Urdu-speaking biharis of bangladesh have for four decades lived in a country that isn’t home. and now they have nowhere else to go. Saurabh Kumar Shahi, back from a trip to dhaka, reports on the plight of a community that pakistan abandoned
It was by accident that I stumbled upon Mohammadpura camp
in Dhaka. For a none-too-avid fish-eater, Bangladesh was proving to be a gastronomic nightmare. So a helpful local journalist-friend suggested that I try the best “Bihari kebabs” available in town. Bihari kebabs? It didn’t ring a bell at first. I was perhaps too tormented by my food-related woes to give it a long enough thought. By evening, I was in Mohammadpura looking for “Kallu ki dukaan”. As soon as I got there, it dawned upon me that something was amiss. The glittery Bangla signboards gave way to faded Urdu banners. Slowly, very slowly, Bangla rock music faded and the voice of Mehdi Hassan took over — “Yeh dhuaan sa kahaan se uthtaa hai…” But it was a lonely husky voice with a thick accent that confirmed that I was no more in Bangladesh — at least notionally. “Ka re, ketna din se nahi nahaya hai,” a lean, wheatish man chided a child. The voice was Jamil Ahmad’s.
Seeing a fellow Bihari, he opened up. And as I washed down the tastiest Bihari kebabs I had ever eaten with swigs from a Coke bottle, Jamil Ahmad told me the story of “stranded Pakistanis”, commonly called “Biharis” in Bangladesh.
Massacres and attempted annihilations are touchy issues. Ask a Turk about Armenia and he’ll be at your throat. Serbs will never accept what happened in Srebrenica. It is, therefore, not surprising that Bangladeshis don’t want to talk about the "stranded Pakistanis" in their midst.
It all started during Partition when the Pakistani authorities asked Urdu-speaking Muslims from eastern UP and Bihar working in the Railways and the Jute Corporation to settle in what was then East Pakistan. Several hundred thousands who had borne the brunt of the anti-Muslim riots in Bihar the previous year decided to respond. “My forefathers were from Barh near Patna,” says 50-year-old Furkan Ansari. “Dhaka is closer to Bihar than Karachi is, so he came here.” Others saw more opportunity in less developed East Pakistan than in West Pakistan and settled in areas like Mirpur and Mohammadpur in Dhaka —a decision that they rue till now. Very soon, due to the zeal that is so common with refugees, they thrived in business, trade and government jobs.
However, having no affinity with Bengali Muslims, they found the social, cultural and even political atmosphere of their new habitat quite different from that in the land they had left behind. Assimilation remained elusive and they soon became hapless victims of history.
It was by accident that I stumbled upon Mohammadpura camp
in Dhaka. For a none-too-avid fish-eater, Bangladesh was proving to be a gastronomic nightmare. So a helpful local journalist-friend suggested that I try the best “Bihari kebabs” available in town. Bihari kebabs? It didn’t ring a bell at first. I was perhaps too tormented by my food-related woes to give it a long enough thought. By evening, I was in Mohammadpura looking for “Kallu ki dukaan”. As soon as I got there, it dawned upon me that something was amiss. The glittery Bangla signboards gave way to faded Urdu banners. Slowly, very slowly, Bangla rock music faded and the voice of Mehdi Hassan took over — “Yeh dhuaan sa kahaan se uthtaa hai…” But it was a lonely husky voice with a thick accent that confirmed that I was no more in Bangladesh — at least notionally. “Ka re, ketna din se nahi nahaya hai,” a lean, wheatish man chided a child. The voice was Jamil Ahmad’s.Seeing a fellow Bihari, he opened up. And as I washed down the tastiest Bihari kebabs I had ever eaten with swigs from a Coke bottle, Jamil Ahmad told me the story of “stranded Pakistanis”, commonly called “Biharis” in Bangladesh.
Massacres and attempted annihilations are touchy issues. Ask a Turk about Armenia and he’ll be at your throat. Serbs will never accept what happened in Srebrenica. It is, therefore, not surprising that Bangladeshis don’t want to talk about the "stranded Pakistanis" in their midst.
It all started during Partition when the Pakistani authorities asked Urdu-speaking Muslims from eastern UP and Bihar working in the Railways and the Jute Corporation to settle in what was then East Pakistan. Several hundred thousands who had borne the brunt of the anti-Muslim riots in Bihar the previous year decided to respond. “My forefathers were from Barh near Patna,” says 50-year-old Furkan Ansari. “Dhaka is closer to Bihar than Karachi is, so he came here.” Others saw more opportunity in less developed East Pakistan than in West Pakistan and settled in areas like Mirpur and Mohammadpur in Dhaka —a decision that they rue till now. Very soon, due to the zeal that is so common with refugees, they thrived in business, trade and government jobs.
However, having no affinity with Bengali Muslims, they found the social, cultural and even political atmosphere of their new habitat quite different from that in the land they had left behind. Assimilation remained elusive and they soon became hapless victims of history.
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