Since 2011, more than 1,000 Pakistani Hindus have settled in Outer Delhi, but most of them do odd-jobs and become part of the seasonal labour force. Some of them have been living in the Capital for more than 25 years, but still bear the outsider tag. Though in 2014, the NDA government granted citizenship to nearly 4,300 Hindu and Sikh refugees from Pakistan and Afghanistan, things haven’t changed for them in Delhi. Since India is not a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention that grants persecuted migrants refugee status, it refuses to recognise Pakistani Hindus as refugees. An External Affairs Ministry official, taking a sympathetic view on the issue, said they are in the process of granting more citizenships. “It is going to be on a case-to-case basis.”
While they were persecuted in Pakistan, in India they face bias over their nationality. People look down upon them. “We don’t find rental accommodation, schools don’t take our kids, no jobs for our boys,” said Sodha Ram, who migrated from Rahim Yar Khan district of Pakistan three years ago. His family came to India on a pilgrimage visa in 2012 and stayed over. His Pakistani passport has expired. “I’m jobless and contractors pay me Rs.50 less than other Indian labourers,” said the 38-year-old.
Asked about Geeta, he said had Salman Khan, also his favourite actor, not made the movie [Bajrangi Bhaijaan], she would’ve been like any of them. “Every Hindu in Pakistan, like Geeta, has a story. We are waiting for our story to be told.”