Negotiating new conjunctures of citizenship: experiences of ‘illegality’ in Burmese-Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrant enclaves in Karachi

Abstract

In this article, I examine aspects of recent shifts in Pakistani citizenship norms and the implications for migrant populations. In doing so, I investigate how the coalescing of national security concerns with broader issues of immigration has brought ‘illegal’ migrants like the Burmese-Rohingya and Bangladeshis into the state's documented embrace. My purpose is threefold: to record the modalities of change through the discourse of ‘illegality’ which articulate the exigencies of the ‘war on terror’; to explore the implications of such change on certain Muslim migrant populations resident in Pakistan for several decades; and, through these discussions, to show how citizenship and belonging have played out in a very different way for them. The subject of immigration/migration and illegality in Pakistan, especially in the post-9/11 frame, has remained largely below the threshold of academic attention.

Keywords::

• citizenship
• illegality
• migrants
• Pakistan
• South Asia

Acknowledgements

I thank Sana Haroon, Sunil Amrith and three anonymous reviewers for their excellent suggestions that helped reshape certain ideas in this article. Different versions were presented at the Annual Conference of the Association of Asian Studies (AAS), April 2011, in Honolulu, HI, USA, and at the Faculty of Arts & Sciences, Agha Khan University, October 2009, in Karachi, Pakistan. I am particularly indebted to the South Asia Initiative at Harvard University for providing a grant for this research when I was a postdoctoral fellow.

Notes

^1. The Frontier Constabulary (FC) is a federal paramilitary force that operates in all provinces in Pakistan. It was established during British colonial rule. The FC's objectives include the policing of borders to counter incursions, criminal activities, human trafficking and the smuggling of contraband items. The FC falls under the Ministry of Interior's administrative ambit.

^2. See, for instance, Report on Illegal Migrants authored by the Karachi-based Citizens-Police Liaison Committee and Menace of Illegal Immigrants in Karachi prepared by the Special Branch, Sindh police.

^3. While the word Muhajjir denotes the ethnic identity of Urdu-speaking population that migrated to Karachi in 1947 from North India, ‘the word muhajjir simply means migrant’.

^4. Different sources suggest in 1995 in a ‘secret report’ that Karachi's Inspector-General of Police had advised Benazir Bhutto that if left unchecked the alarming influx of Bengali speakers would soon catalyze a demand for the creation of a second Bangladesh.

^5. NARA estimates that nearly 15% of Karachi's population of 21 million comprises illegal migrants of which Bengali speakers form the majority.

^6. Arakan is an isolated province in the western part of Myanmar. The Rohingya claim descending from the first Muslim Arab merchants who came in contact with southeastern Bengal in the ninth century. The gradual denial of the Rohingya's civil, political and social rights catalyzed a process of exclusion that culminated in the Citizenship Act of 1982. The act recognizes only ethnic groups who have lived in Myanmar before the First Anglo-Burmese War began in 1824 as authentic citizens. The Rohingya speak a dialect similar to that spoken in Chittagong.

^7. The discussion is based on 85 interviews conducted between 2009 and 2010 in two ethnic enclaves, Ali Akbar Shah goth and Burmi para in Korangi Town. The research methodology was qualitative and included open-ended interviews and participant observation. The interviews focused on personal histories and on the interactions between migrants, their children and native muhajjirs, between migrants, government officials and law enforcement agencies, and between migrants and political party workers.

^8. A Bengali word, ‘para’ means neighborhood.

^9. ‘goth’ is a Baluchi word which means village.

^10. The informant is a labor rights activist who works for an NGO in Korangi Town.

^11. Literally water uncle.

^12. This resonates with Khalid's (2003) reasoning that the first wave of migrant refugees who left Arakan was predominantly wealthy Rohingyas or landowners.

^13. Muhammed Ismail was referring to the signature of NADRA's Director Vigilance (Southern zone) who was a senior ex-military officer, and he was suggesting that a representative of the powerful Pakistani military would not commit an error because after all the military knows everything.

^14. Literally papers.

^15. Bay-forms are ID cards for children under 18 and facilitate enrollment in formal schools.

^16. The suggestion was the Muhtasib's office is less expensive, partial to the poor and bestows Islamic norms of justice.

^17. Sindhi ethnic nationalists have claimed that federal agencies settled illegal Bangladeshis and Burmese in Karachi to turn Sindhis into a minority group in Sindh.

^18. See, for instance, http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers6%5Cpaper597.html.

^19. This point was also underscored in Gazdar's (2005) random survey of Burmese and Bangladeshis in Karachi.

^20. Scholars (Cohn and Dirks 1988, Torpey 2000, Singha 2008) have demonstrated the critical role documents play in modern state formation.