Muhajir (Pakistan)

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See Muhajir page for all Muhajir groups in the world
Muhajirs
Total population

13.2 million[1][citation needed]

Regions with significant populations
Pakistan, Bangladesh, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Australia, United Arab Emirates, United States, Canada
Language(s)
Urdu
Religion(s)
Islam (a Sunni majority and a Shia minority)
Related ethnic groups
Other Indo-Aryan peoples Punjabis, Memons, Gujaratis, Pashtuns, Sindhis

Muhajir or Mohajir (Urdu: مہاجر) is a term widely used to describe the Muslims who migrated to Pakistan after the Partition of India who are orignally from Persian/Pashtun/Indian descent.

The urdu speakers (Muhajirs) are multi-ethnical group of people who belongs various group of people such as Persians, Pashtuns(Afghans), Turks and Arabs and Indians. Behaaris and Bengalis Urdu Speakers considered to be from Indian heritage, while the Non-Beharis and Non Bengalese Urdu Speakers considered to be from Persian heritage. During Muslim rule, Muslims from all over the world came and settled down in Northern India and the language Urdu was developed under Muslim rule of India. After the independence of Pakistan these group of Muhajirs(Urdu-Speakers) migrated to Pakistan. One thing that unite all Urdu-Speakers or Muhajirs regardless of what origin/race they are from is their language URDU.

Contents

[edit] Etymology

Image:Partion1.jpg
A railway station in Pakistan during the Partition of India. Many people abandoned their homes and possessions and left for the country of their choice.

Muhajir is an Arabic word, widely used in the Muslim world that refers to someone who has emigrated from one place to another. Originally, it referred to the early Muslims, companions of Prophet Muhammad, who emigrated with him from Makkah to Medina in the wake of the Hijra, as opposed to the Ansar, or Madinan Muslims of the time. (See Muhajirun.)

[edit] Muhajirs in Bangladesh

Main article: Biharis
See also: Stranded Pakistanis

In addition to the above population, an estimated 600,000 Urdu speaking Muhajirs that had origins in Bihar prior to partition. They were unfortunate victims of the Pakistani civil war of 1971 and live in 64 refugee camps throughout Bangladesh.Also there are some Bangladeshi Muslims who are still settled in Karachi Pakistan and are referred as Urdu Speaking community.

[edit] Culture

Muhajirs are inheritors of the Muslim cultural heritage of India. Their culture has traits of Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Marwad as well as culture of Bihar, and Andhra Pradesh.

[edit] Political ideology

Muhajirs hold political opinions ranging from conservative to liberal. Most tend to be secular and support ideals of Western democracy. Muhajirs held comfortable vocations in British India.

[edit] Intermarriages

After the partition in 1947 there have been many intermarriages that took place between Punjabi, Kashmiri, Pashtun, Bengali and Persian/Urdu speaking communities which is the reason that its hard to identify native Urdu speaking communities in Pakistan,except for the province of Sindh, where the Urdu speaking people have hardly integrated with the local Sindhis. Many Urdu speaking communities are so much merged with the Punjabi, Pashtun and Kashmiri communities that they do not identify them as Urdu speaking at all. The second and third generations of these Pakistanis identify themselves as native Pakistanis instead of any specific communities. However, intermarriages between Shia and Sunni Muslims remains very rare in Pakistan.

[edit] Language

The original language of the Mughals had been Turkish, but after their arrival in India, they came to adopt Persian and later Urdu. The word Urdu is believed to be derived from the Turkish word 'Hordu', which means army. This word was later anglicised as 'Horde'. Urdu, though of Indian origin, came to be heavily influenced by Persian and Arabic. Urdu speakers have been speaking this language as their Mother tongue for several centuries. Urdu has been the medium of the literature, history and journalism of South Asian Muslims during the last 200 years. Most of the work was complemented by ancestors of present Punjabis and native Urdu speakers in India. Persian language which had its roots during the time of Moguls was then replaced later by Moguls like Shah Jahan who adopted Urdu instead of Persian.

The Punjabi community in Pakistan have done a lot of work in the emergence of Urdu language. Punjabi native speakers earlier used to speak Punjabi before the partition in 1947 but after the partition they adopted Urdu as their mother tongue and started speaking Urdu based Punjabi. That is one of the reason Punjabi community find itself more close to Urdu language than any other community in Pakistan. Also many poets such as Zafar Iqbal, Sir Mohammed Iqbal and Ahmad Faraz contributed their efforts for the Urdu language.

[edit] Lifestyle

After partition when Muslims migrated to Pakistan they brought different values with them that varied from region to region they migrated from. The urban lifestyle was mostly coloured by the people who migrated to Pakistan after the partition in the major cities of Pakistan, as they originally immigrated from mostly urban centres of India before the independence of Pakistan.

[edit] Discrimination

The term "Muhajir" refers to the immigrants of Pakistan who migrated to Pakistan after the partition in 1947. Therefore it represents all Muhajir communities together such as Punjabi community, Pastun Community, Persian or Urdu community, Kashmiri community equally. Therefore referring only one community with term "Muhajir" will cause major discrimination for the other communities who also migrated to Pakistan after partition.

Today, many observers have said that the open discrimination against Muhajirs has considerably been reduced, although the quota system is still applied. This was helped by the fact that some of the top Pakistani figures are of muhajir descent, including people of the performing arts and sports. It is also believed that discrimination against muhajirs has reduced or even vanished in some areas as current President of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, and the Governor of Sindh are both Muhajirs. In addition to that, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which was once a Muhajir political party, is running the city district government of the city of Karachi and is publicly allied to the central government in Islamabad. Another reason why discrimination has been reduced, is that many Muhajirs have intermarried with the other ethnic groups of Pakistan.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Muhajirs only constituted 7% of the Pakistani population but formed a large part of its bureaucracy due its higher educational levels and support provided by federal government. This created resentment in other linguistic and ethnic groups of Pakistan. The Pakistani government tried to create a balance by introducing job quotas in bureaucracy and educational institutions to help other ethnic and linguistic groups to get their fair representation comparable to their share in the Pakistani population. This affirmative action by the government of Pakistan was resented by the Muhajirs who preferred qualification and merit as the only criteria for jobs and admission into universities.

[edit] Pashtun Killers Episode

During the 1964 Presidential Elections, clashes broke out between Urdu speakers and Pashtuns and Punjabis in Karachi, as they were in favour of Fatima Jinnah. It is the fact that President General Ayub Khan supported them, with his own family members taking part in it His son Gohar Ayub is reported to personally fired at people during a victory procession at Liaquatabad. Ayub Khan felt that Muhajir Urdu speaking Muslims were less patriotic than Pastuns and Punjabis. A Shuhuda-i-Urdu mosque was erected in memory of the martyrs at Liaquatabad in Karachi.[citation needed]

[edit] 1972 Language Riots

In 1972, ethnic riots broke out between Muhajirs and native Sindhis in Urban areas of Sindh. Muhajirs suffered heavily and Sindhis drove them out of their lands from rural areas of Sindh.

[edit] Massacre of Aligarh

On December 15, 1986, a group of armed pushtoon/ANP Workers attacked the Aligarh, Orangi and Qasba colonies and adjacent areas of Karachi and killed innocent people, burnt shops and houses.[citation needed] Some buses and shops of innocent Muhajirs and Pushtoons were burnt and a number of them were attacked the next day, in revenge riots.[citation needed] A total of 150 people were killed in the riots. [1]

[edit] Mutahida Quami Movement

The MQM party, which sought to bring political representation to the Urdu speaking Muhajir community, was formed by Altaf Hussain in 1985. The Muhajir term that was used earlier to represent MQM was later changed to the word "Mutahida" Qauami Movement. The Pakistani government still does not recognize any "Muhajir" ethnic group, although MQM is a strong armed political party in Pakistan which has carried out numerous political assassinations and at times allied itself with militant organizations. It suspected that the MQM gets some of its funding and arms from India's RAW intelligence agencies to foment violence and disruption in Pakistan's largest city. The group has in turn to split into several splinter groups some of whom dont agree with the parent branches violent tactics.

The MQM party currently has some holds in Karachi and urban Sindh (Hyderabad, Sukkur, Mirpurkhas & Nawabshah). Now the MQM is making inroads into Azad Kashmir where it capitalized on relief work for the victims of the October 8 earthquake. It is also active abroad, most notably in the UK, the US, and Canada, where there is a significant diaspora of Pakistani Muhajirs.

[edit] Well-known Muhajirs born in India before 1947

Main article: Famous Muhajirs

[edit] Politics

[edit] Judiciary

[edit] Diplomats

[edit] Bankers

  • Agha Hasan Abedi (Founder, BCCI)
  • Ishrat Husain (Former Governor, State Bank of Pakistan)
  • Zahid Hussain (Founder Governor, State Bank of Pakistan)
  • Imtiaz Alam Hanafi (Former Governor, State Bank of Pakistan)
  • Saeeda Khalid

[edit] Industrialists/Entrepreneurs

[edit] Religious Scholars

[edit] Educationists

[edit] Scientists

[edit] Sports Celebrities

[edit] Actors

[edit] Art and literature

[edit] Performing art and media

[edit] Regions with significant populations

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ taken from cia world fact book figures based upon the 1998 census of pakistan

[edit] External links

es:Mohajir fa:مهاجر fr:Muhadjir ur:مهاجر

Retrieved from "http://india.smashits.com/wikipedia/Muhajir_%28Pakistan%29"
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