Our history, our humanity

It was the last week of April, fifty-four years ago, when the head of UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan met with the Secretary General of the United Nations, U Thant in Bern, Switzerland. The meeting agenda was the rapidly changing situation in South Asia. As many as 100,000 refugees were crossing what was then East Pakistan, into India every day. A new humanitarian crisis was unfolding at an astronomical pace. As a result of the meeting between Prince Aga Khan and the UN Secretary General, for this first time in its history, UNHCR became the 'focal point' for all UN assistance for a particular crisis. The mandate of UNHCR as a 'focal point' was not simply aid delivery, but also coordination with local governments of Pakistan and India and international mobilisation of aid. The refugee crisis went unabated for months to come, and by December 1971, there were approximately 10 million refugees who had been displaced and needed support.

In the months that followed the April meeting, there were plenty of political gestures, and manoeuvres from all sides. There were statements and counter-statements, accusations of mistreatment of refugees and nefarious goals. But caught in the middle were millions who were in a miserable condition. The UNHCR archives and reports of workers on the ground talk of immense suffering of poor people. Given the unsanitary conditions in the camps, diseases were rampant. Repeatedly cholera outbreaks were particularly acute. One British journalist noted, "Cholera is a horrible and humiliating way to die. The only mercy is that it is comparatively quick. The cholera wards are two buildings behind the main hospital block. There are no beds. The patients lie on metal sheets covering a concrete floor." Further down in the report, the same journalist painted an even bleaker picture: "Those who still can fan themselves weakly; those who are too far gone to do so are black with flies. There are men and women of all ages." While the journalist talked about men and women, the real impact was actually on young children. In an article published about the camps by a team of public health practitioners in the journal Lancet, it was reported that nearly 4,000 children died in one camp alone (the camp population was approximately 170,000). Estimates suggest between three hundred thousand and half a million people died in the camps before February 1972.

I am quite certain that most Pakistani students would have never heard of this refugee crisis that impacted citizens of their own country, that still remains among the largest that the world has seen since the Second World War, and was by far the largest in the second half of the twentieth century. While the numbers here are mind numbing, the real point is not the numbers. The point is why we are not thinking deeply about our own past and choosing to stay ignorant. I consider myself among the ignorant as well. It was not until I looked in the archives of UNHCR (while working on a different project), and came across the papers of the public health workers in the camps that I learned about the human suffering of these refugees. But I do not want to stay ignorant anymore. My journey to learn about the challenge in those camps is far from over. Beyond the statistics and reports, I am still looking for more personal accounts of the lived experiences of those who were in the camps.

I am quite aware that there are many different political perspectives on the events of that period, but I am also certain that most people, if given the opportunity to read and reflect, would find it in themselves to feel the pain of those who were forcibly displaced and became homeless, hungry and sick. I am confident that reading about the lives upended, of moments of loss, grief, fear and anxiety will make us care about others more. As episodes of forced displacement or forced repatriation happen all around us, may history, empathy and bonds of humanity, and not realpolitik, guide us!