Bihari

Marginalized and Excluded Communities

Approximately 300,000 Urdu-speaking Biharis live in 70 camps in 13 districts of Bangladesh. Of these camps 28 are located in Dhaka. The Indian state of Bihar is the original home of most of the Biharis in Bangladesh. During the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, these Biharis migrated to the then East Pakistan (presently Bangladesh). The Biharis sided with Pakistan during Bangladesh’s liberation war in 1971. After the war, a portion of them went to Pakistan and the rest remained stranded in Bangladesh. The High Court of Bangladesh, in a 2008 judgement, gave a ruling in favour of giving citizenship to around 150,000 Biharis who were minors in 1971 or born afterwards. However, they still live inferior lives in the camps without a permanent address and basic facilities. They are continuously deprived of most of their political, economic, social, and cultural rights.

Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC), in partnership with SEHD, carried out a study [in 2017] covering 30 well-known Bihari camps. It found a population of 265,531 in these camps. Most of these camps were in Dhaka and 156,250 Biharis were found in 10 camps in Dhaka. Illiteracy is very high among the Biharis in camps, sanitation is very poor, and most do not own land and most are burdened with loans. Their access to Social Safety Net Programmes (SSNPs) is also low.