Pakistan’s new order from its interim government strikes for a mass expulsion of the Afghanistani refugees. While the global attention centred on Gaza, specifically for the Palestine civilians, the compounding upheavals and traumas triggered by Pakistan’s new rule that the Afghan refugees are being forced to leave Pakistan.
The new order aimed at removing undocumented people from within its borders. Of the approximation of 4 million Afghans living in the country, roughly 1.7 million people are expected to be in the crosshairs of this repatriation plan. The Pakistani government set a deadline of Nov 1 for when people without legal documents, primarily Afghans, but also the other asylum seekers from persecuted groups such as China’s Uyghurs and Myanmar’s Rohingya remain in the country and have to leave or otherwise they can face potential consequences such as arrest, detention or even deportation randomly.
Pakistan’s claim for this expulsion
Source: Tribune
Sarfraz Bugti, Pakistan’s caretaker interior minister, has justified this decision as one shaped by the security imperatives claiming that 14 out of 24 major terrorist attacks carried out this year within Pakistan have been by Afghan nationals. Pakistan is currently struggling to deal with the Pakistani Taliban outlets operating within the country. These small factions have lost connections to the Taliban government and started to attack the country’s civilians so far.
Evaluation of Pakistan’s mass explusion
Pakistan’s decision for the mass expulsion is in the light of the current escalation of tensions due to inflation, increasing terrorist attacks on the soil and growing disappointment among the Pakistanis. The current situation of Pakistan seems to have a collapsed economy within a shorter period.
Subsequently, the rising prices also fuel the growing disappointment among the nationals. On the one, the lack of political stability and on the other the economically daring situation contributed to the discontent among Pakistanis. The mass of Pakistan is now tired of hearing the promises from the political classes. They even did not bother about the military regime of Pakistan- ISI.
The failure of the state, as a large, has become now visible to the world. So far, the narrative of consecutive Pakistani regimes has been to annoy India either through military confrontation or through small proxy wars to prevent its economic growth. But, the calculation has led to the opposite result for Pakistan. India, as a key player in the region, and as an emerging economy in the world has attained lots of popularity worldwide. For Pakistan, the first bandwagoning with the US and then in the post-Cold War era, the joint hands with China have the two main strategies to annoy India for long. But these strategies seem to be the old package with minimum or temporary favourable outcomes.
India has overcome its full potential and proved itself enough capable to hold an important position in the international arena. Contrary, Pakistan has become almost bankrupt because of successive misleading decisions. Especially, with China’s huge loan under CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) has placed the country almost in the same situation, where Sri Lanka was once before its bankruptcy.
Source: Youth Ki Awaaz
Pakistan needs to reassess its entire approach to bargaining in front of international fora. Only striving out the foreign nationals would not help the country get rid of the terrorist attacks in the future. Pakistan needs to restructure its entire strategy to deal even in its neighbourhood region. India, with a helping hand, many times pardoned the misdeed of Pakistan. But, it is time for Pakistan to deal with its immediate neighbour not from the Zero-sum angle, which is driven by the historical cost, but from a fresh approach which is more future-oriented.
