Final Research Paper
Confiscation vs Return of Property of Religious Minorities in Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh Shivani Patel POL 390-02: The Politics of Social Inclusion Policy December 10, 2020 Patel 1 Introduction The property acts in Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh are one of the numerous discriminatory policies in South Asia that deepen the decades-long religious conflict between Hindus and Muslims. These policies were passed and implemented in response to the India-Pakistan war in 1965, which set off the migration of religious minorities between each country, while the governments amassed all of the left behind property. These are Pakistan’s Enemy Property Act of 1965, India’s Enemy Property Act of 1968, and Bangladesh’s Vested Property Act of 1971. In contrast to the two other countries, Bangladesh repealed its policy to the Vested Property Return Act of 2001 and the Vested Property Return (Amendment) Act of 2011, which returned the confiscated property of indu migrants. Bangladesh’s repealment of the Vested Property Act is the variation in this research, as it is the only country in the region that is moving to alleviate the religious discrmination in the country. The puzzling outcome is that Bangladesh and Pakistan, which should have turned out similarly, do not maintain the same policy, whereas India and Pakistan, which are warring countries, end with the same outcome of upholding their property acts. Considering the variation in these policies, I ask: why did Bangladesh repeal its Vested Property Act, while India and Pakistan upheld their original Enemy Property Acts? My research illustrates that the degree of ethnic nationalism in a country determines the repealment of the property acts.
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