The Abandoned Patriots


Written by S.G. Jilanee • Cover Stories • December 2009

cs_1 Abandoned by their countrymen, Biharis in Bangladesh cling to the claim that they are Pakistanis and hope to be accepted by their chosen motherland someday. Once in a while a thought is spared in blasé Pakistan for the forsaken Biharis. This is one such occasion. Thirty-eight years ago this December, their saga of misfortune began. And the end is still nowhere in sight.

Attempted here is not an expose of the chicanery, hypocrisy and selfishness of West Pakistanis. That calls for separate treatment. Instead it is a discussion to analyse how Biharis unwittingly invited nemesis upon themselves.

Call them flaws, but fidelity and sincerity are some of the innate characteristics of Biharis. They are also naïve. That is why, despite being spurned, they still nurse the hope to be allowed into Pakistan and argue that Pakistan, wherever it may be, is their home because they had migrated to Pakistan.

Yet another of their faults is to claim affinity with Urdu speakers. Therefore, Biharis clung to West Pakistanis' coattails come hell or high water, even though the latter exploited them as useful idiots and left them to the wolves when push came to shove.

No wonder, Biharis suffered the same fate at the hands of victorious Bengalis after the Pakistan army surrendered, as South Vietnamese had met from the triumphant Vietcong when the U.S. army turned tail. Many were brutally killed. The rest were driven out of their homes, work and business, to a miserable life in camps run by the Red Cross.

Fatal errors: Signs that Biharis were "unwelcome" in Pakistan had appeared very early. The first toxin was, in fact, sounded by the Liaqat-Nehru Pact in 1950 that left Bihar out of "agreed" areas. Accordingly, while, refugees from "agreed areas" were treated to sumptuous allotments of properties left behind by Hindus and Sikhs, in compensation for what they had abandoned in India, Biharis had no such luck.

The next warning was the Bengali-Bihari riot at Adamjee Jute Mills in 1954 after Jukto Front government comprising Awami League and Krishak Sramik Party had been sworn in following the rout of the Muslim League in the provincial elections. The riots were sparked by Awami League cadres.

The third and final warning was in 1970, when, in the aftermath of a spate of lethal attacks on Biharis in Dhaka, Governor Ahsan, instead of visiting the Bihari colonies at Mohammadpur and Mirpur, to reassure them, toured the city with firebrand Chhatra League leader Tofail Ahmad.

In between were other developments. First, was the Language movement in which protesting Bengali students were killed by police in 1952 under orders of West Pakistani officer, Masood Mahmood, who later deposed against Z. A. Bhutto at the latter's trial for murder. The agitation later proliferated into other spheres, such as the demand for economic parity between the two wings of the country.

With every attempt by West Pakistanis to resist their demands and gag dissent, Bengali attitude hardened further. Their earlier 21-point demand was later compressed into Six Points that led ultimately to Pakistan's partition. The government of Pakistan charged Sheikh Mujibur Rahman with sedition in the Agartala Conspiracy Case, but yielding to widespread agitation in East Pakistan, had to set him free.

All these straws in the wind foretold a severe storm with ugly portents, particularly for Biharis. But Biharis remained totally indifferent, living in a make-believe world in which their livelihood and security was guaranteed by West Pakistani civil administrators and army.

The most egregious error of the Biharis, though, was to clone to West Pakistanis and like them treat Bengalis with hauteur and disdain. They did not pause for a moment to ponder that West Pakistanis did not need to cultivate Bengalis or learn their language, because they had their home to go back to. But Biharis had no such comfort as they discovered when it was too late.

They did not care to study history, but swallowed what was dished out by West Pakistanis, including the myth of martial race. History would have told them that Bengalis always resisted being dominated. Thus, while people of what is today's Pakistan supplicated before Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Bengali Muslims fought against Hindu Zamindars and the British, and fought under Sayed Ahmad Barelvi. Similarly, Hindu Bengalis shook the government of British India with terrorist attacks in 1930.

Worse, while people in West Pakistan had seen many Bengalis in various walks of life, in Karachi and Islamabad, they hardly knew what a Bihari looked like, because Biharis remained stuck in East Pakistan. They did not come to Pakistan even in search of work, like Bengalis.

Background: Until 1912, Bihar and Bengal formed one province, with its capital at Calcutta. People from Bihar went to Calcutta for education and work. Bihari Muslims had seen countless Hindu Bengalis as doctors, lawyers, school and college teachers and government officers. But they had hardly ever come across a Muslim Bengali.

Similarly, Muslim Bengalis of what is now Bangladesh were familiar with Hindu Biharis who came in large numbers annually to harvest paddy. Their staple food was flour of roasted gram, called sattu, worked into dough with salt and water. Therefore Bengalis derisively called them "chhatu khor" or sattu-eater. So when Bihari Muslims met with Bengali Muslims it was a mutual shock. But Biharis made no attempt to show that they were different from the chhatu khors.

Biharis had first migrated to Bengal in 1946 after the terrible carnage by Hindus. Bengal was then ruled by Chief Minister H.S. Suhrawardy. Many Muslim political and social workers from Bengal visited the camps of the riot-affected people to give succor. One of them, ironically, was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who would later, as president of Bangladesh, nonchalantly watch over their pogrom by his men.

Because, it was presumed that Bengal would become Pakistan, the Bengal government offered them shelter in Midnapore and Jessore. But when Bengal was partitioned and Midnapore fell in India, Biharis were relocated to various places in East Pakistan.

More Biharis went to East Pakistan after partition because they found fewer opportunities in India. These people came from diverse callings - artisans and craftsmen to lawyers, teachers, doctors, engineers and government employees. Another wave of Biharis, mostly workers in jute mills, went to East Pakistan in the aftermath of communal riots in Calcutta in 1950. They were fixed in the Adamjee Jute Millis in Narayanganj. Meanwhile a fairly large number of Biharis from Kanchrapara and Jamalpur railway workshops in India went to Saidpur and Pahartali workshops in East Pakistan.

Biharis in East Pakistan were concentrated in urban areas and large railway junctions. They did not interact with the local people, except superficially. Whoever did, reaped the benefits in the end. They were left unharmed.

Despite their substantial number, Biharis were not politically organized. They played no political role. Worse, they did not realize how the social and political situation was developing and the need to adapt and adjust to it. For example, when Bengalis demanded parity in economic resources and services, Biharis failed to appreciate that if more funds came to East Pakistan they could not be denied their share of the benefits.

For Biharis 1971 was the moment of truth. When Pakistan army launched its operation they offered it full support. They enlisted in Al Badr and Al Shams of the Jamaat-e-Islami and in the East Pakistan Civil Armed Force (EPCAF). They also worked as informers and spies and, whenever opportunity offered itself, tried to settle scores with Bengalis. The rest is a very heart-rending history.