis left their homes and migrated to Pakistan (now Bangladesh). These were urdu speaking people and thus culturally different from Bengalis. 

In 1971, these Biharis took side with Pakistan, and thus faced violence from Bengalis during and after the war.

After independence of Bangladesh, they were not given the nationality of Bangladesh but were considered the 'leftover' Pakistanis. Their homes & businesses were confiscated, they were fired from their jobs, their bank accounts were seized and their kids were expelled from schools. Finally, International Red Cross created camps to save them from total annihilation.

There are estimated half a million Pakistani Biharis, also known as stranded Pakistanis, living in miserable conditions in camps in Bangladesh. 

I have never heard anything being said for their repatriation to Pakistan, from the Pakistanis.

Recently a public interest litigation case was filed in the Supreme Court of Pakistan to order Government of Pakistan to bring these stranded Pakistanis to Pakistan. This case was dismissed by the Full Bench of the Supreme Court in the first quarter of 2015 on the ground that the organization which had filed that petition was not registered and thus could not have filed the petition in the first place.

In this case, however, Foreign Office of Pakistan informed Supreme Court that Stranded Pakistanis are now responsibility of the Bangladesh, not Pakistan.

In this situation I don't find courage to raise voice for Rohingya; do you?