The Rohingya Muslim Community of Pakistan

“And they are still asking us to prove our nationality.”

All of us tut-tut in unison. We are seated outside the Arakan Muslim Primary and Secondary School, about nine of us huddled in a circle as life around us moves ahead as normal. This is Burmi Colony, home to about 55,000 Rohingya Muslims in Karachi. There are other colonies in the area that are also housing the Rohingya but this is arguably the largest.

The Burmi Colony is located on the edge of the Korangi Industrial Area, perhaps the mega-city’s largest industrial zone. Apart from products, Korangi and the adjoining Landhi area produce the largest number of low-wage workers settled in small settlements off the main road running across the two zones. Burmi Colony, like the others, is organised along ethnic lines.

The ongoing strife in Myanmar’s Rakhine State targeting the minority Muslim population has shone a light on Karachi’s own substantial Rohingya population. Who are they and what are they all about? Eos finds out…

There are many in the neighbourhood who claim to have arrived in (West) Pakistan well before the formation of Bangladesh. Most Rohingya often identify themselves to officials as Bengalis because this provides them a chance to claim Pakistan citizenship. It is only the recent events in Myanmar which have made them own up to their identity publicly. An elderly grocer who could barely speak Urdu narrates that he arrived in 1965 as a boy. His son is now father to three.

“It’s a curse living here,” says 25-year-old Mohammad. “People reject our job applications and all doors [of opportunity] are always shut in our faces when people find out that we are from Burmi Colony.”

Perhaps this shunning by the outside has reinforced the notion that only the Rohingya will come to each other’s aid. This has meant that Burmi Colony has evolved as a closely-knit community where everyone knows everyone.

It has also reinforced the belief that the only way to survive is to stick to tradition, which in turn, means social insulation and conservativism. There are no women loitering around in the colony and those in sight are draped in head-to-toe niqab, walking either in groups or chaperoned by a man.

The organisation that all colony residents seem to have reposed their trust in is the Social Aid Committee. Its members are drawn from the community.

“We tend to tasks such as burials,” says Iftikhar, a community activist who is also a muezzin in a neighbourhood mosque. “But then we also guard the neighbourhood at night. If there is trouble brewing somewhere, people inform us and we reach the spot. Some of our youngsters became drug addicts, we counselled them and admitted them for treatment too.”

Every household has lost a loved one,” says Ibrahim, “but do you see any of us taking to crime to vent our frustrations? Of course not. It’s crucial for us, at this point, to keep trying to make contact with those stranded in Myanmar and to finance their safe passage to Bangladesh.”

A few minutes ago, our group had been graced by the presence of Abdul Haleem, the chairman of the union council. An elderly bearded man, he has been contesting local elections since 1979. “My father, too, was a councillor, Maulana Abdul Quddus Mozahiri,” he says proudly. But today, at his age, Abdul Haleem is running from pillar to post to have his citizenship status confirmed once again.

Haleem’s first national identity card was made in 1973-74 during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s government. “90 percent of older generations have those identity cards,” he says. “Once we had those in hand, there was no need to have other documents. We thought we were safeguarded forever.”

“Imagine the irony,” chuckles community activist Mohammad Ibrahim seated next to him. “We got national identity cards because of Haleem Sahib’s signatures. Today he isn’t even eligible for an identity card himself.”