Note on the nationality status of the Urdu-speaking community in Bangladesh This Note provides guidance regarding the nationality of members of the “Urduspeaking” community in Bangladesh. This may be useful in assessing asylum or statelessness applications, as well as in migration contexts where the nationality of members of this community is at issue. The Urdu-speaking community of Bangladesh, popularly known as “Biharis”, 1 does not refer to a distinct group of people easily identifiable by race, religion or physical characteristics. Rather, it loosely refers to a linguistic minority of Urdu-speaking persons and their descendants who emigrated from India during and after partition of the subcontinent in 1947 to what was then known as East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), and who are citizens of Bangladesh in accordance with the relevant national laws. This Note does not refer to persons who have moved or returned to Pakistan since 1971. 2 Background 1. In 1972, following the creation of the independent People’s Republic of Bangladesh, an estimated 1,000,000 Urdu speakers were living in settlements throughout Bangladesh awaiting “repatriation” to Pakistan. 3 Agreements between Pakistan, Bangladesh and India in 1973 and 1974 resulted in some 178,069 members of this community being “repatriated” from Bangladesh to Pakistan between 1973 and 1993 out of some 534,792 who had registered with the International Committee for the Red Cross 1 2 3 The ancestors of Urdu-speakers in Bangladesh came largely, though not exclusively, from the Indian State of Bihar. Historically favoured by the West Pakistani political elite due to the shared Urdu heritage, “Biharis” remained “stranded” in Bangladesh after its separation from Pakistan and the creation of an independent State in 1971. For this reason, they have sometimes been referred to, or self-identified, as “stranded Pakistanis”. For a detailed historical overview, see Eric Paulsen, ‘The Citizenship Status of the Urdu-speakers/Biharis in Bangladesh’, (2006) 25 Refugee Survey Quarterly,, 54, 54-68, available at http://rsq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/25/3/54.pdf. “Urdu speakers” is preferred over “Biharis”, as the former is a more comprehensive and correct term for the entire community. Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, came into being in 1971, following the independence war (herein referred to as “Liberation War”) from Pakistan. See, for instance, BBC, Country profile: Bangladesh, 23 October 2009, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/country_profiles/1160598.stm. Sumit Sen, ‘Stateless Refugees and the Right to Return: The Bihari Refugees of South Asia – Part 1’, (1999) 11 International Journal of Refugee Law 625, 635, available at http://ijrl.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/11/4/625. 1