With one hand, she turned the flies and kept the weathered mobile phone in another, Kesari Bagri (40) is hard to prevent her tears from preventing. He talks to his aging parents, both in their 70 years, through a video call. They live in a village in the Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan division; He is in one of the refugee camps in Rohini, northwest, Delhi.
From the political escalation between India and Pakistan to the Kalgam attack in Kashmir, which killed 26, Kesari tried to talk to her parents every day above the call, even for a minute. They are worried about their future in a country where Islam is a state religion and the Hindes, a religious minority. According to the Pakistani census in 2023, there are 3.8 million hinds, out of 3.5 million in 2017, which represents 1.6% of the population, Indian press confidence in 2024.
Every time Kesari disconnects the phone, she wonders if she’s the last time he talks to them. It is one of the hundreds of Pakistani Hindus, whose lives continue to move in a rhythm that corresponds to improvement or deteriorating the relationship between the two neighboring countries.
“When the government first said that all who hold Pakistani passports must go back, we were nervous because no one in the camp has Indian citizenship (under the Citizenship Act (amendment), 2019),” says Kesari, whose camp has 300 people.
Despite the escalations and the Ministry of the Interior (MHA), they order the ordering of Pakistani nationals to leave the country by April 29 or facing imprisonment for three years, the Pakistan Hindi community was assured that they would not be deported, he adds. Through the media, accessible via their phones have heard that those who have long -term visas (LTV) can stay. MHA also explained that the Hindus from Pakistan, who sent their requests for LTV, could remain.
The annual MHA 2023-24 report states that 1,112 LTV was awarded to members of minority communities from Pakistan this financial year. Hinduistic Singh Sodha, President Sewastant Lok Sangathan, a group that advocates the rights of Pakistani minority migrants in India, says there are 10,000 Pakistani Hindus, whose LTV requests with MHA for more than two years.
Part of the majority
Over the past few weeks of India and Pakistan, they have suspended links and India has ruled out Pakistani diplomats. India banned the import of all goods from or transition through Pakistan. The Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 was suspended and restricted on the Pakistani use of Indian airspace. No Pakistanian trade ship is allowed to Indian waters and no Indian ship will be anchored in the Pakistan port. Pakistan also stopped all the India trade, closed his airspace with an Indian plane and excluded diplomats.
Kesari’s husband, like many of those in the camp, is a farmer who grows wheat and vegetables like in Pakistan. Their three children study at the government school in Delhi, claiming that they face no problem with admission.
Kesari Bagri (in Brown) in a refugee camp in Rohini. | Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma
Kesari remembered the days since the attack of Pahalgam 22. April and says that the fear of deportation was much less than the fear of damaging her relative in Pakistan. “Every time people demand a war between these two countries, I’m afraid I will never be able to see my parents again,” he says.
Like many other Pakistani Hindus, the Kesari family decided to move to India for the future of their children and a better life. “Being a religious minority in a country where your voice and pain does not matter will cause a lot of mental anxiety. When our relatives, who have moved to India since 2011, have begun to tell us that crossing the border will help us, we will build every rupee to get our passports,” he says.
Kesari and her husband and her children spent over 5 ₹ Lakh in Indian currency to get passports and visas and come to Delhi. Until 2015, when they arrived, more than 500 Pakistani Hindus lived in three refugee camps near Majn Majnu Ka Til, Signature Bridge and Rohini lived.
In Majno Ka tila and Rohini are uncovered brick structures for them; On Signature Bridge, with 932 people, it’s just bamboo and tarpaulin. Toilets are temporary and life seems to be makeshift. In addition to starting these camps since 2011.
A temporary kitchen inside the classroom in the Signature Bridge refugee camp. | Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma
“Our relatives have become our visa guarantors and after months of savings, sales of our animals and long -term waiting for visas, we finally took a step with only a few clothes,” he says.
It has been 10 years, but has not yet been able to visit their parents in Pakistan. When she choked on her words, she says that when people leave her generation to India, they know it’s probably the last time they see their parents. “Save the community from extinction, people at the age of 30 have fled from Pakistan since 2010,” he says.
While they crossed the star’s eyes, Rama, 35, Kesari’s sister -in -law, he says nothing has changed for them from one factor. “We were constantly worried that we were in the corner for not watching Islam. If someone plundered us, the police would not act. But besides being surrounded by Hindu, what has changed?” says. She pointed to Kuccha’s roads in front of the cluster and said the sewer is exposed, dirt everywhere, flying all around and youth has no work. “With an ironic smile, he says,” We were poor there; we are poor here; we are only now one of the majority. “
Arrival and stay
Bhagwan Dass, a 45 -year -old Pakistani Hindu in the same camp, joined her, saying that the idea of moving to India was not their fathers. “Our grandfathers were those who saw the club, but neither they nor our fathers had thought of moving to India. They accepted their fate and, although they were a religious minority, knew it was their Janmbhoomi (place of birth),” he says.
The community began to think about immigration when they personally approached the higher Hindu leaders from Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and assured them that as Hinda belongs to “Bharat”, he adds.
“The first batch to migrate to India came for the first time with a request for a teerth visa (visiting Hindu religious places such as Haridwar and Mathura). They never returned. They gradually became guarantors for other many of us.
When he speaks, his voice disappears as the volume of the news canal increases in the courtyard of his neighbor. The neighbor, who sat on Khatiya (a bed made of rope and bamboo), listens carefully to the news anchor and tells the world about escalation of tension between India and Pakistan. As the anchor announces the closure of the Indian airspace for Pakistani aircraft and firing along the Indo-Pak line, more neighbors are hudding around Khatiya in the courtyard, to which many houses have access.
“In our world, we are accustomed to monthly visits to cyber cafes to restore visas. We have closed peace with it until no one requests us to come back,” says Bhagwan, reflects Kesari’s concern about the safety of relatives in Pakistan.
Bhagwan remembers how in 2019, after an attack in Pulwama, he wasn’t sure his sisters and his parents were even alive. “We haven’t heard from them for many days because our calls didn’t go through. We thought the government had hurt them, so we started accepting that we would never hear their voices,” he says. He and the others in the camp refuse the video bytes because they do not want relatives in Pakistan to be vulnerable to attacks.
MONGERING WAR
He was stressful in camps across the capital last week because he brought difficult memories and constant fear of being a technically “Pakistani” national, although he has support for the current regime. “Many do not have long -term visas here. Some have signed up and have not received them; some have to apply,” said Dharamveer Solander, 55, inhabitants of the refugee camp in Majno Ka Tila.
28. April in Delhi, the police asked the heads of these camps to a list of those who live there, with details of name, age, parents’ names, the date of leaving Pakistan, passport and vision data. “In our camp, 181 inhabitants of Indian citizenship received, but 81 are waiting for it (out of a total of 300),” says Dharamveer, who also came from Sindhu.
Hari Dass (left) from the camp Majnu Ka tila. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma
The inhabitants of the camps say they never felt as if they were part of the mainstream in Pakistan. They did not send their children to school conversations, no formal work was available, and most of them lived in poverty. “I also did special jobs there, but we were often without food,” says Satram for 40 years, who came to India two weeks ago. “But here I can meet at least. Also in Sindh, Satram remembers shelter in the local gurudware.
Hari Dass, 45, runs a Kachori-Sabzi stand near a signature Bridge and does special jobs such as transporting goods or works as an agricultural worker to support his brother in Pakistan so his brother in India can join him. “Every person has to pay 50,000 ₹ as a bribe for the passport. Then waiting for a visa that can take up to a year. All fight will be wasting now,” he says.
Hari’s brother and his family arrived on the border of Wagah with their permits the day after the attack and they were told they couldn’t cross. “They were preparing to come to India and settle here, but they must not exceed them from Pakistan to India, even though they are Hindes,” he says, the shore.
alisha.d@thehind.co.in
Edit Sunalini Mathew
Published – 4 May 2025 9:23
