BENGALEES OF KARACHI

The Bengali speaking community is one of the largest ethno-linguistic community in the Indian subcontinent. They are settled across the world due to series of migration from Bengal to other parts of India and also to the other countries since colonial period.

Since Bengal came first under the British colonial rule due to her flourishing pre-modern industrial and mercantile economy and lucrative geo-strategic location in the Induan subcontinent the Bengalees were foremost in availing the opportunities offered by the imperialist British rulers. The Hindu upper caste Bengalees  who were historically educated and collectively quite brilliant to accept and utilise new opportunities started to migrate to different cities and towns of India. This was why Hindu Bengali settlements were found from Peshawar to Rangoon and Karachi to Kanyakumari. After the religion based partition of 1947 the Hindu Bengalees left those cities and towns which became part of western Pakistan including Karachi, Quetta, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Lahore,  etc.  But the brilliance of their renascent enlightenment has left a deep influence intellectual influence in the future life of Pakistan, the newly created Muslim homeland for Muslims of Indian subcontinent . The Nobel Prize winning world famous physicist Dr. Abdus Salam had credited his teacher  Prof. Anilendranath Ganguly of Lahore Government College for his stupendous achievement. This singular incident can be exemplified as an epitome of Hindu Bengali contribution in the intellectual development of Pakistani enlightened societal strata.

The Muslim Bengalees started to arrive in Karachi during the British period when coastal city was started to be developed as a centre of fishing and  trade within the colonial province of Bombay. The fishermen from Noakhali, Chittagong and other impoverished districts of southern and Eastern Bengal came to Karachi for fishing and other laborious jobs.

Kazi Nazrul Islam, the most famous Muslim poet of Bengal, also lived in Karachi for a short period of time. During the first World War (1914-1918) he joined in British Indian Army and enlisted in 49 Bengal Regiment. As a soldier he was posted in Karachi and lived in the city from 1917 to 1920. His first prose ‘ Baunduler Atmokahini’ which was published in Saogat  in May, 1929 and first poem ‘Mukti’ published in Bangiya Musolman Sahitya Patrika in July, 1919 were written in Karachi.  Nazrul also learnt Persian language from a Punjabi Islamic cleric in karachi too. So it can be opined that the city of  Karachi had played a significant path-breaking role to evolve the rich and radiant literary production of Nazrul in Bengali literature and music.

Pakistan was created in August, 1947. Karachi was selected as the capital of Pakistan.  In 1948 Karachi metropolitan area was declared as Federal Capital Territory. From 1948 to 1959 Karachi had remained as national capital and main centre of trade , commerce and industry. Due to this reason people from East Pakistan came in droves to settle and work in the city.

The newly emerging Muslim Bengali middle class came to Karachi to work in different government offices including National Secretariat, Karachi Port Trust, State Bank of Pakistan, etc. Many more educated people came from eastern Bengal to work in private sector as Karachi was the economic hub of the country.

Many poor people from the eastern wing of Pakistan came to Karachi to work in industrial and fishing sectors in large numbers.

After 1971 most of the educated Muslim had decided to go back to independent Bangladesh. The family of Runa Laila also migrated to Dhaka despite her highly successful career in film industry of Lahore and non -playback music industry of Karachi. In early 1970s her popularity was next to legendary Madam Noor Jahan as female playback singer. Not only Runa Laila but also Shehnaz Begum also left Karachi for Dhaka. She also had a quite successful musical career in Pakistan. She is still regarded as ‘Sohni Dharti Girl’ of 1970s as her version of patriotic song ‘ Sohni Dharti Allah Rakhe ‘ composed by highly talented music director Sohail Rana. During the grave political crisis and eventually civil war of 1971 in Pakistan which resulted in brutal destruction of life and property in East Bengal the then celebrated Bengali public figures based not only in Karachi like Runa Laila but also in Lahore like Shabnam and Robin Ghosh took a very indifferent stand on the savage stream of incidents which ravaged East Bengal but paved the political way for independent Bangladesh at the end through the disintegration of Pakistan.

The creation of Bangladesh in early 1970s did not stop the migration of poor and unskilled people to come to Karachi in search of livelihood. It is estimated that about 30 lakhs of Bengalees live in Karachi and nearly all of them are poor and unskilled.

These Muslim Bengalees have founded 132 colonies of their own for living .  Most of them have little access to education and job oriented skill development. They live in inhuman conditions with no availability of basic amenities of life like drinking water, sewerage system, etc. These basic amenities of life are a distant dream to them.

The Karachi based Bengalees are patriotic Pakistanis and and stand for the ideals  and objectives of Pakistani state. They regard themselves as Muslims first and do not want to go back to Bangladesh which was created by dividing their beloved Pakistan which they call in Urdu ‘ Pyarey Pakistan’.

But they have a connection with Bangladesh. Sometimes many of them visit to their ancestral village in Bangladesh in order to spend some days or weeks with their relations. They use Bangladeshi products like pan, jarda, lungi, saree, etc. which are essential objects of Bengali way of life. These Bengalees of Karachi also opened small shops in their colonies like Chittagong Colony, Machhar Colony to sell traditional Bangladeshi products and eateries across different parts of Karachi to offer popular Bangladeshi snacks like samosa, jilipi, peyaju, moya, etc. and cooked food items like bhat, different kinds of bharta, bhaji and fish.

Due to nearly total migration of educated Muslim Bengali middle class from Karachi the cultural activities related to Bengali tradition and taste have wiped out completely from the city where stalwarts like Kazi Nazrul Islam, Syed Ali Ahsan, Syed Ali Ashraf, Timir Baran Bhattachsrya, Debu Bhattacharya, Altaf Mahmud, Runa Laila, Shehnaz Begum, Alamgir lived and created finest of artworks on different fields of culture and education.

Moreover, in 1953 the University of Karachi had founded a full-fledged Department of Bengali to offer undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral programmers in Bengali language and literature. Till date the Department is functioning but at present it has become the smallest Department in the University of Karachi. Few students study in the Department since there is no demand for graduates, postgraduates and Ph.D holders in Bengali in the employment market of Pakistan. But in 1950s and 1960s the Department was throbbing in academic activities and globally renowned academicians like Syed Ali Ahsan, his brother Syed Ali Ashraf and  Mohammad Farooq headed the Department.

In the same year of 1953 Nazrul Academy was established in Karachi. It is located at Block 35 of Pakistan Secretariat zone in Saddar area of Karachi. The renowned  legal luminary Allahbux Karimbux Brohi took the pivotal initiative to establish this cultural institution. It is certainly a matter of serious note that within one year of State Language Movement of 1952 in East Bengal an institution like Nazrul Academy had been founded in Karachi, the then bastion of political and economic power in Pakistan. It can be inferred that the ruling establishment of Pakistan was quite concerned to preserve the national unity between two wings through the promotion of Bengali language and culture.

In 1959 the federal government of Pakistan established the Central Board for the Development of Bengali. The main office was located in Karachi while a branch office was opened at Bardhaman House where Bangla Academy under the then East Pakistan provincial government was housed. After 1971 the Dhaka branch if the Board was merged with Bangla Academy in independent Bangladesh while the Board lost its importance as Bengali was no more the national language of Pakistan under 1973 constitution. A similar Board for Urdu was established in 1958 and it is still functioning though the name has been changed to Urdu Dictionary Board in 1982. Both the Boards were established to develop the concerned languages as both Urdu and Bengali were recognized as national languages under 1956 and 1962 constitutions of Pakistan.

The present day Bengali origin people in Karachi do not have much flair or attachment with Bengali culture. It is due to their socio-economic backwardness and rising waves of Islamic radicalism.  Moreover the Bengali language is not recognized at any place or institution as medium of communication or instruction. The children of Muslim Bengalees are not getting any scope or opportunity to learn or practice. Hence the usage of Bengali as language has nearly diminished.

It is very sad and sorrowful to acknowledge this fact of fast diminishing role of Bengali as language in a city where there are about 30 lakhs of people who are of Bengali origin. After Kolkata, Dhaka and Chittagong the city of Karachi may be regarded as the fourth largest city of Bengali dwellers but unfortunately the Karachi Bengalees do not have much regard for their original language and culture. They try to become more Muslim in order to be ‘true Pakistani’ as the Muslim Bengali province of East Bengal dismembered the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in 1971 with direct aid , assistance and military intervention of ‘Hindu’ India. This inarguably indelible fact of history has created a deep psychological scare at the collective level in the minds and thoughts of Bengali population living in Karachi and other cities and towns in Pakistan. They are hapless inheritors of a downcast history which is hard to contemplate even after fifty years of disintegration of Pakistan, the Islamic ‘dreamland’ and Muslim homeland for the Muslims of Indian subcontinent.