Located in the densely populated Afghan residences of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, is a music center where Afghan art and culture come to life. This center is part of a community hub for Afghan refugees and their host families in Karachi. The music room is spacious enough to accommodate a group of twenty people with musical instruments shelved carefully in the corner. The music students sit solemnly on the carpeted floor, some of them playing the tabla while the others play the sitar, creating music that is a fusion of Pakistani and Afghan cultures.
I ask the music teacher, Shahzeb, why the music created in the center is not distinctively Afghan or Pakistani.
“There are similarities between Afghan and Pakistani cultures. Having been raised in Chitral [a northern area of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan, editor’s note], I was intrigued by the similarities between the two countries’ cultures,” Shahzeb explains, adding, “I see music as a way of connecting people, which is why it’s hard to distinguish between who is Pakistani or Afghan in this music room.”
Pakistan’s Repatriation Plan and its Impact on Afghan Refugees
On September 26, 2023, the Ministry of Interior (MOI) of Pakistan announced the Illegal Foreigners’ Repatriation Plan (IFRP). Under this plan, mechanisms were established to consolidate databases of “illegal foreigners” in the country, monitor the entry of new unauthorized arrivals, and handle the apprehension, deportation, and repatriation of undocumented or overstaying individuals. This led to a crackdown on Afghan migrants in Pakistan who were harassed, arrested, put into detention centers, and deported back to Afghanistan. The Foreign Office Spokesperson stated that the decision was directed at “illegal aliens” and not at any particular “ethnic group.”
Afghan migrants are no “aliens” to Pakistan. The country has hosted these refugees and migrants from Afghanistan for over forty years, since the Soviet invasion. Afghan refugees in Pakistan form one of the largest refugee populations in the world, numbering nearly three million people.
At the time, the Pakistani caretaker Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani claimed that the deportation move targeted only Afghan refugees who were undocumented or lacked valid documentation. According to Jilani, Afghans with valid documents were not being expelled. However, the reality on the ground was different.
Legal and Cultural Challenges for Afghan Refugees
Moniza Kakar, a lawyer based in Karachi working against the deportation of Afghan refugees in Pakistan, told Reset DOC that even Afghans with valid identification, such as a Proof of Registration (POR) card or an Afghan Citizens Card (ACC), were being placed in deportation centers. It was only after family members of these detainees produced evidence of valid identification that the Afghan detainees were released. This process posed financial difficulties for families due to the high costs of travel. Khakar noted that releasing Afghan refugees with valid identification was an arduous task, requiring her to meet with various bureaucratic officials to secure their release.
While the Pakistani government stated that documented Afghan refugees could stay, it did not specify which forms of documentation were considered valid. According to Political Scientist Sanaa Alimia, this lack of clarity on the part of the Pakistani government was deliberate: “They know that if they create this disorder they can unleash the law enforcement agencies to act with impunity as they wish, and that is effectively what has taken place. The law enforcement agencies appear to have been given a free hand to do as they like.”
In July 2024, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif announced a one-year extension of stay for Afghan refugees with POR cards. However, obtaining a POR card is a luxury not afforded to every Afghan in Pakistan. These cards were issued during the first wave of Afghan refugees received by Pakistan and were made by the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC). They have not been recently issued. Only those Afghan migrants already possessing POR cards could benefit from this recent decision, leaving the fate of other Afghan refugees with different forms of identification uncertain.
The Struggles of Afghan Musicians in Exile
During the deportation period last year, Afghan musicians at the center faced a constant threat of expulsion. They stopped attending music classes out of fear that they might be caught by the police on their way to the center. Attendance at the music classes dropped significantly. Whenever they saw a police officer, they would change the route, knowing the police would ask them to present their identification cards.
Hassan, a 27-year-old Afghan musician, fled to Pakistan in 2023 after facing threats from the Taliban government. One day, while performing music at a wedding, he received an intimidating call from an unknown number, followed by a letter warning him to cease his music activities. All his musical instruments were then destroyed, shattering his dreams of music career.
During his first six months in Pakistan, Hassan feared he would lose his mind without an instrument to play to calm his anxiety. But after learning about the music center in Karachi and joining it, he began to feel better mentally. Despite being an economics graduate and facing fewer opportunities to perform music in Pakistan compared to Afghanistan, Hassan has never considered pursuing anything other than music as a career. “I just need my musical instrument, and I should be able to play it,” Hassan says with a smile on his face as he plays the table.
“Is music un-Islamic?” I ask Sherdil, another Afghan musician in his early thirties at the center.
While the Taliban government in Afghanistan has banned music on Islamic grounds, claiming that it is not part of Afghan culture, Sherdil tells me that Afghan people love music. Behind closed doors and windows, Afghans listen to music and cherish it. According to Sherdil, the Afghan Taliban lack an understanding of Afghan culture.
“Music keeps the Afghan culture alive,” says Hassan. Music, he argues, is essential for preserving Afghan culture, history, and identity. “There is a saying that if one has to destroy a society, one must destroy its culture. Imperialist forces like the British, the Soviet Union, and the NATO forces could not destroy Afghan culture. Wherever Afghan artists are across the globe, they will keep their culture alive,” adds Sherdil.
Legal Protections and the Fight for Afghan Refugee Rights
In June 2024, the Peshawar High Court issued a stay order that prevented the deportation of Afghan artists and transgender individuals from Pakistan. About 167 Afghan musicians took their case to the court presented by the lawyer Mumtaz Ahmad who argued against the deportation of Afghan refugees based on several agreements and the international conventions to which Pakistan is a signatory.
In 2003, an agreement between the governments of Pakistan, UNHRC and Afghanistan stated that no Afghan refugee would be forced to repatriate from Pakistan and their resettlement from Pakistan to Afghanistan would occur voluntarily. The agreement also noted that Afghan refugees holding token numbers indicating their refugee status were entitled to stay in Pakistan. Additionally, Pakistan is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, whose Article 23 grants Afghan families the right to live peacefully and undisturbed in Pakistan as refugees.
According to Pakistan’s Citizenship Act of 1951, citizenship is granted on birth in the country. Some Afghan families have lived in the country for generations, with their grandchildren knowing no other homeland. Despite that, Afghan migrants are not granted citizenship rights in Pakistan. Historian and sociologist Zehra Hashmi argues that the status of Afghan citizenship in Pakistan was different before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Ethnic Pashtuns and Hazaras settled in Balochistan in the 1960s were granted Pakistani citizenship. According to Hashmi, it was difficult to distinguish between Afghanistan and Pakistan at the time because the communities they were trying to separate as two nations were, in many ways, one.
Music as a Lifeline for Afghan Culture in Exile
The music center in Karachi bridges the differences between the two countries and their cultures. Students participate in various musical performances, playing instruments like the rabab, darbuka, and table, which hold cultural significance in both countries. Some Afghan students at the music center speak Urdu, while others speak Dari. But during musical performances, the linguistic differences between the two national groups become irrelevant. The students communicate through non-verbal gestures – a nod when the beat is right, a lingering look when the rhythms of the instruments are synchronized, and a smile that acknowledges a great performance.
“Music doesn’t belong to any language group. You just have to feel it,” Sherdil says.
All photographs were taken by Rida Khan. All reproduction rights are reserved. Most of the interviewees’ names have been changed to ensure the safety of those involved.
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