the Bihari Community in Bangladesh 665 citizens known as Bihari, a non-Bangladeshi, stranded Pakistani or Urdu-speaking community were left in Bangladesh, waiting to be repatriated to Pakistan.2 ­Bihari, originally a Hindi word, means a person from the state of Bihar, India.3 The Bihari community is also referred to as Muhajirs4 (refugee), a linguistic minority, a camp-based Urdu-speaking minority, or non-locals.5 The Bihari community in Bangladesh does not refer to a distinct group of people easily identifiable by race, religion or physical characteristics.6 They cannot be regarded as a minority because they do not constitute part of the Bangladeshi nation.7 Yet, they exist outside their country, Pakistan, and form a stateless community in Bangladesh. This stateless community lives in refugee camps without proper nutrition, drainage and sanitation systems, education, or healthcare facilities.8 It should be mentioned that a large number of Bihari have been repatriated to Pakistan under the Tripartite Agreement between Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.9 Pakistan, as the country of origin, cannot avoid the responsibility of taking them back. In this regard, both Bangladesh and Pakistan need political honesty and willingness to restart the repatriation program to bring about a lasting solution. After the partition of British India in 1947, there was communal violence throughout India.10 This communal violence included the so-called ‘great Bihar killing’ of 30,000 Muslims11 in October/November, resulting in the large-scale 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 displaced, and 200,000 to 400,000 women were victims of rape. See further, 1971 Bangladesh Genocide, <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_Bangladesh_genocide>, visited on 5 January 2018. Iqthyer Uddin Md Zahed, ‘A Theoretical Analysis of Stranded Biharis in Bangladesh: Seeking for nationality since four decades’, 1 International Journal of Advanced Research (2013) p. 429. Ibid. The word ‘Muhajir’ is defined in the Pakistani census of 1951 as a person who has moved into Pakistan as a result of partition or out of fear of disturbance. Iftekharul Bashar, ‘Unresolved Statelessness: The Case of Biharis in Bangladesh’, 10 Journal of International Affairs (2006) p. 1. Note on the Nationality Status of the Urdu-speaking Community in Bangladesh, unhcr, p. 1, <www.refworld.org/docid/4b2b90c32.html>, visited on 3 April 2015. Kazi Fahmida Farzana, ‘The Neglected Stateless Bihari Community in Bangladesh: Victims of Political and Diplomatic Onslaught’, 2 Humanities & Social Sciences (2008) p. 1. Zahed, supra note 2. Under the Tripartite Agreement there are 170,000 Biharis have already been repatriated to Pakistan as country of origin. See further Delhi Agreement, infra note 40. Zahed, supra note 2. In the aftermath of the communal violence in which 30,000 Muslims were killed, 1.3 ­million Bihari Muslims migrated to Pakistan, of them 700,000 to East Pakistan and the rest to West Pakistan. See also Abrar infra note 13. international journal on minority and group rights 25 (2018) 664-678 This content downloaded from 147.188.245.205 on Wed, 25 Oct 2023 15:43:57 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms <UN>