November 7th is my late father’s birthday.

I have dedicated my upcoming book, “The Abandoned Pakistanis: 1971, Betrayal and Statelessness,” to him to his unwavering values, quiet strength, and love for truth.
On this day that holds both memory and meaning, I take a small liberty: to imagine an interview — of me, with myself.

After all, I do not have a PR firm, a publicity team, or friends in the right corridors to amplify this message.

What I do have are words, memories, and a cause that refuses to fade.

The book, a collection of history, testimony, and conscience — will be available as a free PDF download from November 17, 2025, through the link I will share.

Sometimes, when the world chooses silence, you create your own conversation.

This interview is one such conversation — raw, unpolished, honest, imperfect, and necessary.

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Q1: What is the title, and why this book now?

“The title is The Abandoned Pakistanis: 1971, Betrayal, and Statelessness.

It’s a chronicle of those who stood by Pakistan but were written out of its narrative — the Urdu-speaking Biharis & others who became stateless after 1971.

I felt compelled to write it because we can not move forward as a nation by erasing uncomfortable truths.”

Q2: To whom is the book dedicated?

“It’s dedicated to my late father, Professor Nazeer Siddiqi, and to the quiet martyrs both from our families and the frontlines — who remained loyal yet forgotten.”

Dedication

Dedicated to Prof. Nazeer Siddiqi, my late father, and to the quiet martyrs of both families and frontlines.

I dedicate this simple contribution to my late father, Prof. Nazeer Siddiqi (7 November 1930, Chapra–Bihar, India – 12 April 2001, Islamabad, Pakistan) — an eminent writer and educationist. Though Urdu was his mother tongue, he always stood up for the Bangla language and for Bengalis.

On the advice of a Bengali well-wisher, he left Dhaka with his young family on 22 December 1969, to escape the looming genocide of non-Bengali Urdu speakers, especially Biharis, who were seen as proxies of the West Pakistani elite. He walked away from his home in MohammadPur, leaving behind all his assets, never able to return.

In the turmoil of 1971, he bore the heartbreaking loss of his brother, killed in Dinajpur — the same town where Major Muhammad Akram Shaheed, Nishan-e-Haider (from Jhelum, Pakistan), embraced martyrdom in the Battle of Hilli. Major Akram still lies buried there, in Boaldar, Dinajpur, far from his native soil. My father also carried the unbearable silence of losing touch with siblings taken as prisoners of war along with their young families.

Like so many in the Bihari community, our family was uprooted three times in one lifetime — each move made in hope for Pakistan. Yet through all this pain, my father’s love for Pakistan never wavered. What made him extraordinary was his refusal to let suffering turn into bitterness or to let injustice erase his compassion. He carried his losses quietly, never once speaking against Bengalis.

This book is also for all those who choose peace over prejudice for those who believe in honest memory, nondiscriminatory justice, healing through truth, and the moral courage to speak even when silence seems safer.

Q3: What is this book about?

“It’s not just about the past. It’s about how history flows into the present — how some people are still treated as collateral, erased from policy, media, and public conscience.
It carries the voices of those who lived through 1971, those who were destroyed, and those whose devastation didn’t stir the world’s conscience — not even our own.”

Q4: What kind of book is it?

“It resists easy labels.

It’s not a memoir, though my family’s story runs through it.

It’s not conventional history because history has already been written by those who benefitted from forgetting.

It’s not pure activism, though every line demands action.

It’s a personal chronicle testimony against institutional amnesia.”

Q5: What is the structure?

“It begins with a quote from Quaid-e-Azam and a preface by Dr. Salma Malik.

There’s a photo of me as an infant held by my father on the roof of our home in Muhammadpur, Dhaka, the place we lost.

Q6: Some might criticize that you’ve included previously published pieces. Why?

“Because assembling them was necessary.

As a working woman and head of household, I don’t have the luxury of disappearing into solitude for years to produce a neatly structured book.

I wrote whenever and wherever I could under censorship, with limited access, and under real safety concerns.

Publishing my earlier work again in one volume helps protect it it’s less vulnerable when it exists together.”

Q7: You’ve spoken before about the challenges, including bias, elitism, and exclusion in publishing. Could you elaborate?

“Yes — and it’s important to say this honestly.

There are power hierarchies in Pakistan’s media, academia, and civil society largely dominated by certain ethnic and class groups.

If you glorify rebellion against the state or criticize the Pakistan Army harshly, you’re celebrated. You get panels, fellowships, platforms.

But if you defend a pro-Pakistan, marginalized community like the Biharis or demand their repatriation you’re labelled, ignored, or even mocked.

I’ve experienced humiliation in professional circles, including WhatsApp groups of policy alumni.

My articles don’t appear in mainstream or high profile outlets like (guess yourself pl.) not because they lack merit, but because they challenge the approved narrative. This is just one example of many faces of exclusion, marginalization and hurting if not discrimination.

This is the quiet censorship that hurts most exclusion without acknowledgment.”

Q8: Given all that, what do you expect from this book?

“Nothing in material terms.

This is not a career move it’s a contribution of conscience.

I wrote it with the faint hope that someday, some young reader will go looking for truth and find these words, and maybe, they’ll see that patriotism doesn’t mean silence.”

Q9: How would you summarize the spirit of the book?

“It’s about remembrance, not resentment.

It’s about dignity, not denial.

It revives patriotism that asks difficult questions about justice, equality, and belonging.

It’s an invitation to reflect not to divide.

This book is my way of reclaiming erased voices and of reminding us that silence is also a choice.

The Abandoned Pakistanis is not just a story of 1971 —it’s a mirror held up to today’s Pakistan.”