Every morning at 11am, a group of schoolchildren gather in a slum in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, to sing not one national anthem, but two.

First, the students at the Non-Local Surovi School raise their shrill voices in homage to Bangladesh, then to Pakistan. Yet they are citizens of neither country: they are among 250,000 Urdu-speakers who were disenfranchised when Bangladesh won its independence from Pakistan in 1971.

For 37 years now, the Muslim community which migrated here at the partition of British India in 1947 has existed in legal limbo and squalor in camps around Bangladesh. Today, however, its members will vote for the first time in parliamentary elections after a court decision that finally recognised their right to Bangladeshi citizenship.

“This is a historic verdict,” said Sadakat Khan, the president of the Urdu-Speaking People’s Youth Rehabilitation Movement, which took the case to court. “We were born and brought up here. We are not Pakistanis: we are Bangladeshis.”

Yesterday Bangladesh tightened security in readiness for its return to democracy after two years of emergency rule by an army-backed Government. Clashes between supporters of rival parties left nearly 100 people injured on Saturday, the last day of campaigning before polls that will see eunuchs, prisoners and river gypsies being given the vote for the first time.

The country has been ruled by an interim Government since January 2007, when the military stepped in amid widespread political violence. The Army’s move against Bangladesh’s corrupt political class was initially welcomed by many, but its strong-handed tactics soon lost it much support. Analysts say that an honest, stable government could help to lift millions out of poverty, but many fear a return to the cronyism of the past.

Alliances led by two former prime ministers, Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia, are regarded as the leading contenders, despite the current Government’s efforts to push both women out of politics, first by attempting to drive them into exile, and then by imprisoning them on corruption charges.

The decision to allow the Urdu-speakers the vote appears to have split the community, some of whom still cling to the dream of moving to Pakistan. Some also fear that they will lose the small privileges they enjoy in the camps, including free electricity. “We respect the verdict, but this will not be fruitful for us,” said Shoukat Ali, the headmaster of the Surovi school and leader of the Stranded Pakistani General Repatriation Committee. “We must be rehabilitated properly.”

He and Mr Khan, like most Urdu-speakers, are descendants of Muslims who migrated in 1947 from what is now the Indian state of Bihar. Biharis flourished initially in East Pakistan, as Bangladesh was then known. They had the advantage of speaking Urdu, the official language of Pakistan, unlike the Bengali-speaking indigenous population.

When the Bengali majority revolted in 1971, many Biharis sided with West Pakistan, whose forces killed some three million Bengalis, according to the Bangladeshi Government. The Bengalis killed up to 50,000 Biharis in revenge, and drove more than a million out of their homes. In 1972, more than half a million said they wanted to relocate to Pakistan. Pakistan at first welcomed them. But interest in their plight waned, largely because of Pakistan’s problems in assimilating Urdu-speakers from India.

Abdul Khalid, 38, proudly displays the identity card he was given when he registered to vote four months ago.

“We were invisible,” he said. “Now I am Bangladeshi.” Yet he seems to be in a minority: when Biharis were given ten days to register, only 22,000 signed up.

Roksar, 8, feels Bangladeshi, while Rony, 10, feels Pakistani, but the two boys still sing both national anthems every morning. “One is for our land and the other is for our mother tongue,” explains Sonya, 11, another student.

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