“Our houses are smaller than the cow sheds in the villages; imagine our dignity and justice,” says Mohammad Raju, a 35-year-old resident of Geneva Camp.
I was born in Geneva — not in the city of Switzerland but in a refugee camp in Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
I was born stateless.
Why? As my parents did not become Bangladeshis, they claimed to be stranded Pakistanis.
This wasn't due to any patriotic reasons. Indian immigrants, like my parents, had long dreamed of an Islamic Republic. They wanted such a nation for subcontinental Muslims and that's why they came to this land to begin with.
Like my parents, many Biharis in Geneva Camp and other camps wanted to go to Pakistan.
In 1971, Biharis were also made easy targets, so the trauma of deaths and murders reinforced their desire to leave. They had lost all their properties and many family members as well.
The feelings have now changed. Bangladesh has become home. But the home has remained confined the camps.
The story of Geneva Camp, where I was born, begins in the shadow of the Bangladesh Liberation War.
After the war, many Urdu-speaking Muslims found themselves “stranded” in the newly-independent Bangladesh.
Seen as outsiders and often associated with Pakistan, they were relocated to camps under the supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The Bihari Urdu-speaking community currently lives in 116 refugee-like camps in nine districts across Bangladesh.
Geneva Camp is one of the largest Bihari camps among the 116 camps in Bangladesh.
More than five decades later, what was meant to be a temporary shelter has become a permanent home for generations.
Geneva Camp is situated on 14 acres of land, and around 5,765 families are living in a small area.
To contextualise this, consider that Mirpur is considered the most populated area of the capital, housing some 540,000 people in around 6 square kilometres.
That amounts to 91,569 to 106,236 people per square kilometre.
In comparison, the population of Geneva Camp is approximately 28,800, including men, women and children.
The total land area is around 0.0567 sq km, making the population density a staggering 508,000 people per sq km.
The closest comparison that comes to mind is Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong, which was historically the densest single city block and community in the world, housing up to 50,000 people within a tiny 6.4-acre site before its demolition in 1993–1994.
But in Geneva Camp, renovations and rehabilitations are not options on the table at the moment.
People survive in houses measuring 8 feet by 10 feet, allocated to one family, with around five to eight family members living together in the small house.
That’s around 80 square feet, while 250 square feet is considered basic. Here, even half that is a privilege.
Privacy does not exist.
And the cramped space shapes the layout.
Every home has an elevated bed.
The space underneath is used to cook food in the day, while some members of the family sleep underneath it during the night.
In the camps, bathrooms are common spaces. Stand and wait in lines, outside the safety of your home, in the morning or in the middle of the night.
“Our houses are smaller than the cow sheds in the villages; imagine our dignity and justice,” says Mohammad Raju, a 35-year-old resident of Geneva Camp.
The residents of the camp don’t just live there; it’s also where they have their small businesses.
It’s a dreary existence. But where else are they supposed to go?
In 2003 and 2008, the High Court declared that Bihari camp dwellers are Bangladeshi citizens and that they are Urdu-speaking Bangladeshis.
It has been 18 years since they were recognised as Bangladeshi citizens, but citizens are living in refugee camps without any citizens’ benefits.
We are a product of the vote bank politics of the political parties in Bangladesh. Bangladeshi political parties remember us during the elections, and after that we become Rajakar and war criminals.Sajid Khan, a 43-year-old Geneva Camp resident.
The fourth and fifth generations belong to this land and are completely integrated into Bangladeshi society.
They speak the Bengali language better than Urdu and, somehow, do not read or write their mother tongue.
The ambitions of the camp youth are very high: to become well-educated and skilled workers, and they dream of a better life in Bangladesh like other Bangladeshis.
However, the journey to come out of the dark future and poverty line is not easy for them; even the government does not have any plan for this unfortunate community.
It has been 55 years since independence of Bangladesh.
We have metro rail, Padma Bridge, expressways, modern and high-rise buildings, but the life of Geneva Camp is stuck as it is; our identity is Mustakim Kabab and Boba Biryani.
We are human beings and belong to a decent language and culture. We have more and more potential, and we are patriotic and want to show our patriotism for this country, but we need acceptance and belonging.
It is a long era of our atonement. No more punishment; it has been over and over for the community, and now the time has come for acceptance and to give them a better life, to make Bangladesh diverse, multilingual and multicultural.
Majority and minority can together make the Amar Sonar Bangla.
Khalid Hussain is a Supreme Court advocate and the Executive Director of the Council of Minorities.