More than five decades after 1971, a community of Pakistanis remains largely erased from Pakistan’s collective media memory: the Urdu-speaking, non-Bengali Pakistanis commonly referred to as Biharis who were left behind in Bangladesh after the fall of Pakistan (fall of Dhaka).

As a journalist, I am trained to observe dispassionately. But this subject is not neutral for me. It intersects with my family history, my identity, and my lived memory. That is precisely why I asked a simple question: does Pakistani television—our most powerful shaper of public memory—ever speak about these abandoned Pakistanis at all?

What Pakistani TV Talks About—and What It Doesn’t

In recent years, particularly after 2024, Pakistan-Bangladesh relations have once again become a recurring topic on Pakistani television. Politics, diplomacy, history, and personal analysis are discussed at length. Yet one name remains consistently absent: the Pakistanis still living in camps in Bangladesh.

They are not a topic of prime-time debates. Not a sustained question in talk shows. Not a subject of investigative reporting.

When mentioned at all, it is usually in passing reduced to fleeting references framed as charity or sympathy, stripped of history, responsibility, or accountability.

This is not an accusation. It is a mapping exercise.

The question is not why Pakistani media does not speak but whether it speaks at all. And the silence does not appear accidental. It reflects a media culture driven by immediacy, power politics, and ratings. Long-term human catastrophes—especially those that raise uncomfortable historical or state responsibility—are quietly filtered out.

1971 is a difficult year for Pakistani television.The people who survived after 1971 are even more difficult.

The abandoned Pakistanis are not an electoral slogan, not a diplomatic bargaining chip, and not a ratings-friendly controversy. And so, they remain unseen.

Selective Memory and Incomplete History

Another troubling pattern emerges in how Bangladeshi history is often discussed on Pakistani screens. Certain narratives are softened or selectively framed. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is occasionally presented in neutral or even positive tones, while the deeper, more painful complexities of 1971 are avoided.

Similarly, some discussions highlight General Ziaur Rahman’s alleged pro-Pakistan leanings and later political legacy, without adequately addressing the full historical context including shifting loyalties, internal conflicts, and the organized violence inflicted on Urdu-speaking, pro-Pakistan civilians during and after the “war”.

Historical records indicate that some figures who initially served within the Pakistan Army later became part of rebellion and power struggles names that repeatedly surface in discussions of massacres targeting loyalist civilians and military families in East Pakistan.

Yet Pakistani television rarely confronts these difficult truths. The full truth is neither easy nor popular and perhaps that is why it keeps being postponed.
A Rapid Media Mapping (2020–16 December 2025)

To move beyond perception, I conducted a rapid mapping of Pakistani television coverage from 2020 to 16 December 2025, monitoring major news channels and current affairs programs. The aim was modest: to see where, when, and how the issue of abandoned Pakistanis appears in broadcast discourse.

Overall Finding:

Across this period, no consistent, agenda-setting, or investigative coverage of the 1971 abandoned Pakistanis was observed on major Pakistani TV channels. Mentions where they occurred were sporadic, incidental, or charitable in tone, often without naming the community or situating the issue historically.

Prime-time talk shows, anchor-led formats, and flagship current affairs programs showed no sustained or verifiable focus on the statelessness of the Bihari/non-Bengali Pakistanis. This silence persisted across both private and state broadcasters even after August 2024, when Pakistan–Bangladesh relations re-entered mainstream media discussion.

Anchors and Programs: Observational Summary

(“No observed coverage” does not imply every episode was viewed in full. The mapping relies on program sampling, digital archives, online searches, and social media discourse.)
• Absar Alam (Geo/Dunya, former): No documented sustained coverage
• Late Arshad Sharif (ARY): No observed coverage
• Asma Shirazi (ARY/Hum): No dedicated segment observed
• PTV (various anchors): No consistent prime-time coverage
• Hamid Mir (Geo): One brief charitable reference only
• Kamran Shahid (Dunya): No observed coverage
• Kashif Abbasi (ARY): No observed coverage
• Meher Bukhari (Samaa): No observed coverage
• Mubashir Luqman (ARY/others): No observed coverage
• Najam Sethi (various channels): No observed coverage
• Shahzeb Khanzada (Geo): No observed coverage
• Saleem Safi (Geo): No observed coverage
• Syed Talat Hussain (Geo/News/Samaa): No observed coverage
• Waseem Badami (ARY): No observed coverage
• Mohammed Hanif (BBC Urdu): No observed coverage

Mohammed Hanif is among my favorite writers, and his inclusion here is reluctant and personal. It is difficult to reconcile the silence of a celebrated novelist and human-rights voice with the suffering of 324,000 living, stateless human beings enduring humiliation and abandonment for over 54 years.

To minimize oversight, this mapping was supplemented with systematic internet searches and a review of social media discourse (particularly X/Twitter) associated with major anchors and programs. Despite this combined methodology, no sustained, serious, or analytical broadcast engagement with the issue was found.

This list is not an indictment of individuals or institutions. It merely reflects what is publicly available in Pakistan’s broadcast record.
The Gendered Silence

A personal admission is necessary. This silence wounded me not only as a journalist, but as a woman.

It is especially painful that women anchors and producers who otherwise speak courageously on gender-based violence and women’s rights have remained silent about the unacknowledged mass rapes, killings, and brutality inflicted on Bihari women in 1971. Women targeted not for anything they did, but for standing with the idea of one Pakistan.
Their bodies, their trauma, their lives remain invisible.

When voices that speak powerfully against violence against women ignore the suffering of certain women because of history or politics, the issue ceases to be historical. It becomes a question of present-day conscience.

Why This Mapping Exists

I documented this silence so that tomorrow, no one can say: we did not know.
Writing down silence is also a form of testimony.
And perhaps, one day, this silence will break.

P.S. Many English outlets felt uncomfortable publishing this piece. I therefore adapted it into Urdu, and it was published in Humsub on 28-12-25:
https://humsub.com.pk/n/27434/2025/12/28/dr-rakhshinda-perveen/
This piece for IBC is based on the Urdu version.

Note:
The full English version of the detailed media mapping report has been uploaded to my website and is available here: {https://drrakhshinda.mystrikingly.com/}