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ABSTRACT
This article examines the botanical, agricultural and food history of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, which lie on the borders of India, east Bengal (now Bangladesh) and Burma (contemporary Myanmar), under British colonialism and postcolonial transnationalism. European administrators were intrigued by jhumming (swidden agriculture) and the botanical biodiversity of the region. The article examines jhum production and food history in the writings of British administrator scholars and colonial geographical surveys from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It then delves into food cosmopolitanisms, particularly the influence of Bengali, Burmese and European dietary and culinary conventions in the royal kitchens of local “tribal” chiefs, the Chakma and Mong Rajas, reflecting how hybrid food traditions during the colonial Raj influenced indigenous forms of cuisine. Finally, it examines the preservation of indigenous cooking traditions by diasporic, immigrant communities, revealing the influence of memory, nostalgia, gender and ideas of home in this hybrid, multiethnic borderland.
Notes
1. Hutchinson, Eastern Bengal and Assam Gazetteers, chapters 4 and 5; Hunter, A Statistical Account of Bengal, 39–66; Roy, Land Rights of the Indigenous Peoples, 13; Erni, The Concept of Indigenous Peoples, 337; Chowdhury, “Politics of Identities and Resources,” 61.
2. Hunter, A Statistical Account of Bengal, 68; Hutchinson, Eastern Bengal and Assam Gazetteers, 19; Chowdhury, “Politics of Identities and Resources,” 62.
3. de Maaker and Joshi, “Introduction: The Northeast and Beyond,” 382.
4. Rahman, “From Hill Tracts to Kitchens”; Hunter, A Statistical Account of Bengal, 71–72.
5. Rahman, “From Hill Tracts to Kitchens.”
6. Tribeni Chakma, “Chakma Cooking 101.”
7. Rahman, “From Hill Tracts to kitchens of Dhaka.”
8. Saha, “Is it in India?” 24; de Maaker and Joshi, “Introduction: The Northeast and Beyond,” 382; Pachuau and van Schendel, The Camera as Witness, 3; Pachuau and van Schendel, “Borderland Histories, Northeastern India,” 1. Historic states, which fell outside contemporary national borders, such as British Burma, were also largely excluded in scholarly or popular histories of South Asia. Saha, “Is it in India?” 25.
9. van Schendel, “Geographies of knowing,” 647–668; Scott, Art of Not Being Governed; Gellner, “Introduction.”
10. Amrith, Crossing the Bay of Bengal.
11. Cederlof, Founding an Empire; Chatterjee, Forgotten Friends; Handique, British Forest Policy in Assam; Kar, “What is in a Name?”; Misra, Becoming a Borderland; Pachuau, Being Mizo; Arupjyoti Saikia, Forests and Ecological History; Yasmin Saikia, Fragmented Memories; Sharma, Empire’s Garden; and van Schendel, The Bengal Borderland. There have also been a number of special issues dedicated to the region including de Maaker and Joshi, “Special Issue: The Northeast”; Chen and Shih, “Special Issue: Borderland Politics”; Pachuau and van Schendel, “Special Issue: Borderland Histories.”
12. Lalruatkima, “Frontiers of Imagination,” 21–38; see also his larger Ph.D. dissertation project: “‘Wild Races’: Scripts and Textures of Imperial Imagination”; Chowdhury, “Raids, annexation and plough”; also refer to her book, Indigenous Identity in South Asia; Jhala, An Endangered History.
13. Mohsin, The Politics of Nationalism; van Schendel, The Bengal Borderland; Ahmed, “Defining ‘Indigenous’ in Bangladesh,” 47–73; Barua, “Development Intervention and Ethnic Communities,” 372–400; Chowdhury, “Politics of Identities and Resources”; Nayak, “Understanding Environmental Security,” pp. 40–53; Uddin, “Dynamics of Strategies for Survival,” 319–338; Uddin, “Decolonising ethnography in the field,” 455–467; Wilkinson, “Negotiating with the Other,” 179–190.
14. Collingham, Curry; Ray, Culinary Culture in Colonial India; Sen, Feasts and Fasts; Ray and Srinivas, Curried Cultures.
15. Parts of this section emerge from my book, Angma Jhala, An Endangered History, xix-xxxii, reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press, https://global.oup.com/academic/product/an-endangered-history-9780199493081?lang=en&cc=nl. For permission to reuse this material, please visit http://global.oup.com/academic/rights.
16. Chatterjee, Forgotten Friends, 22–23; Cederlof, Founding an Empire, 2; Misra, Becoming a Borderland, 11–12.
17. Choudhury, “An eventful politics of difference,” 272.
18. Although there was much less influence on the more remote and inaccessible parts of the hill border. Mohsin, The Politics of Nationalism, 26.
19. Choudhury, “An eventful politics of difference,” 275; Arasaratnam, Maritime India in the Seventeenth Century, 149–72; Subrahmanyam, Improvising Empire.
20. Choudhury, “An eventful politics of difference,” 275–282.
21. Roy, The Departed Melody, p. 28.
22. Roy, “Administration,” 45.
23. Cederlof, Founding an Empire, 46.
24. Francis Buchanan observed that the Mru people made a rice liquor, where rice water was fermented for three days, decanted and boiled down, in a method he speculated was introduced by the Portuguese. Buchanan, “An Account of a Journey,” 75–76.
25. Bose and Jalal, Modern South Asia, 51; Bayly, Indian Society, 46–55.
26. Mohsin, The Politics of Nationalism, 26.
27. Cederlof, “Founding an Empire,” 3.
28. Ibid., 40.
29. Amrith, Unruly Waters, 11. See also Grove, Green Imperialism; Damodaran, Winterbottom and Lester, The East India Company; Grove, Damodaran and Sangwan, Nature and The Orient.
30. Amrith, Unruly Waters, 11.
31. The British would attempt to transition the hill tribes from swidden (jhum) cultivators to plow agriculturalists from the late eighteenth century onwards. After the 1900 Regulation, the British Raj tried to incentive tribal chiefs and their village headmen to adopt cultivated farming by giving them plow lands in exchange for their official duties. Despite these various incentives, the indigenous hill peoples remained largely uninterested in adopting plow agriculture. Hunter, A Statistical Account of Bengal, 79–80; Hutchinson, Eastern Bengal and Assam District Gazetteers, 66; Chowdhury, “Raids, annexation and plough,” 183–4.
32. Uddin, “Decolonising ethnography in the field,” 462; van Schendel, “A politics of nudity,” 346; Wilkinson, “Negotiating with the Other,” 180; Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed; Said, Orientalism.
33. Lalruatkima, “Frontiers of Imagination,” 27.
34. Wilkinson, “Negotiating with the Other,” 180.
35. Chowdhury, “Raids, annexation and plough,” 183–4.
36. Hunter, A Statistical Account of Bengal, 79–80; Hutchinson, Eastern Bengal and Assam Gazetteer, 66.
37. Parts of this section emerge from my book, An Endangered History, 20–21, reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press, https://global.oup.com/academic/product/an-endangered-history-9780199493081?lang=en&cc=nl. For permission to reuse this material, please visit http://global.oup.com/academic/rights
38. Buchanan, “An Account of a Journey.”
39. van Schendel, “Introduction,” xiii.
40. Buchanan, “An account of a Journey,” 36.
41. Henriques, “Made on Earth.”
42. Buchanan, “An account of a Journey,” 112.
43. Ibid., 46–7.
44. The cotton was largely cultivated for trade; see Hunter, A Statistical Account of Bengal, 27, 84. The hill tribes used indigo as a form of dye to create dark blue and black pigment for their clothng; see Hutchinson, Eastern Bengal and Assam Gazetteers, 82.
45. Ronald Inden has written on the colonial need to create “essential” traits and qualities in understanding their Indian subjects. Refer to Inden, Imagining India.
46. Indeed, eighteenth century botany was closely linked with sexuality (in part due to the nomenclature used) and particularly ideas of promiscuity. In Europe, there were concerns that women should understand botany in part due to its sexualized language. Fara, Sex, Botany and Empire, 41–2.
47. Buchanan, “An account of a Journey,” 103.
48. Parts of this section emerge from my book, An Endangered History, 110–1, 122–124, reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press, https://global.oup.com/academic/product/an-endangered-history-9780199493081?lang=en&cc=nl. For permission to reuse this material, please visit http://global.oup.com/academic/rights.
49. Cohn, Colonialism and Its Forms, 8.
50. Dirks, Castes of Mind, 43.
51. Pachuau and van Schendel, Camera as Witness, 25–6.
52. Marriott, The Other Empire, 209.
53. Hunter, A Statistical Account of Bengal.
54. Dirks, Castes of Mind, 199–200.
55. Hunter, A Statistical Account of Bengal, 83.
56. Ibid., 33–4.
57. Ibid., 34.
58. Ibid., 34.
59. Francis Buchanan in Southeast Bengal, 63–4.
60. Hutchinson, Eastern Bengal and Assam Gazetteers, 61.
61. Often colonial writings on tribal peoples included references to savage animals in their titles or subtitles, making this close connection between the animal and human primitive from the start. A small sample include Barrow, An account of travels; Hay, Western Barbary; and Gordon-Cumming, Five years’ adventures, but there are many more.
62. van Schendel, “The Dangers of Belonging,” 20.
63. During this same period, for instance, the Great Famine of 1876–78 would affect south and northwestern India. See “Great Famine of 1876–78”; Roy, The Economic History of India.
64. Hutchinson, Eastern Bengal and Assam Gazetteers, 60.
65. T, Roy, Departed Melody, 38.
66. Hutchinson, Eastern Bengal and Assam Gazetteers, 98.
67. Mohsin, Politics of Nationalism, 29.
68. Ibid., 144; Ishaq, Bangladesh District Gazetteers, 29.
69. Lewin, A Fly on a Wheel, 216–220; Roy, Departed Melody, 41.
70. Mohsin, The Politics of Nationalism, 144; van Schendel, Mey and Dewan, The Chittagong Hill Tracts, 24.
71. Jhala, An Endangered History, 188–191.
72. Hutchinson, Eastern Bengal and Assam Gazetteers, 98.
73. van Schendel, The Chittagong Hill Tracts, 24.
74. Mohsin, Politics of Nationalism, 33–4.
75. Vernon, The Cambridge History of Britain, 230.
76. Jhala, An Endangered History, 187; van Schendel, The Chittagong Hill Tracts, 35.
77. Roy, The Departed Melody, 64.
78. Moore, Maharanis, 55–58.
79. Devi, Autobiography of an Indian Princess; Devi, Maharani of Mayurbhanj.
80. Jhala, Royal Patronage, 2.
81. Ibid., 77.
82. Roy, Departed Melody, 84.
83. Roy, interview with author, May 30, 2009.
84. Jayanta Sengupta has written on the eclectic mix of cuisine served in Bengali bhadralok households, which fused together aspects of Bengali cuisine, foods from other parts of colonial India and European cuisine. See Sengupta, “Nation on a Platter,” 92.
85. Roy, personal interview, May 30, 2009.
86. Collingham, Imperial Bodies, 69–71.
87. Sharma, “Food and Empire.”
88. Roy, interview with author, May 30, 2009.
89. Ibid.
90. O’Connor, “The King’s Christmas pudding,” 127–155.
91. Jhala, “Cosmopolitan Kitchens,” 65.
92. Roy, interview with author, August 18, 2021.
93. Mohsin, Politics of Nationalism, 35.
94. Ibid., 36.
95. Ibid.
96. Mohsin, The Chittagong Hill Tracts, 24.
97. Refer to his chapter on “Refugees” in Chakma, Ethnic Cleansing in Chittagong Hill Tracts.
98. Mohsin, The Politics of Nationalism, 166–7.
99. Mohsin, The Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh, 34–35.
100. Jamil and Panday, “The Elusive Peace Accord,” 464–489.
101. See note above 5.
102. “Signature Chakma dishes.”
103. P. S. Saha, “Hebang.”
104. Ibid.
105. Ibid.
106. Roy, Departed Melody, 132–3; “The Raja who gave away.”
107. Roy, Departed Melody, 174–7.
108. Ibid., 119.
109. “The Raja who gave away.”
110. Ibid.
111. See Roy’s memoirs, A Departed Melody.
112. Roy, Departed Melody, 252–53.
113. “The Raja who gave away”; Roy, Departed Melody, 253.
114. Rahman, Historical Dictionary of Bangladesh, 314, 317.
115. Qazi, “Pakistan on a Plate.”
116. Munir, “Documenting the Food Map.”
117. Qazi, “Pakistan on a Plate.”
118. Ibid.
119. Roy, “Reading Communities and Culinary Communities,” 472.
120. Nico Slate has written on the close connection between diet and theories of social justice and equity in his powerful food biography of Indian freedom fighter Mahatma Gandhi. See Slate, Yang, Sivaramakrishnan and Kaimal, Gandhi’s Search.
121. “Shattering the Glass Ceiling.”
122. “Indigenous peoples in Bangladesh.”
123. Chandran, “Chakma refugees to get citizenship.”
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Angma D. Jhala
Angma D. Jhala is a Professor of History at Bentley University. She received her D.Phil. from Oxford University and M.Div. and AB from Harvard University. Her work addresses histories of indigeneity, religion, colonial ethnography, gender and politics, royal and courtly esthetics, and cuisine. She has published An Endangered History: Indigeneity, Religion and Politics on the Borders of India, Burma and Bangladesh (2019), Royal Patronage, Power and Aesthetics in Princely India (2011) and Courtly Indian Women in Late Imperial India (2009), as well as articles in leading journals of South Asian studies. Her newest research project examines environmental histories and mid-twentieth century aid development on the eastern India/Burma border.