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SOCIETY AND TRENDS: AFGHAN
REFUGEES
Separation And Inactivity
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ANISA AZAMY, 44
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Azamy (right), is a former primary schoolteacher, one of the many
educated women in Afghanistan forced to quit their jobs by the Taliban.
Her husband, once an accountant in the Electricity and Power Department
in president Najibullah's government, has been diagnosed with clinical
depression. She suffers from high blood pressure. Here in Delhi,
handicapped by her poor knowledge of English, she has been unable
to find a job. So she broods at home while her teenaged daughters
work to support the family.
"I am suffering because my girls are
forced to work when they should be studying. I feel so helpless."
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If her agony is
this separation, for Azamy's wife Anisa, 44, there is the trauma of inactivity.
This former teacher was one of many women forced to quit their jobs by
the Taliban. In India, handicapped by a poor knowledge of English, she
broods at home while daughters Asina, 19, and Frishta, 18, work. Anisa,
like many Afghan women here, has high blood pressure. "I am suffering,"
she says, "because my girls are forced to work when they should be
studying."
There is hope in this house though. In today's
Afghanistan, women invite death by appearing in public sans a burqa or
being seen with a man who's not a relative. Here in India, a male photographer
shoots their pictures without inviting a comment. Only Anisa covers her
head. The daughters even ditch their dupattas. Optimism does not carry
a price tag: Frishta wants to be a doctor; her sister Behishta, 17, an
air hostess. Pointing to a dilapidated metal frame, Anisa says, "That's
my husband's bed. See, we don't even have Rs 100 to repair it." They
can find it in them to chuckle.
A one-and-a-half hour's drive away, there is
no laughter in Manohar Singh's home. The former cloth merchant has not
worked since he broke his leg in an accident five years ago. The rent
for his one-room hovel has been unpaid for six months. The family would
have starved without the langar at the nearby gurdwara. At 28, wife Har
Kaur's gaunt frame seems to belong to a gawky teenager. Why doesn't she
attend the needlework classes held by a local charitable group? A tired
smile, then the reply: "My eyes are so weak, I can't see a needle
and thread. There's no money for spectacles." In 1992, Singh left
a promising business in battle-scarred Kabul. With security came poverty.
He too is an Afghan refugee.
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OZARA AWAZ, 46
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Awaz (first from left) remembers an easier life in Afghanistan
where her husband ran a large transport company. They moved to India
in 1993. The Taliban caught one of her sons when he returned to
Kabul in 1996. He escaped to Pakistan where he is to this day.
"I long to hear my son's voice. But
STD calls are costly. So we write to each other and hope that one
day he will return."
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Who would have guessed? Most Indians are not
aware that 74 per cent of Afghan refugees here are Hindus and Sikhs of
Indian descent. The ethnic Afghan Muslims with their distinctive features
find it hard to integrate with the local populace. So, many dream of a
better life in the West. Now of course they are in danger of becoming
the diplomatic pariahs of the world. In that sense, the Hindus and Sikhs
are fortunate. Blending with the locals is easy since they speak Hindi
or Punjabi. Most retain family ties here. But Hardit Singh, 54, who was
born in Kabul, says, "Life was terrible when I came to India in 1992.
For years, memories of Afghanistan would haunt me at night."
Haunting. It's a word these people know well.
In an unpublicised stretch of Lutyens' Delhi, Najibullah's wife Fatana
and daughters Helay and Hosay lead a quiet life. They decline an interview
request. Can the comfort of the posh quarters ever wipe away memories
of the late ruler's hanging by the Taliban? Outside the UNHCR office,
Najibullah's bodyguard Ayatollah camps in a cramped roadside tent. Shunned
by governments the world over despite repeated representations from the
UNHCR, he has finally managed a visa for Norway. Now he refuses to budge
till an airline ticket is delivered to him. What nightmares drive him
to such stubbornness? He must have been handsome once, this well-built
man with a scraggy white beard and bald head. "Please no photograph,"
he pleads. "I say no to one journalist, so he take from far. If I
die, his responsibility."
Back in Savitri Nagar, the Afghan Association
meeting is still on. "Do the women in your families belong to this
group?" I ask. A rush of murmurs runs through the gathering of a
dozen or so men and boys. They smile, some titter at the question. A voice
is raised in gentle admonition: "Of course the women are members.
We are not the Taliban."
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