What should a man do if he can’t find a home on the earth whom he emigrated with all the hope of finding one?
Muhammad, 62, who closed his eyes for the last time on May 6, 2025, still clung to the hope of ‘belonging’ somewhere. Born and raised in the heart of Dhaka, Eastern Pakistan (now Bangladesh), he was not even 10 years old when he emigrated to Pakistan with his older brother after 1971. Later, his whole family joined him in the refugee fields, where his mother and six brothers spent seven precious years of his life, fighting to survive.
When he was a child, Muhammad accepted his destiny, believing that this was the course that would take his life and that he would have to live it while staying alive. But that was not the end for him.
After seven brutal years of work and violence, all kinds of violence, later he would tell his children, did leave the fields. Not only did he escape, but, in five years, he also obtained a diploma in the sketch of the Karachi School of Arts and got a job in one of the main advertising agencies of the city of the time.
However, there was a key in the works: the fight for identity, or the computerized national identity card (CNIC), as it is known.
His father spent a lifetime trying to show that he belonged to Pakistan. Even after his death, the State refuses to recognize him. Now, his daughter tells the story that could not end …
This is the story of my late father, who breathed for the last time while fighting to recover the right to be a Pakistani citizen. Until the same day he died, everything was done using his expired NIC. He could not renew it after 2013, because the National Database Registry Authority (NADRA) continued to ask for documents to demonstrate that his parents had resided in Western Pakistan before Bangladesh secession in 1971.
ECOS OF THE APATRIDIA
In Karachi, there is an area called Machhaira [Fishermen’s] Colonia, also known as Colonia Machhar. It is one of the largest low neighborhoods and also one of the most neglected marginal neighborhoods in the city.
Lorded by a railway and Mauripur Road road to the North and the Arabic Sea to the south, it has an approximate population of 850,000, according to the Bengalí Pakistaní Action Committee, a community mobilization group. The committee estimates that about 75 percent of the residents of the colony are of Bengali origin.
Of these, more than half are ‘state’ or trapped in a long and uncertain struggle to ensure citizenship, says lawyer Tahera Hasan, who also directs the IMKAAN Welfare Organization that works with marginalized and stateless communities.
The Pakistan Citizenship Law of 1951 describes several ways in which a person can become a citizen. One is by birth: any person born in Pakistan after the law entered into force is entitled to citizens. Another way is through the descent, which applies to those born to at least one Pakistani father.
This law also grants citizenship to people who emigrated to Pakistan before January 1, 1952, with the intention of establishing themselves permanently, provided they obtained a certificate of address. In addition, the government can grant citizens through naturalization to people who meet certain conditions.
After the separation of Eastern and Western Pakistan in 1971, the law was updated to address the situation of those affected by the division. Initially, it allowed people to claim citizens if they could demonstrate that they had been living in Pakistan since 1971. Later, this requirement became stricter, demanding a residence test between 1971 and 1978. These changing policies have made it difficult to complete the documentation process and gain recognition as citizens.
A personal test
I belong to one of the few Bengali families in the city, perhaps even to the country, which had the privilege of not transmitting the trauma of the apatridge to the next generation. As my mother is a citizen of this country, my brothers and I received citizenship of birth law.
This citizenship of birth law was also applied in the case of my late father and his brothers, who were initially issued identity cards at the end of the eighties on the basis of the citizenship of my grandmother of Western Pakistan. But what should have been a routine renewal in 2013, having been considered citizens of Pakistan for a quarter of a century, became a nightmare for the family.
It was also an election year, with the CNIC a previous requirement for the registration of voters. Nadra had been given the role of digitizing and reconciling several databases to create a clean electoral record. At once, Nadra presented almost 37.1 million voters as “not verified”, deciding only to include those of the 2013 voter list that had been registered in Nadra after 2008.
When my father was for his CNIC renewal, he was asked, once again, for proof of Pakistani residence before 1978, according to the rules, or the proof of his mother’s Pakistani citizenship. He no longer had his mother’s document, out of place over the years, while there was no documented registration of family time in refugee fields before 1978.
This sudden change of requirement altered too many lives, including that of my father and his brothers. This was despite the privileged that was compared to most people of Bengali origin in Pakistan. The organization with which he had been used for many years decided to keep him regardless of his expired CNIC.
Losing access to their bank account and telephone SIM were relatively lower irritating in the broader scheme of things. What really hurt was that he could not request visas or renew his passport, ending his travel plans.
It is painfully heartbreaking that my father longed for Umrah during the time he lived, but, when he became able to organize the trip, he was no longer allowed to go. It was because, according to the State, he really did not belong here.
Apátrate even in death
The fact that my father would not feel at home in this country has become clearer after his death. Three months have passed since he died and we still can’t get his death certificate.
My father spent his whole life trying to make a home in this country while fighting in silence in the post -traumatic stress disorder, a burden that had taken from his days at the Art School, and one that finally transmitted to his children. Despite his talent, capacity and immense potential, he repeatedly denied the opportunities he deserved.
But what is even sadder, through the lens of my own experience, is the understanding that my father was even more fortunate than many others. Although he was deprived of his rights, he was not hungry for basic needs. Throughout my life, from childhood until now, I have heard innumerable stories of young and old, ambitious, motivated and deserving of education and careers, which retain simply because they are not recognized as citizens of this country.
I don’t know what to write as the end of this story. I had thought about writing this experience from the first day I entered journalism. Finally, after losing my father, I have gathered the courage to write it … because this story deserves to be told, as a reminder that belonging is not just about earth or paperwork; It is about the dignity, memory and silent battles that people fight to be seen.
It is possible that my father has not given the documents to demonstrate that he belonged, but his life, his work, his art and his love for this place did it more entrenched than many who never had to demonstrate something. The same goes for all the Bengali who reside in Karachi, trying to make a home in this country.
*The writer works for Dawn News English.
X: @dalchawalorrone*
Posted in Dawn, EOS, August 10, 2025
