Should Afghan refugees get Pakistani nationality?
In mid-September, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan pledged to grant citizenship to Afghan refugees born in Pakistan. The announcement was a surprise to many. Not only was it a departure from the previous state policy of repatriation, it also posed vexing questions about interprovincial harmony and demographic changes within Pakistan.
Sure enough, the fiercest criticism of this idea came not from the opposition benches in parliament but from one of the prime minister’s coalition allies, namely the Baluchistan National Party. Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and Sardar Akhtar Mengal’s BNP signed a six-point memorandum of understanding in August, as a result of which the latter agreed to support Khan’s bid to become prime minister. One of those six points was the repatriation of Afghan refugees. The BNP viewed Khan’s offer of citizenship as a violation of a key point of their mutual understanding and threatened to withdraw its support for the PTI government. Without this support, Khan’s ability to remain in government was in jeopardy and so a U-turn was inevitable.
Why is the BNP so opposed to granting citizenship to refugees who were born in Pakistan and have known no other home? The answer is not very different from the reasons that many people in western countries resent immigration. Demographic changes can lead majority groups that have for generations called a place home to suddenly feel alienated in their own land. They might unexpectedly find themselves surrounded by others who have a different way of life or speak a different language. As these disparate groups assimilate and learn to live with each other, there is naturally resentment on the part of those who historically laid claim to the land.
Predictably, such changes in demographics and the related immigration issues can have volatile political ramifications. Indeed, both the election of Donald Trump in the United States and the result of the United Kingdom’s Brexit referendum have been explained in this light, and also as a push-back against globalization and lax immigration policies.
The severe reaction of the BNP, however, is also rooted in a sense of political marginalization and economic deprivation that the Baloch people have felt for much of Pakistan’s history. As a small population occupying a large land mass, they fear becoming a minority in their own province if the Afghans, many of whom are Pashtun, are given full citizenship rights. Compounding their sense of uncertainty is the fact that as a result of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor initiative, Gwadar in Baluchistan has experienced a large influx of Chinese nationals, yet there is a sense that benefits of the project are not being shared with the local Baloch population.
Arguing for the BNP position, Mengal made the point that Pakistan is in dire economic straits and already has a very large indigenous population, therefore it does not have the resources to grant Afghan refugees citizenship. There is merit in this argument, given that the official 2017 figure from the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, for the number of Afghan refugees in Pakistan is 1.6 million — and unofficially, many feel the true number is as high as 2.7 million. The UNHCR has acknowledged that economically impoverished countries have had to disproportionately bear the burden of hosting most of the world’s forcibly displaced populations. Pakistan ranks high on that list, second only to Turkey which, according to official figures, has been hosting 2.8 million refugees, mostly Syrian, since 2016.
On the other hand, proponents of giving Afghan refugees citizenship — not only from PTI but also the Awami National Party, which has historically presented itself as looking after Pashtun interests, and human-rights groups — call for a humanitarian approach to the matter. On social media, touching stories of Afghans born and brought up in Pakistan are shared routinely, attesting to the discrimination they face and drawing attention to the callousness displayed by not putting an end to their plight.
Arguing for the BNP position, Sardar Akhtar Mengal made the point that Pakistan is in dire economic straits and already has a very large indigenous population, therefore it does not have the resources to grant Afghan refugees citizenship.
Ayesha Ijaz Khan
It is further noted that by giving them citizenship, Pakistan would benefit from documenting their economic activity and potentially bringing them within the tax net. Most importantly, it is pointed out that the Citizenship Act of 1951 recognizes claims to birthright citizenship, and hence Pakistan is obligated to give citizenship to those born on its territory. So this is not a case of creating a new law but of implementing an existing one.
Nevertheless, those who are opposed argue that Afghan refugees are not entitled to make claims under the Citizenship Act as they were taken in with the understanding that they would return to Afghanistan when the war was over, and that in addition these were extraordinary circumstances not subject to existing laws at the time.
It is also noted that other countries where a large number of Afghan refugees ended up, such as Iran (albeit fewer than in Pakistan), have not only not granted them citizenship but have also not been as lax as Pakistan in allowing refugees freedom of movement. Similar examples are cited elsewhere, such as in Lebanon in the case of Palestinian refugees, for example.
Without doubt this is a complicated matter that does not have an easy solution. Suffice it to say, most European countries have decided that birthright citizenship is not a good idea. The UK, for example, removed the right from anyone born after January 1, 1983. And although the United States and Canada still allow it, all western countries have made the immigration process more stringent and tiresome for applicants in an effort to quell mass migrations, and have not opened their doors to refugees in the way Pakistan, Jordan, Lebanon or Turkey have had to.
The one exception is Germany. In 2015, in the midst of the Syrian crisis, Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to take in a million refugees on purely humanitarian grounds. This was not an easy decision to make or follow through on, but she kept her word and displayed such exceptional genius in the manner of statecraft that if Imran Khan is serious about giving the Afghan refugees citizenship rights, I would suggest he study the example she set.
Not only did she pull this off and survive politically, she also managed to successfully resist the populist uprising from the right, which currently polls far lower in Germany than in other western countries, including the United States and United Kingdom. But then along with her political acumen she set practical limits to her humanitarian gesture. She made asylum laws tighter, ensuring this was a one-off decision, and also implemented global diplomatic initiatives to reduce future migration to Germany. Added to that is the very important fact that Germany is a model of economic stability, with very low unemployment, particularly among the youth of the country.
If Afghans are to get citizenship in Pakistan, therefore, and I believe there are very sound grounds to push for this, it must be done after listening to all sides internally and implementing solid, well-thought-out measures. It is too important a matter to be reduced to populist sloganeering.
• Ayesha Ijaz Khan is a lawyer who lives in London. Twitter: @ayeshaijazkhan
