Bangladeshi at last

As vibrant and industrious as lifestyles are in Dhaka, the Urdu-speaking inhabitants of Mohammadpur's Geneva Camp, in the very centre of the city, live lives that change very little from day to day. Despite Geneva Camp having been dubbed the 'Paris' of Bangladesh's 116 Bihari refugee settlements by no less than Refugees International, the lives of the residents differ little from those of the 160,000 Urdu-speaking inhabitants throughout the rest of country's refugee camps. In the 36 years that have passed since Bangladesh's independence, these people have been in legal limbo: officially stateless, identified as "stranded Pakistanis" whether or not they think of themselves as such. But a new dawn may finally be on the horizon for many of these people, who will soon be able to call themselves Bangladeshis.

That is certainly what 46-year-old Mohammad Zahiruddin is hoping for. Long having lived in Geneva Camp but working as a carpenter outside, Mohammad has been continually frustrated by the belief that the life he is living is fake – and illegal. Many have given up living in the camps entirely, as Mohammad has also now done. If there are 160,000 Biharis living within the camps, a similar number live outside. While they are thereby able to more easily gain schooling and employment – something from which those living within the camps are legally excluded – they are only able to do so by counterfeiting new identities, as Bangladeshi citizens. For most Biharis, the majority born and brought up in Bangladesh, this identity has been all they have wanted for the past three and a half decades. "This government is now certifying our voting eligibility and nationality," Mohammad says ruefully. "But we have been deprived of them for all this time."