Proceed with
caution
Prime Minister
(PM) Imran Khan’s remarks in Karachi the other day regarding giving citizenship
to children of refugees and illegal immigrants who were born here has set off
the expected mini-storm. In the National Assembly on September 18, 2018, the PM
had to justify his remarks after Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) leader
Sardar Akhtar Mengal sought an explanation for the PM’s statement. Akhtar
Mengal argued that any such step would violate the agreement between his party
and the PTI as part of their alliance after the elections. Imran Khan clarified
that no decision in this regard had been taken yet and he would welcome input
from all stakeholders on the issue. However, the PM went on to say that
Karachi’s growing street crime is linked with the underclass composed of the
children of Bengalis and Afghan refugees who cannot get CNICs or passports and
therefore are unemployable. This deprived class, he argued, is driven to crime
as it has no other option. While acknowledging Akhtar Mengal’s objection that
the PTI and BNP-M had an agreement that the Afghan refugees would be sent back,
the PM said this was a humanitarian issue. The examples the PM gave of western
countries included the US, where despite President Trump’s crackdown on illegal
immigration, including separating children from their parents, the practice
endures. However, in the UK it is no longer an automatic right for children
born there. Europe is struggling with its own take on the issue, exacerbated
currently by the refugee crisis. Pakistan’s 1951 citizenship law does allow
children born here to acquire Pakistani nationality. But this is not simply a
legal or humanitarian issue. As Sindh Chief Minister (CM) Murad Ali Shah
dilated during a press conference in Karachi after the PM’s visit, the PM’s
idea could not be implemented if it was not in conformity with the Pakistan
Citizenship Act 1951. Were this to be carried out it would open the floodgates
of illegal immigration into Pakistan, he stressed. The Chief Minister
Balochistan, Jam Kamal Khan, also questioned the grounds on which the PM had
given such a statement. No doubt Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) leaders, despite a PTI
government being in power in the province, would express similar sentiments
given their own experience of hosting millions of Afghan refugees for decades.
PM Imran Khan
may genuinely feel pangs of conscience regarding the non-status of children of
refugees and illegal immigrants born on our soil. His concern that such
youngsters feed the burgeoning street crime phenomenon may not be far off the
mark, although the assertion that a majority of such crimes are carried out by
these youngsters is questionable on the touchstone of local, indigenous
youngsters too perhaps being involved in such activities, given widespread
unemployment. It could also be that PM Imran Khan said what he thought his
Karachi audience wanted to hear. But as CM Murad Ali Shah quipped, such
utterings may be a hangover of Imran Khan and the PTI’s agitation mode while in
opposition, whereas they now needed to dispense with that culture and soberly
take on the tasks of governance.
KP and Balochistan
have long complained of the heavy presence of Afghan refugees for decades in
their respective provinces. KP felt this overwhelming presence disadvantaged
the indigenous citizens and their rights to economic and other opportunities.
Balochistan feared its delicate demography would be irrevocably altered to the
deprivation in one more way of its long-suffering people. Sindh rightfully sees
Karachi as the jewel in its crown and has been averse to changing the de jure polyglot
demography of its populace by according citizenship to illegal immigrants
(mostly from Bangladesh) or Afghan refugees. These are old and sensitive issues
for all three provinces. The PM is therefore advised to tread softly, softly on
such terrain, and certainly not without listening to the full range of views on
the problem from all stakeholders before even discussing the issue publicly. As
Akhtar Mengal put it, when the PM speaks, it is taken as the state’s policy.
Imran Khan has to learn the limits circumscribing the PM’s ability to speak
casually on issues of such sensitivity.
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