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The repatriation of 1973 and the re-making of modern South AsiaAntara Datta aa Department of History , Harvard University , Cambridge, MA,02138, USAPublished online: 30 Mar 2011.
To cite this article: Antara Datta (2011) The repatriation of 1973 and the re-making of modernSouth Asia, Contemporary South Asia, 19:1, 61-74, DOI: 10.1080/09584935.2010.549556
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The repatriation of 1973 and the re-making of modern South Asia
Antara Datta*
Department of History, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
In the aftermath of the 1971 war, nearly 250,000 people found themselvesstranded in various parts of the subcontinent. These ‘trapped minorities’ becamehostages in a complex negotiation process that highlighted how questions ofcitizenship and belonging remained unresolved in post-Partition South Asia. Bystudying three groups – the non-Bengalis, the Bengalis and the prisoners of war ina comparative perspective, this paper re-visits the question of who was welcomewithin certain borders and on what terms. It argues that these decisions dependednot just on the state’s policies towards ‘outsiders’ but also upon its ownrelationship with its minority communities.
Keywords: repatriation; citizenship; borders; minorities; New Delhi Agreement
Introduction
On a sunny day in Karachi hundreds waited for three buses at the KarachiInternational Airport that would take them on board a gleaming Boeing 707 waitingon the tarmac (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees – UNHCR 1974).These were the passengers for flight DI 055 from Pakistan to Bangladesh carrying214 Bengalis. It was 19 October 1973. On that day DI 055 made five round tripscarrying 886 people. This was one of many flights, chartered by the United NationsHigh Commission for Refugees, criss-crossing its way across the subcontinentbetween 1973 and 1974, moving huge swathes of humanity in the largest planned,simultaneous and controlled mass migration in history.
The 1971 war in East Pakistan had ended with a 13-day battle between India andPakistan that led to the creation of Bangladesh. The eastern wing of Pakistan hadlong expressed dissatisfaction with the treatment meted out by its less populous butmore politically powerful western counterpart (Rahman 1971). These complaintsranged from linguistic ones about the attempted imposition of Urdu over Bengali, toa dispute about the division of economic resources and the East’s exclusion from theheart of political power in Pakistan (Sisson and Rose 1990). When Yahya Khanannounced national elections in 1970, the main political party in the East, the AwamiLeague led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, sensed an opportunity (Bennett-Jones2009). With growing discontent in the aftermath of the Bhola cyclone of 1970 andthe botched relief efforts that followed, the Awami League won 160 of the 162 seats itcontested in the East, thus gaining an overall majority in the 300 member National
*Email: [email protected]
Contemporary South Asia
Vol. 19, No. 1, March 2011, 61–74
ISSN 0958-4935 print/ISSN 1469-364X online
� 2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/09584935.2010.549556
http://www.informaworld.com
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Assembly (Bennett-Jones 2009, 155). The defeated Pakistan People’s Party led byZulfikar Ali Bhutto and Yahya himself were dismayed by the results and tried to stallthe first session of the National Assembly while they opened negotiations withMujib. On 3 March 1971, Yahya announced that the National Assembly meetinghad been suspended and protests erupted on the streets of Dacca (Bennett-Jones2009, 156) On 25 March 1971, the Pakistani Army launched a crackdown on theEast, particularly Dacca. This was Operation Searchlight and on that night thecampus of Dacca University was ransacked and hundreds of students were killed(Sisson and Rose 1990, 154). It sparked off nine months of unrest, the creation of aguerrilla force known as the Mukti Bahini in the East and the eventual involvementof the Indian Army. During these nine months, an estimated 10 million refugeescrossed the border, putting an enormous political and economic strain on India. Theactual military conflict in 1971 was brief – it lasted a mere 13 days, ended with thesurrender of General Niazi to General Jagjit Singh Arora of the Indian Army andsignalled the creation of the new nation of Bangladesh (Bennett-Jones 2009, 170).
In the aftermath of the war, there were a number of outstanding issues to beresolved. Pakistan refused to recognize Bangladesh, terming its secession as illegaland citing India’s assistance as proof of this illegality. India had captured 93,000prisoners of war (POWs) in the East and some of these men, particularly the topcommanders, were wanted for war crimes by the nascent Bangladesh government(FCO 7/1056, FCO 37/1057). This new government too had its own problems – first,it was not yet recognized as a full fledged nation, particularly by Pakistan and theUnited States, and was not yet a member of the United Nations. Then, there was asignificant non-Bengali population within the borders of East Pakistan and agrowing clamour that they be targeted for revenge, which if carried out, would bringunwelcome international attention and opprobrium. Pakistan, though humiliated byits military failure despite support from the United States, was keen to regain theinternational goodwill that had been lost as a consequence of the media coverage ofthe refugee crisis and revelations about the actions of the Pakistani Army during thewar. All these considerations played a significant role in the negotiations thatfollowed regarding the repatriation of these three distinct groups of people whofound themselves trapped in a country not of their choosing at the end of the war.This repatriation involved the Biharis (or non-Bengalis) in Bangladesh, the Bengalisin Pakistan and the POWs from the Pakistani Army. This three way impasse wasfinally broken by the New Delhi Agreement of 28 August 1973, which paved the wayfor a planned, controlled and yet simultaneous repatriation of all three groups.
The question of ‘making’ and ‘re-making’ national borders in the subcontinentcan be traced back to the efforts of Sir Cyril Radcliffe as the British left South Asia(Chatterji 1999). Over the next several decades, both India and Pakistan had to dealwith the fall out of the refugee exodus that accompanied Partition. Older scholarshipon this exodus focuses largely on the western frontier rather the east (Low andBrasted 1998), while newer literature on Partition refugees in the east (Chatterji2007) has ended its narratives in 1964, ignoring the impact of the war of 1971 and themovement of people both during and after the war.1
This paper thus attempts to bring the aftermath of the 1971 war within ourcurrent understanding of forced migration within the subcontinent. Much of theexisting literature on this process has focused on the way in which refugees grappledwith the state and its bureaucracy for the right to relief and rehabilitation and theterms under which such rehabilitation would be provided. However, simultaneously
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of course, the very process of making ‘refugees’ from Partition into ‘citizens’involved complex questions about nationality, citizenship laws and dealing withlarge minority communities in both India and Pakistan. This paper argues that, byexamining the aftermath of the 1971 war and the 1973 repatriation effort, we canintroduce a modest corrective to this narrative. Not only does this shift the historicalgaze away from the forced migration in the Punjab to events in the East, but itdemonstrates how decisions about citizenship and belonging were being constantlyand continuously reshaped even in the 1970s. Moreover, given the virtual absence ofacademic literature on the 1971 war that is non-military or autobiographical innature, this also seeks to bring this neglected event into our understanding of post-colonial South Asia. Recent scholarship has suggested that the manner in whichpost-colonial states in South Asia negotiated these border questions and dealt withthose who crossed the border demonstrated the fragility of the post-colonial nationalnarratives that were being written (Zamindar 2007). Thus, ‘secular’ India, it has beenargued, often discriminated against those Muslims who may have crossed over toEast Pakistan temporarily but later sought citizenship in India. Similarly, Pakistangrappled with the large numbers of Muslims from Muslim minority provincesflooding into the country, which then prompted the introduction of the passportsystem in 1952 (Zamindar 2007). This paper thus argues that these decisions aboutcontrolling and enforcing the border through a variety of bureaucratic means wasnot a process limited to the events around Partition, but a dynamic one affected bypost-Partition refugee movements, particularly along the eastern frontier in 1971.
Finally, this paper also examines how these decisions were often inter-connectedand linked not only to policies regarding minorities within one’s own territorialborders, but also the policies of neighbouring states. By placing these groups in acomparative perspective, this paper argues that in this negotiation process somegroups had greater value for their country of origin than others. Thus, by unpackingthe manner in which this ‘hostage’ situation unfolded and its eventual solution, Iprovide an account of how the question of citizenship was being recast in post-Partition South Asia through an interconnected set of policies about the place ofmajorities and minorities within national borders.
The non-Bengalis
The non-Bengalis of Bangladesh, or the ‘Biharis’ as they were often morecolloquially described, became a large stateless minority within the subcontinentafter 1971.2 In the aftermath of the riots of 1946 in Bihar and Bengal, thousands ofMuslims had moved eastwards in search of a better life (Ghosh 1997). They werebuoyed by Jinnah’s call to rebuild the shattered economy of East Bengal. However,despite this early enthusiasm, life in the East was difficult for a number of reasons,including their less than cordial relationship with their Bengali neighbours. Duringthe 1971 war, the Urdu speaking ‘non-Bengalis’ were accused of being collaboratorswith the Pakistani Army and shunned when the war ended (Government of Pakistan1971).
The place of this ‘non-Bengali community’ within Bangladesh was a con-troversial one. It was argued that they had formed the recruiting ground for the al-Badr and al-Shams militias that were accused of some of the worst violence in 1971.However, others have argued that the non-Bengalis were placed in a difficultsituation within a hostile community and even if they had remained perfectly neutral,
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this would have been held against them.3 The Pakistani government had citedgrowing hostility against the non-Bengalis in 1971 as one of the reasons for the armycrackdown of 25 March 1971 and it gave many non-Bengalis hope that at the end ofthe war they would be repatriated to Pakistan to start a new life.
By January 1972, as a consequence of growing local hostility, many of the non-Bengalis found themselves confined to camps within certain areas of the major citiesin Bangladesh. In Dhaka two large camps of non-Bengalis were set up atMohammadpur and Mirpur (FCO 37/1016). At an official level there was a degreeof confusion about the fate of the non-Bengalis, and in fact, even how many non-Bengalis there were. What complicated the matter was the question of who was beingconsidered a ‘non-Bengali’ and who would be eligible for repatriation. Included inthe numbers were many who were in fact West Pakistanis working temporarily in theEast. The question of numbers thus became a matter of sovereignty – for theBangladesh government it was a measure of how many ‘unwanted citizens’ remainedwithin the borders of the country.4 Since Pakistan had no direct control over thenumbers being counted, it was not in a position to determine, by numbers alone, howmany non-Bengalis would be allowed to enter. This loss of control over numbersmeant that Pakistan became intransigent over taking any non-Bengalis at all.
In 1972 Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was categorical that Pakistan would not take the non-Bengalis en masse as there were already too many nationalities and factions withinPakistan. After the Bengalis who were stuck in Pakistan were repatriated, he wouldconsider the non-Bengalis on a case by case basis. Despite Pakistan’s claims that itwas a nation for all Muslims of South Asia, it had now decided, just as it had in theaftermath of Partition, that mass immigration was not an option (FCO 37/1016).
The non-Bengalis were thus stuck in no man’s land. For Bangladesh, they were acommunity to be shunned, not because they did not fit in linguistically, but becausethey had fought for the other side. Even if not all non-Bengalis (or even most ofthem) had sided with the Pakistani army, they were collectively seen as traitors andcollaborators. The Bangladesh citizenship laws drafted in this period also deprivedthem of citizenship, since they were seen as having professed loyalty towardsPakistan. However, since the non-Bengalis were shunned by Pakistan too, they wereeffectively rendered stateless. Unlike the Government of Bangladesh, the aim of theGovernment of Pakistan was not punitive but merely practical. It was not possible, itwas argued, to absorb so many non-Bengalis in a country with too many‘nationalities’ and without adequate resources to absorb this new influx.
The prisoners of war
While the non-Bengalis may not have been quite as welcome in Pakistan, there wasanother group of people for whom Pakistan launched an international campaign tosecure their release and whose continued captivity and absence from national soilwas seen as a stain on the nation’s collective honour. At the end of the war in 1971,nearly 93,000 Pakistani POWs and civilian internees were moved to jails anddetention centres in India (FCO 37/1369, FCO 37/1370). They remained there forthree years, causing an international outcry amongst those who argued that by notreleasing them, India was violating the Geneva Convention. Intriguingly, at the sametime that Pakistan was showing little interest in the fate of the non-Bengalis, some ofwhom were being tried as collaborators in trials in Bangladesh, Zulfikar Ali Bhuttomade it his mission to bring the POWs back home safely.
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There were a total of 75,000 military men and around 15,000 dependents alongwith West Pakistani civilians who were taken as POWs after the signing of thesurrender document by General Niazi (FCO 37/1369). It was argued that as they hadsurrendered to a ‘joint command’ of India and Bangladesh they were being taken toIndia for their safety, as there was widespread anger in Bangladesh against the Army(FCO 37/1370). Bangladesh subsequently insisted that the POWs would not bereleased until ‘all outstanding issues’ had been resolved and this was believed to be areference to the recognition of Bangladesh by Pakistan. Further, the Government ofBangladesh also insisted that it had the right to try some of the POWs for warcrimes, which if it did, would further halt the process of international recognition.
Pakistan launched a concerted international campaign to highlight the plight ofthe POWs and to prevent a war crimes trial. A monograph titled ‘Prisoners: illegaltreatment and inhuman detention by India’ was published by the Foreign Ministrywhich accused India of violating the Geneva Convention and inflicting ‘insults,indignities, extraordinary punishments, mass reprisals, torture and atrocities’ on thePOWs (FCO 37/1369). The document contended that since there was already a‘cessation of active hostilities’ as stipulated under the Geneva Convention, India wasin violation of international law. The report concluded that it would be illegal to tryPOWs for war crimes. The Pakistan army, it argued, was quelling a rebellion andthere was no ‘state of war’, as East Pakistan at this time was not a ‘state’ and therewas thus no question of ‘war crimes’.
On 11 May 1973, Pakistan filed a petition before the International Court ofJustice suing India for violating the Geneva Convention (FCO 37/1374, 11 May1973). The application charged India with not honouring the Geneva Conventionand suggested that Bangladesh’s desire to prosecute war criminals by promulgatingthe ‘Bangladesh Collaborators (Special Tribunals) Order, 1972, was at the behestand instigation of India. It argued that any transfer of POWs from India toBangladesh would be illegal on these grounds. It objected to the recognition grantedto Bangladesh by various countries, arguing that Bangladesh had not emerged in alawful or peaceful manner and that India had assisted in this process. India was theaggressor and the only aggressor in the war that had broken out, and that SheikhMujib was not a free agent in charge of a free government.
India’s response to Pakistan’s campaign was to reiterate that it was merelyholding the POWs as ‘hostages’ on behalf of Bangladesh as they had surrendered toa joint command. It was a matter for Mujib and Bhutto to sort out between them,but India would not simply hand over the POWs for a war crimes trial withoutstudying the evidence presented (FCO 37/1369). Moreover, India argued that ifBhutto recognized Bangladesh, the process of repatriation, including that of thePOWs could begin. It was his obstinancy that had halted the process.
Intriguingly, the incarceration of 93,000 POWs, almost all of whom wereMuslim, was also a unique propaganda opportunity for the Government of India toshowcase its secular credentials. In September 1972 Shah Nawaz Khan, the Ministerof State for Steel and Mines, visited the camps and spoke to the POWs about thehigh positions that Muslims could attain in India (Salunke 1977, 44). In the sameyear, a visit was organized for Md. Yunus Khan, the Secretary to the Ministry ofForeign Trade (49). He spoke to the POWs for several hours and answered questionsabout whether India was an anti-Muslim country, whether there was a detailed planto exterminate all Muslims and whether Muslims were debarred from holdingpositions of high office. He lectured the POWs about India’s secular credentials and
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pointed out that he, as a Muslim, was free to say his prayers in India and to holdhigh office.
This demonstration of India’s secular credentials came at a time during the 1971war when the loyalty of Muslims within the nation had been questioned repeatedly.The growing number of Muslim refugees also caused concern among those whofeared that they were ‘foreign agents’ who would swamp the border regions andchange its demography. The Urdu press in North India was the focus of sustainedcriticism from both the public and Parliament, for not unreservedly supporting thecause of Bangladesh (Lok Sabha Debates 1971). Thus, within India, the post-colonial quandary over ‘Muslim citizenship’ continued. While re-questioning theloyalty of its largest minority community, both at the official and popular level, theIndian state was simultaneously re-asserting its ‘secular’ credentials through itssupport for the ‘secular’ Awami League and by insisting that it was treating itsMuslim POWs fairly and in accordance with the Geneva Convention.
For Pakistan, the POWs marked a chance to redeem her reputation in theaftermath of 1971. The plight of the 93,000 POWs was a matter of intense nationalshame. The campaign to release the POWs provided an interesting contrast with thealmost total silence regarding the fate of the non-Bengalis during these three years.Many of the non-Bengalis had displayed loyalty to a Pakistani homeland, as much asthe soldiers had, and in the succeeding years found themselves living in far greaterfilth and misery, captive within their colonies. However, in the negotiations thatfollowed, Pakistan had to be persuaded to accept the non-Bengalis as a favour, whilethe defeated POWs were welcomed home with banners and processions.
The Bengalis
The third group involved in this tripartite population exchange were the Bengalis inPakistan. There were between 150,000 and 190,000 Bengalis in Pakistan of whom60% were in the ‘private sector’ – professionals, small businessmen and even farmersand fishermen, about 17% had been in government service including 7000 Bengaliswho worked for Pakistan International Airlines and the rest were military men (FCO37/1384). The two chief complaints from the Bengalis were that of persistentharassment and loss of income. It was a particularly difficult pill for the Bengaliupper middle classes to swallow as they had suffered a sudden and dizzying loss ofstatus and income (FCO 37/1384). The military officers and seamen were also badlyaffected. They had offered little overt support to the Mukti Bahini in 1971 as manyhad been dismissed from their posts prior to the outbreak of hostilities or soonafterwards. Many had little or no contact with family in Bangladesh and had beentransformed from fit and healthy soldiers to beggars surviving on a pitiful ration ofrice and dal.
Not all the Bengalis in Pakistan wanted to return, however. Mujib hadexpansively spoken of 400,000 Bengalis who would travel eastwards, but the realnumber was less than half of that (FCO 37/1384). For others the question of ‘return’was more complex.
Husne Jahan Alam5 was in West Pakistan when the war broke out (Alam 2001).In her account of life in Karachi she describes how relations between West Pakistanisand their Bengali neighbours became increasingly tense. They could only speak withany degree of freedom with other Bengalis and listened to the BBC quietly so thattheir ‘half-Bengali’ neighbourhood would not overhear (113). When the war broke
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out she chose to stay in West Pakistan. Like many of the upper middle classBengalis, they ‘had a lot of financial stake there – a house, a good plot of landbesides a bank account’ (114). When the war ended they had to choose betweenBangladesh and Pakistan, but decided to stay put in the West where their home was.They were not sure of their future in the East, and stories of how those who had goneback had found themselves stuck in camps did not generate any confidence (117).But the decision to stay aroused suspicion amongst those who returned toBangladesh; their loyalties were questioned and they heard that stories werecirculating about them in Bangladesh (118). It was, in the end, this questioning oftheir patriotism and their motives that eventually forced them to return toBangladesh.
Clearly, the Bengalis in West Pakistan found themselves in a difficult position. Ifthey chose not to leave, their loyalty was questioned. But by having remained in theWest during the war, and not having assisted the Mukti Bahini, they were alreadysuspects in the eyes of some back home. They were suspects in the eyes of Pakistan,in the eyes of those rebelling in East Pakistan, and later in the eyes of some in thenew nation of Bangladesh. This was suspicion that was almost impossible to deflect:resisting the Pakistani Army in the West or offering vocal dissent would have meantimprisonment or death.
At midnight on 5 March 1973, just before the actual repatriation process began, anumber of Bengali civil servants and military officers were detained (FCO 37/1385).It was believed that as more and more Bengalis had begun to escape via Afghanistan,their hostage value (vis-a-vis the POWs) was rapidly falling and they were beingdetained so as to be an effective bargaining counter. While Mujib could not use thenon-Bengalis to secure the release of the Bengalis since the non-Bengalis were clearlyunwanted, Pakistan could use the Bengalis to obtain the freedom of the POWs. TheBengalis were thus pawns in an unequal game and, like the non-Bengalis and POWs,‘hostages’ within an alien territory.
The agreement and repatriation
Before the signing of any formal agreement, the repatriation of sick and woundedPOWs organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) hadtaken place on a periodic basis. On 1 December 1972, all POWs captured by bothcountries in the western sector were exchanged. 639 Indian military personnel wereexchanged with 542 Pakistani soldiers captured in the same sector (Salunke 1977,10). Sick and wounded POWs were repatriated on 8 May, 24 June, 28 September, 7November 1972 and 23 February 1973 (FCO 37/1205).
Other than these episodic repatriations, two major repatriation efforts had beenplanned. In October 1972, Pakistan offered to release 5000 destitute Bengalis andthen pushed the figure up to 15,000 Bengalis who would be allowed to leave (FCO37/1375). India also offered to let go of nearly 6000 dependents of the POWs. ByMarch 1973 there was a complete impasse. The 6000 dependents that were to bereleased were still in India as many did not want to leave their husbands behind(FCO 37/1372). The list of 15,000 Bengalis to be released from Pakistan was yet to beapproved by the Bangladesh government and there was no solution to the problemof how they were going to get to Bangladesh in the first place. However, at the sametime, all three countries were beginning to lay down their terms for a possiblesettlement.
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Although Bhutto had agreed to the mutual swap (i.e., the POWs for theBengalis), he remained somewhat wary. He was afraid that Mujib would appear onthe Wagah border with a large number of non-Bengalis and ‘shame him’ intoaccepting them (FCO 37/1372) Bhutto was determined to take non-Bengalis on acase by case basis only, as he claimed that Pakistan had far too many nationalitiescompeting for scarce national resources. It is this same fear that prompted Bhutto tosuggest that this exchange take place using aeroplanes. He feared that when shipscarrying Bengalis docked in Chittagong, they would be packed with non-Bengalisand sent back, resulting in domestic and international humiliation if he refused toaccept them (FCO 37/1375).
The complex issue of repatriation was finally resolved by the signing of the NewDelhi Agreement on 28 August 1973. It was signed by India and Pakistan, andBangladesh gave its concurrence to the Agreement even though it was not party to it(Levie 1974). The Agreement covered the repatriation of all three groups and settledfive major issues: (1) the repatriation of Bengalis from Pakistan to Bangladesh, (2)the repatriation of non-Bengalis from Bangladesh to Pakistan, (3) the repatriation ofPOWs and civilians under protective custody (CUPC) from India, (4) the status ofthe 195 POWs charged with war crimes and finally (5) the recognition of Bangladesh(Levie 1974, 95). On the question of the non-Bengali population, Pakistan accepted,in Paragraph 3(v) of the Agreement, that it would accept a ‘substantial number’ ofnon-Bengalis and that at a later time the two countries, Pakistan and Bangladesh,would decide ‘what additional numbers of persons who may wish to emigrate toPakistan will be permitted to do so.’ Finally, this entire operation was to be based onsimultaneity – the three movements of the three sets of people were entirely inter-dependent. If any of the countries in question halted the repatriation of those withintheir territory, the entire Agreement would fall apart.
It was during negotiations leading up to the Agreement that the distinctlyunequal nature of the ‘hostage’ situation became apparent. The non-Bengalis werecurious hostages since no country seemed to want them, and their use by Bangladeshwould always be an unequal bargaining tactic. For India (and by extensionBangladesh), it was the POWs who were a more effective bargaining chip as thepresence of Pakistani soldiers incarcerated in India had become an emotive issue.However, to use the POWs in such a way would have meant persuading Pakistanthat in order to get her soldiers back it would not only have to release all theBengalis, but also take as many of the non-Bengalis who wanted to repatriate. Thefirst was a condition Pakistan was mostly amenable to, but given its own internalcontradictions the latter was never a realistic option. Equally interesting in thisexchange was the principle of simultaneity. The ‘threat’ of simultaneity meant thatIndia could always slow down the release of the POWs in order to effectivelyblackmail Pakistan into accepting more non-Bengalis on Bangladesh’s behalf. Thisdelicate tripartite exchange was thus a reflection of the ‘worth’ of variouscommunities to their nations of origin, or the nations they wanted to migrate to,and how much the country in question would be willing to concede to rescue their‘trapped’ citizens.
It is also worth commenting on the unique nature of this exchange. Such acontrolled exchange of population was in direct contrast to the chaotic and violentexchange that had taken place along the western border in the aftermath ofPartition. However, the handling of Partition refugees, including the variousrehabilitation schemes that were set up in both India and Pakistan in 1947, had shed
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light on how minorities were to be conceived within both nations. This plannedmigration thus opened up the space for all three countries, in the process of thesenegotiations, to articulate their beliefs about the position of minority communitieswithin their nation and to openly advocate for the inclusion of certain communitieswithin their borders over others. Finally, this exchange assumed that sending therepatriates ‘home’ would be a solution to this crisis. The final political solutionpapered over the various cracks that had arisen during the negotiation process,cracks indicating that several of these groups, particularly the non-Bengalis, wouldfind life in their new nation more difficult than they had imagined.
The ICRC began readying for this repatriation by issuing cards to the POWs inIndia (FCO 37/1206). The ICRC also began visiting repatriation centres in bothPakistan and Bangladesh and preparing lists of those who wished to leave so thattheir entry and exit visas could be issued (FCO 37/1206). Around 150,000–160,000Bengalis would travel from Pakistan, and it was believed that 60,000 non-Bengaliswould be accepted by Pakistan. The Bangladesh Red Cross was asked to set upreception centres in Dacca, Chittagong and Saidpur, and to prepare for more centresin Jessore and Khulna. The non-Bengalis would arrive in Karachi and dispersalcamps were being set up in Punjab and Sind.
The Government of Pakistan agreed to repatriate those non-Bengalis who fellinto three principal categories: (1) those who were born in Pakistan and those whohad their legal domicile there, (2) divided families but relationships other than that ofimmediate kin (parent, child, sibling, spouse) were not to be allowed and (3) formeremployees of the central government. The ICRC was also assured that those whohad been employees of semi-government organizations such as Pakistan Interna-tional Airlines6 would also be considered for repatriation (FCO 37/1387). Moreover,a further 25,000 would be accepted as ‘hardship cases’. The ICRC began todistribute forms in the non-Bengali camps with four questions on them: (1) Do youhave relatives in Pakistan? (2) Do you have property in Pakistan? (3) Were youformerly employed by the Pakistan Government or Armed Services or by a WestPakistani company? (4) Any other reason for repatriation to Pakistan. It wasbelieved that the final question would cover the 25,000 ‘hardship cases’ that Pakistanhad agreed to accept (FCO 37/1387).
The repatriation process did not always proceed as planned. There were two keyreasons for the delays: political and operational. At an operational level, the airliftwas prohibitively expensive and slow. Moreover, given the principle of simultaneity,a constant arbiter was required. There were suggestions that trains through India beused for repatriation as it would be significantly cheaper (FCO 37/1387). But Indiasaid that the transport of Bengalis to Bangladesh and non-Bengalis to Pakistanthrough its territory was out of the question – this was not a matter that Indiawanted to be involved in and there was always the possibility that those beingtransported would jump off the train and disappear in India.7 A second operationalproblem was the complete lack of communication between the three countries. Forinstance, each morning at Dacca airport, repatriates and UNHCR officials wouldgather with no knowledge of how many planes were arriving from Karachi(UNHCR 1974, 14–15).
At the political level, given the principle of simultaneity in play, the non-Bengalisproved to be the major sticking point, with both India and Bangladesh alleging thatPakistan was deliberately slowing down the acceptance of non-Bengalis. In turn,India responded by releasing fewer POWs as it argued that the ‘principle of
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simultaneity’ had to be maintained (Salunke 1977, 95). By October 1973, two monthsafter the repatriation had begun in earnest, it was clear that more Bengalis werereturning to Bangladesh than non-Bengalis travelling to Pakistan. Planes going toBangladesh were full, but those returning to Pakistan were often half empty (FCO37/1387). By November 1973, nearly 50,000 names had been submitted to thePakistani authorities for repatriation, but only 10,000 had been cleared (FCO 37/1389 1 November 1973). Pakistan, under fire for the slow clearance rate, suggested tothe ICRC that instead of individual clearances they would accept in bulk the listprovided by the ICRC under the three categories set down by the Pakistangovernment. However, if a person, post repatriation, was found not to meet thesecriteria, this would be offset against the hardship category for which a quota of25,000 had been set aside (FCO 37/1389). This caused some alarm in Bangladesh asthere were fears that Pakistan would reject a large number of returnees, consign themto the hardship quota, and declare that they had taken all that they had to under theterms of the Delhi Agreement.
Pakistan, however, argued that it was not being deliberately obstructionist.Abdul Sattar, who was later to be Pakistan’s Foreign Minister and who was postedin New Delhi, argued that it was only natural that the flow eastwards was heavierthan the flow westwards. Pakistan had found it easy to round up the Bengali civilservants and military personnel whom Bangladesh had demanded on an urgent basisas they were concentrated in Karachi. However, it was much harder to round up thenon-Bengalis who were scattered over Bangladesh, and thus the process would takelonger (FCO 37/1390). Sattar also claimed that a gentleman’s agreement had beenreached at New Delhi, where Bangladesh had not been present (FCO 37/1389). Indiawould send back all 90,000 þ POWs and Pakistan would accept around 70,000 non-Bengalis. This 70,000 would include 52,000 from Bangladesh and the rest fromNepal and Burma. Thus, the total figure of those entering Pakistan would be160,000, which would be equal to the number of Bengalis who were leaving. Byinsisting that Pakistan take more non-Bengalis, Sattar alleged that Bangladesh wasviolating this unofficial agreement.
The aftermath of the repatriation
The 1788th repatriation flight brought the entire process of repatriation to an end, orso it seemed (UNHCR 1974, 17). The Bengalis who wanted to return to Bangladeshwere repatriated and all of the POWs were repatriated to Pakistan. However, thenon-Bengali question was not resolved and continued to fester. During the tripartiterepatriation process it was estimated that Pakistan accepted some 83,000 non-Bengalis. Another 27,000 reached Pakistan illegally from Nepal or India. BetweenApril 1974 and June 1975 a further 15,000 were repatriated. There were two furtherrepatriations – 17,000 were repatriated in 1977 and 2800 in 1979 bringing the totalnumber to 144,800. But this was still less than the figure of 250,000 who haddemanded acceptance, recognition and repatriation from the Government ofPakistan (Ghosh 2007).
A key organization fighting for the rights of the non-Bengalis was formed in1977. The Stranded Pakistanis General Repatriation Committee (SPGRC) has triedto get the United Nations to categorize the non-Bengalis as ‘world refugees’ and notmerely as ‘displaced persons’ (Ghosh 2007, 47). By describing themselves as‘Stranded Pakistanis’, they imply a belonging to the Pakistani nation. They see
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themselves as Pakistanis who are stuck in another territory through the accident ofhistory. Whether Pakistan accepts them or not (and mostly Pakistan has not), theyremain committed to their idea of a ‘homeland’ in Pakistan to which they belong andfrom which they are separated merely by geography. This also implies a rejection ofthe Bangladeshi nation and to belonging within it.
The group has repeatedly condemned the Muslim League and Pakistan forletting them down, twice – once in 1947 and then again in 1971. They cite thesacrifices made by the non-Bengalis in 1946 and 1947 when they were victims of riots(Ghosh 2007, 88). They argue that they are the ‘ideal citizens’ of Pakistan – thatPakistan would not have been possible without their sacrifice. Thus, Pakistan forthem has become an ‘idealized homeland’; their sense of identity and self worthwould be restored to them if they could return there. The SPGRC, while blaming theBangladeshi state for their neglect, does not seek redress from it. Instead they turn toPakistan as their saviour and their betrayer, demanding justice.
This rejection of the nation of Bangladesh has been reciprocated by Bangladesh,which also did not extend citizenship to the non-Bengalis. This meant that for nearly35 years they have found themselves living in camps in various parts of Bangladesh,unable to seek employment, to go to school, own land or participate in national lifein any way (Refugees International 2004).
A landmark High Court decision in 2003, however, seemed to provide a solutionto this impasse. Ten non-Bengalis had filed a petition before the High Courtdemanding the right to vote. All were above the age of 18 and were residents ofCamp Geneva in Mohammadpur (Writ Petition 3801, Bangladesh High Court 2003).The High Court ruled in favour of all 10 petitioners. It divided them into two groups:those born before 1971 and those after. For those born before 1971, the High Courtargued that by Article 2 of the Bangladesh Citizenship (Temporary Provision) Orderof 1972, which stipulated that someone who was a permanent resident on 25 March1971 and continued to be a resident thereafter was a citizen of Bangladesh, thepetitioners were entitled to citizenship. The only disqualificatory provision allowedfor citizenship to be denied if a person ‘owes, affirms or acknowledges expressly or byconduct, allegiance to a foreign state’. The Court argued that the petitioners weretwo and four years old respectively when the war ended and thus could not be seen aspledging allegiance to a foreign state. For those born after 1971, citizenship wasautomatic unless they too could be disqualified under the above provision. The HighCourt ruling thus effectively opened up citizenship to those who were minors at thetime when the war ended and to those who were born afterwards.
While this High Court ruling would seem to have ended the impasse created bythe incomplete repatriation process, there remained a significant number of non-Bengalis, mostly belonging to an older generation, who rejected this offer ofcitizenship. They argued that it was Pakistan, not Bangladesh, where they wanted tospend their last days and continued to see Pakistan’s rejection of them in 1973 andthereafter as the ultimate betrayal.
Conclusion
The repatriation airlift in the subcontinent between 1973 and 1974 threw into sharprelief questions of exclusion and belonging in the subcontinent. Through therepatriation process, through a close study of the three groups involved in thatprocess and its aftermath, we get a sense of how these questions were being resolved.
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In India, while a re-questioning of Muslim loyalties took place during the war,the POWs were seen as a chance to re-assert those secular credentials. For Pakistan,the exclusion from its territorial body of a large number of non-Bengali Muslims wasa repudiation of its ideology to safeguard the interests of the Muslims in the sub-continent (Zamindar 2007, 9). Citizenship, for both Pakistan and Bangladesh, wasthus not conferred based on religion alone. The non-Bengalis were denied citizenshipin Bangladesh, not because Bangladesh saw itself as a pure Bengali nation, but as apunitive measure. In contrast, for the Bengalis trapped in Pakistan, whileBangladesh was seen as their putative homeland, the question of return was fraughtwith suspicion and accusations of disloyalty. Similarly, in Pakistan in both the post-1947 and the post-1971 period, not all Muslims, particularly those from the formerMuslim minority provinces of India, were welcome. This was in sharp contrast to thefate of the POWs in India. A largely Punjabi army that had suffered a catastrophicdefeat was seen as a symbol of national honour, and the campaign to bring themhome to Pakistan became an international one.
For India and Pakistan, in the post-1947 period, the project of taking care ofthose crossing borders to seek refuge came to be seen as a ‘universal and rationalprogram for the development of the nation as a whole’ (Zamindar 2007, 10). Thus,rehabilitating those who came from across the border became integral to the nationbuilding project. Vazira Zamindar has argued that during this period of refugeerehabilitation, while India touted its secular credentials, a large number of Muslimswere either pushed out or found their loyalties questioned. Similarly, in Pakistan,not all Muslims were universally welcomed, belying its status as the homeland of allSouth Asian Muslims. Moreover, minority communities in both countries remained‘hostages’ to the treatment of their counterparts across the border. This paperargues that these processes were not limited to the aftermath of Partition. One of thelargest mass migrations in human history accompanied the 1971 conflict and in itsaftermath a second exchange of population, a controlled one, was organized, whichhighlighted the contradictions between national ideology and the practice ofdetermining ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. With three sets of ‘trapped minorities’, India,Pakistan and Bangladesh had to re-assess their policies regarding citizenship andbelonging. It was during this negotiation process that it became clear that some‘hostages’ had greater value than others, while others played useful ideological andpropagandist roles.
The process of re-working who belongs, and who does not, has not ended withthe granting of citizenship to the non-Bengalis in Bangladesh. This process can beseen at the physical borders of all three nations, through discourses aboutimmigration, refugees, migrants and whose entry is to be deemed ‘illegal’ and whois welcome. We can locate the start of this process in post-independence South Asiaand chart its acceleration in the post Partition and post-1971 period. Despite theintroduction of entry permits, visas, passports, the claims to secularism and the riseof religious majoritarianism in all three countries, the aftermath of the 1971 war andthe 1973 repatriation made it clear that the tensions between religion, communityand nation in South Asia remain to be resolved.
Notes
1. It is believed that 10 million refugees crossed over from East Pakistan to India during thewar. At the end of the war, the simultaneous mass repatriation that this paper deals withinvolved the movement of close to another half a million.
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2. Note that not all the ‘Biharis’ came from Bihar, although a significant majority did. I referto them as ‘non-Bengalis’ as many Biharis themselves prefer this term, and it is moreaccurate.
3. The ‘non-Bengali’ question in 1971 is a complicated one as some scholars have argued thatviolence against them absolves the Pakistani Army of any responsibility for violence in theEast. By including the non-Bengalis in this paper, its aim is not to ignore the Bengalis whosuffered terribly during that period, but merely to place three groups of trapped minoritiesin a comparative perspective.
4. The Bangladesh Government suggested a figure of 260,000 based on a Red Cross surveywhose authenticity was somewhat disputed by the International Committee of the RedCross. This was, however, the number that was used mostly frequently in negotiations.
5. She is the sister of the noted economist Md. Anisur Rahman.6. Pakistan International Airlines employees were stuck on both sides of the border and were
a key part of the repatriation discussion.7. This was possibly a reference to the ‘non-Bengalis’ whom India feared might want to
return to Bihar. Moreover, as argued earlier, Bhutto too was opposed to using trains.
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