In the aftermath of World War II, political thinker Hannah Arendt made an interesting observation: for the stateless, the deepest loss was not the loss of homes or employment but the loss of belonging to a legal community that would protect their rights. Without a nation-state to claim them, they were stripped of what she called the most basic human entitlement, even more fundamental to the so-called inalienable rights, ‘the right to have rights.
This condition of being rightless humans without the shield of citizenship finds a contemporary expression in the sprawling metropolis of Karachi. A population of more than 400,000 Rohingya people currently live in a paradox in Pakistan. They are socially present, economically entangled, and culturally integrated over generations, yet they remain legally non-existent, systematically erased by the very state they call home. Their predicament is not a conventional refugee crisis defined by camps and detention centers, but a quieter and insidious crisis of statelessness.
In 1947, as independence and partition loomed, Myanmar’s independence hero General Aung San met with Muhammad Ali Jinnah in Karachi. Amid discussions of their mutual struggles for freedom, the question of Arakan (now Rakhine) arose. Some Rohingya Muslim leaders, fearing for their future in a Buddhist-majority Burma (now Myanmar), hoped their territory would be annexed into the nascent state of East Pakistan (as evident from a letter received by Jinnah from them). Jinnah’s response was unequivocal: ‘The Muslim League has no intention of raising the question concerning the annexation of Maungdaw (Arakan) in Burma in Pakistan. The Muslim League has never put forward such a claim, nor do we intend to do so.’ The new Pakistani government maintained this stance, making no territorial claims but focusing instead on merely protesting Burma’s treatment of its Muslim minority.
The frail dream of a peaceful existence for the Rohingya in an independent Burma quickly dissolved. After Burma’s independence in 1948, the new government treated the Rohingya by imposing movement restrictions, confiscating property, and replacing Rohingya civil servants with Buddhist Rakhine. They also denied them resettlement in villages from which they had been displaced during the Japanese rule. Those who managed to cross back from Bengal (then East Pakistan) were considered illegal Pakistani immigrants. In response, segments of the community took up arms against the government in the 1950s as Mujahideen to fight for their lands and rights. Though Pakistan initially raised concerns with Burma regarding the persecution, it later negotiated an end to any support for the Rohingya, effectively leaving them to their fate. This resulted in a brutal suppression of local resistance. Shortly after General Ne Win imposed martial law in Myanmar in 1962, all Rohingya political and social organizations were dissolved. The suppression culminated in Operation Nagamin (Dragon King) in 1977, when more than 200,000 Rohingya were forced to flee to Bangladesh, followed by another exodus of 250,000 in 1991-1992.
Though small groups have been crossing into Pakistan since 1947, larger numbers arrived in Pakistan in 1952 after the martial law in Myanmar. Following the 1977 operation, thousands of refugees from Myanmar and Bangladesh eventually made their way to Pakistan, particularly Karachi. This influx was supported by the military regime under Zia ul Haq, as Pakistan had been accepting Afghan refugees as well, and international financial assistance in the name of refugees (though they were welcomed in the name of Islamic solidarity). Many of them were also issued ad hoc National Identity Cards (NICs) at that time, which were recognised for all purposes.
This period of acceptance proved to be a fragile and temporary reprieve.
The political landscape was altered significantly by two key events: the establishment of the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) of Pakistan in 2000, and the heightened global security climate following 9/11. This bureaucratic restructuring created an administrative blockade, which involved a systematic rejection of Computerized National Identity Card (CNIC) renewals that pushed a previously recognised community into de facto statelessness. As the old identity cards of the Rohingya expired, they ran into what has become known as the ‘CNIC wall.’
Officials began demanding a litany of documents, including original migration papers, family certificates, and B-Forms, all of which were impossible for these displaced people to produce. This created a perfect pretext for denial or, as many report, for soliciting bribes ranging from Rs 25,000 to 50,000, a huge sum then.
This administrative limbo stripped a generation of its nationality, pushing a once-recognised community into non-persons.
This condition is defined as ‘statelessness.’ While the Rohingya are de jure (by law) stateless in their ancestral homeland of Myanmar, which officially denies them citizenship, their situation in Pakistan is one where the state’s administrative apparatus refuses to provide the documentation necessary to exercise the rights of nationality, rendering them de facto stateless. The lack of a Computerized National Identity Card (CNIC) is a legal death sentence in modern Pakistan. Without a B-Form, linked to a parental CNIC, children are barred from government schools, condemning a generation to illiteracy. Ironically, a resident proudly claimed in an interview that the area has the highest density of Huffaz of Quran (memorisers) in the country. Formal employment, opening a bank account, acquiring a fishing license (many of them were originally from fishing communities and some of them still earn their livelihood by selling fish in Karachi), or registering property are all impossible without a CNIC. This traps the community in the informal, low-wage economy.
The largest settlement of Rohingya in Karachi is in the Burmi Colony, a densely populated area of approximately 211,000 square meters hosting more than 55,000 residents with an average density of ten people per household. In this Colony, the average household income is recorded a mere Rs 15,000, significantly below the national minimum wage. Access to public hospitals and state welfare programs like the Benazir Income Support Program is nonexistent. Most women are forced to give birth at home with untrained attendants and many of the diseases are managed by untrained quacks.
Lack of such basic survival needs shadows the political disenfranchisement, which also results from the lack of CNICs. The entire community remains excluded from Pakistan’s democratic process, unable to vote, hold office, or participate in the political life of the nation.
This systematic exclusion stands in stark contradiction to Pakistan’s own laws. The Pakistan Citizenship Act of 1951 clearly enshrines the principle of jus soli (‘right of soil’). Section 4 of the Act states: ‘Every person born in Pakistan after the commencement of this Act shall be a citizen of Pakistan by birth,’ with only narrow exceptions for children of foreign diplomats.
The unique character of the crisis becomes clearer when contrasted with the plight of the Rohingya elsewhere. In Bangladesh, nearly a million Rohingya live in the world’s largest refugee camp. They are entirely reliant on international aid, confined to camp areas with no right to work or integrate. In Thailand, a non-signatory to the Refugee Convention, Rohingya face a crisis of criminalisation. Treated as illegal immigrants, they are subject indefinitely to detention centers and are acutely vulnerable to human trafficking networks.
In this vacuum of state support, the community depends on its own resilience, with grassroots bodies like the ‘Social Aid Committee’ having emerged. They function as a micro-state, arranging burials, mediating disputes, and providing a welfare net.
In 2018, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s promise to grant them citizenship ignited a brief flicker of hope, but it quickly fizzled as in July 2025. The new government announced that while it might issue special resettlement passports to Rohingya people in Pakistan, which they can use to go to any other country interested in accepting them (irony!), but explicitly announced that they would not grant them citizenship.
Although the CNIC is teleologically a tool for control, given the extent of its contingency in accessing basic rights, refusal to issue it to the Rohingya people is not just a bureaucratic failure; it is a political decision perpetuating a cycle of marginalisation.
The writer is a Lecturer at CBEC, SIUT.
