Jumma insurgency in Chittagong Hills Tracts: how serious is the threat to Bangladesh's national integration and what can be done?

Abstract

Bangladesh, otherwise a homogeneous society, confronts a serious tribal insurgency in its southeastern Chittagong Hill Tracts region. Before signing a Peace Accord in 1997, the tribal groups, known as Jummas, who constitute 1% of the nation's population but occupy about 10% of its territory, fought insurgency battles for over two decades demanding recognition of their ethnic identities and autonomy of their region. The highly controversial Accord, however, still remains largely unimplemented, and often it evokes fears of secession. This article argues that a probable secession of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) may not be in the best interests of the Jummas or the people of Bangladesh; and a pragmatic resolution of the issue may lie with granting full functional autonomy to the Jummas in a constitutionally protected reservation area.

Keywords::

• insurgency
• Jumma
• Chittagong Hill Tracts
• ethnicity
• secession

Notes

^1. The CHT, a heavily forested and mountainous area, is located between 21° 40′ and 23° 47′ N and 91° 40′ and 92° 42′ E, with Myanmar to the south and the Indian states of Tripara and Mizoram to the north and east. In the northern part of Bangladesh, there are some tribal populations, including the well-known Garo and Santal, but they are relatively small in size. Despite ‘acute degradation and marginalization’, they do not ascribe to any insurgency. See Levene, ‘The Chittagong Hill Tracts’, 343.

^2. The name Jumma, meaning ‘High Landers’, originated from the rudimentary shifting cultivation methods involving use of slash and burn techniques traditionally employed by the ethnic groups in the densely forested mountainous areas. On its website (http://www.pcjss-cht.org/pcjss.php), the main political party of these tribes – the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity – collectively identifies all tribes as Jummas, meaning ‘the first people of the CHT’.

^3. Two of the largest ethnic groups, the Chakmas and the Marmas, comprise over 90% of the population. Other groups include the Tripura, Tanchangya, Murung, Lushai, Khumi, Chak, Khyang, Bawm, and Pankhua. The exact number of tribes, however, is uncertain. The 1991 Census of Bangladesh put the number at 27, some rights groups put the number between 40 and 50 (Daily Star, 10 August 2010), and the PCJSS, on its website, puts the number at 11.

^4. The people of the Indian state of West Bengal are also Bangalees – having similar ethnic ancestries to those of Bangladesh. See Dowlah, The Bangladesh Political Economy, 5–14; Muhith, Bangladesh, 8–9; and Tinker, South Asia, 4.

^5. See Ahsan and Chakma, ‘Problems of National Integration’, 959–60.

^6. The region was ruled by the Mughal rulers for about 100 years before it was ceded to the British East India Company in 1760. The PCJSS describes the period in glowing terms: ‘During the whole period of the Mughal rule… the Chakma Kings were internally supreme and externally free… [and] reigned independently.’ See http://www.pcjss-cht.org/pcjss.php.

^7. See Sahni, ‘Economic Citizenship in India’, 10.

^8. See the PCJSS website.

^9. See Levene, ‘The Chittagong Hill Tracts’, 349. Evidently, while restricting any entry of non-indigenous population into the CHT area, the British rulers granted high quality forest land of CHT to European entrepreneurs for tea, coffee, orange, and teak plantations in the 1860s and 1870s.

^10.Sahni, ‘Economic Citizenship in India’, 10.

^11. See the PCJSS website.

^12. See Levene, “The Chittagong Hill Tracts', 348–9.

^13. The earliest traces of Bangalee settlement can be found in the Longadu and Naniarchar areas of CHT in the early 1950s. In 1958, the government of Pakistan enacted the CHT Land Acquisition Regulation, which legalized acquisition of land by non-indigenous people. See the PCJSS website.

^14. A 1979 survey found that 89% of the Jummas held the Kaptai Dam responsible for their displacement, and 69% blamed it for their food and economic crises. See Chakma, Prasanga, 29.

^15. See Nag, ‘Nationhood and Displacement’, 4753–60.

^16. See Sahni, ‘Economic Citizenship in India’, 10. The PCJSS claims that 40,000 Chakmas migrated to India and about 20,000 other Jumma people took refuge in Myanmar. See PJCSS website.

^17. See Bertocci, ‘Bangladesh in the early 1980s’, 163.

^18. During Bangladesh's liberation war, the Chakma Rajah, who represented the largest tribal group, supported the Pakistani occupation forces, while the Mong Rajah joined the liberation force, and the Bohmang Rajah remained non-committal. In the 1969–1970 general elections of Pakistan, M. N. Larma, a Chakma tribal leader, won the East Pakistan Provincial Assembly seat while Rajah Tridiv Roy won the Pakistan National Assembly seat from the CHT area. During the liberation war, while Larma sided with Bangladesh, Roy sided with Pakistan. See Huq, ‘Changing Nature’, 80–90, and Ahmmed et al., ‘The Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord’, 124.

^19.Schendel, ‘The Invention of the “Jummas”’, cited in Levene, ‘The Chittagong Hill Tracts’, 356.

^20. Quoted in Chakma, ‘Structural Roots of Violence’, 19–21. The PCJSS website, however, claims that Mujib also ‘threatened him [M. N. Larma] with dire consequences and to flood CHT with Bangalee Muslims if the Jumma people stick to their demand’.

^21. See Levene, ‘The Chittagong Hill Tracts’, 357.

^22. The adoption of ‘Bangalee Nationalism’ in the constitution also ignored the fact that the people of the Indian state of West Bengal also spoke the same language. Addressing those concerns, in 1977, Ziaur Rahman redefined the national identity as ‘Bangladeshis’. See Franda, ‘Ziaur Rahman and Bangladeshi Nationalism’, 357–80. In 2011, however, the Hasina government amended the constitution again to revert to ‘Bangalee’ nationalism (See Daily Star, 1 July 2011).

^23. Mujib apparently made the announcement during his election campaign in CHT. See Ahsan and Chakma, ‘Problems of National Integration’, pp.967–68. In that election, M. N. Larma, who in his election manifesto demanded ‘Regional Autonomy with separate legislature for CHT’ won a landslide. See < http://www.pcjss-cht.org/pcjss.php>, accessed on December 27, 2011.

^24. Quoted in Ahsan and Chakma, ‘Problems of National Integration in Bangladesh’, 968.

^25. Some estimates, however, put the number at 115,000. See Rizvi, ‘Bangladesh Insurgency’, 39–44.

^26. See Levene, ‘The Chittagong Hill Tracts’, 353.

^27. See CHT Commission, Life is not Ours, 17–23. In one such incident, at the village of Kaokhali in Rangamati district in March 1980, a junior military officer gunned down dozens of Jumma villagers who apparently assembled there under his orders to discuss matters of law and order.

^28. Zia's transmigration program brought about 400,000 Bengali settlers into the region significantly altering the demographic composition of the CHT as the percentage of Bangalee settlers in the region rose from 26% in 1974 to 41% in 1981. See UNECOSOC, ‘Study’. Also see the PJCSS website.

^29. See Huq, ‘Changing Nature’, 84; Levene, ‘The Chittagong Hill Tracts’, 354–5.

^30. See the PCJSS website.

^31. See Bertocci, ‘Bangladesh in the Early 1980s’, 63.

^32. See Levene, ‘The Chittagong Hill Tracts’, 359.

^33. See CHT Commission, Life is not Ours, 24.

^34. See ibid., 7.

^35. The Committee was headed by Oli Ahmed, a cabinet member, and the Jummas were represented by Hangsadhwaj Chakma. Apparently, the dialogue failed mainly because the BNP government refused to grant regional autonomy to the CHT.

^36. As mentioned before, Pakistan had it as a ‘tribal area’, and the British initially had it as an ‘administrative tributary’, and later changed it to a ‘totally excluded area’.

^37. For details of the Accord, see Mohsin, The Politics of Nationalism; Rashiduzzaman, ‘Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord’, 653–70; and Shelley, ‘Chittagong Hill Tracts’.

^38.Rashiduzzaman, ‘Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord’, 656.

^39. See Ahmed, Bangladesh, 233–51.

^40. See Daily Star, 16 April 2010.

^41. India also gave shelter to CHT insurgents throughout the period 1975–1996. The exact number of Shanti Bahini insurgents are not known, but is believed to be around 3000. See Shelley, The Chittagong Hill Tracts, 145.

^42. See Chakma, ‘Structural Roots of Violence’, 9–11.

^43. See Ahmmed et al., ‘The Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord’, 126–7, and The New Age, 10 October 2010.

^44. See Ahmmed et al., ‘The Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord’, 127.

^45. See Chakma, ‘Structural Roots of Violence’, 9–11.

^46. On the 14th anniversary of the Accord, on 2 December 2011, Shantu Larma criticized the Awami League for non-implementation of the Accord and described the party as ‘an extremely communal political party’ for enacting the 15th amendment to the constitution by defining all indigenous groups of the country as Bangalees. See Daily Star, 3 December 2011.

^47. Jummas are also concerned that all Bangalee settlers are Muslims, who are settling among non-Muslim Jummas.

^48. See Adnan, Migration, Land Alienation and Conflict, 15.

^49. See Panday and Jamil, ‘Conflict in the Chittagong Hill Tracts’.

^50. See Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, http://www.bbs.gov.bd/home.aspx.

^51. See the PCJSS website.

^52. Aside from land, the Jummas are also concerned with horrific incidents of dislocation, human rights violations, numerous civilian casualties, and the gradual Islamization of the area.

^53. See Levene, ‘The Chittagong Hill Tracts’, 348.

^54. See World Bank Indicators, http://www.tradingeconomics.com/bangladesh/population-density-people-per-sq-km-wb-data.html.

^55. Historical evidence as well as scholarly interpretations indicate that there are wide variations how perceived ethnic/racial identity may or may not change over the course of time. For an excellent exposition on this topic, see Colburn and Pozzetta, Race, Ethnicity, and the Evolution of Political Legitimacy.

^56.Cornell and Hurtmann, Ethnicity and Race, 49.

^57. The tenacity with which the tribal groups clung together to their identities, despite massive dislocations, rising economic and political costs, including bloody massacres and ‘creeping genocidal processes’ orchestrated in the area, do indicate that the ethnic roots of Jumma tribes are indeed deep-rooted and resilient. Jummas do demonstrate what is called ‘basic group identity’. See Isaacs, ‘Nationality’.

^58. See, for example, Nayar, ‘Self-determination beyond the Colonial Context’; Isaacs, ‘Nationality’; and Birch, ‘Minority Nationalist Movements’.

^59. See Peiris, ‘Political Conflict in Bangladesh’.

^60. See Wijfdasa, ‘Sri Lanka's Ghosts of War’.

^61. For greater understanding of the Sri Lankan insurgency issue, see Ganguly and Macduff, Ethnic Conflict and Secessionism.

^62. See Schaller and Abeysinghe, ‘Geographical Frame of Reference’.

^63. See Ganguly, ‘Sri Lanka's Ethnic Conflict’, 908.

^64. See DeVotta, ‘Sri Lanka in 2003’, 53.

^65. The Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), a party of Buddhist monks, with a sizeable representation in the Sri Lankan parliament, rules out any ethnic problem in the country. See Ganguly, ‘Sri Lanka's Ethnic Conflict’, 911, 916.

^66. See Seth, ‘State, Nation, and Ethnicity’.

^67. Title of Carpenter's 1987 book, A Fortress Built on Quicksand.

^68. See Wirsing, ‘Ethnicity and Political Reform in Pakistan’.

^69. See Anderson, Imagined Communities.

^70. See Alavi, ‘Nationhood and the Nationalities in Pakistan’.

^71. See Syed, ‘The Idea of a Pakistani Nationhood’, 577–597.

^72.Wirsing, ‘Ethnicity and Political Reform in Pakistan’, 81.

^73.Martin, Johnson, and Mason, ‘Correspondence’, 181.

^74. Other insurgencies in India include the Sikh and Kashmiri secessionist movements, which are believed to be among the most violent ones. See Nag, ‘Nationhood and Displacement’.

^75. The Sixth Schedule of the Indian constitution provides flexibility to federal government to restructure and reorganize federal–state–local relations. Evidently, successive governments extensively applied this flexibility to create new states, union territories, autonomous districts, and so on, especially to address insurgency issues. See Dasgupta, ‘Community, Authenticity, and Autonomy’.

^76. The 1991 Census had Assam, the largest of the set, with 22 million people, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh less than 1 million each, Tripura 2.7 million, followed by Manipur (1.8 million), Meghalaya (1.8 million), and Nagaland (1.2 million). See ibid.

^77. See ibid., p.347.

^78. Obviously, this success is a qualified one. The success has not been so spectacular, for example, in respect to the Kashmiri insurgency, which flares up every now and then, and often does so very violently.

^79. See Seth, ‘State, Nation, and Ethnicity’, 624.

^80. See Nag, ‘Nationhood and Displacement’.

^81. See Misra and Misra, ‘Movements for Autonomy’.

^82. See Kohli, ‘Can Democracy Accommodate Ethnic Nationalism?’

^83. See Chakrabarty, ‘Review’.

^84. This ‘garrison mentality’ of Indian government also came to the forefront recently in the Indian-held Valley of Kashmir, where overwhelming crowds of Kashmiri Muslims protested human rights abuses by the nearly 700,000 Indian security forces. See Mishra, ‘Games India Isn't Ready to Play’.

^85. Barbora, Sanjay. ‘Rethinking of India's Counter Insurgency Campaign in North East.’ Economic and Political Weekly. Volume XLI. No. 56. (2006).

^86.Rashiduzzaman, ‘Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts’, 667.

^87. An estimated 10 million Native Indians lived before European settlers came to America, but at the close of the nineteenth century, less than a quarter million survived. Such a disaster of epic proportions is attributed to disease, warfare, and genocide. See Snipp, C. Mathew. ‘Sociological Perspectives on American Indians.’ Annual Review of Sociology. Vol. 18 (1992): 351–71.

^88. See McSloy, Steven Paul. ‘American Indians and the Constitution: An Argument for Nationhood.’ American Indian Law Review. Vol. 14 (1988–1989): 139–89.

^89. Morgan, Ed. ‘Self-Government and the Constitution: A Comparative Look at Native Canadians and American Indians.’ American Indian Law Review, Vol. 12 (1984): 39–56.

^90. Shumway, M and R. Jackson. ‘Native American Population Patterns.’ Geographical Review 85(1995): 185–201.

^91. Newton, N.J. ‘Federal Power over Indians: Its sources, Scope and Limitations.’ University of Pennsylvania Law Review 132 (1984):195–288.

^92. See ‘Cherokee Nation v. Georgia’, cited in Morgan, ‘Self-Government and the Constitution’, 42.

^93. Title of Levene's 1999 article, ‘The Chittagong Hill Tracts’.

^94. It is, however, notable that the whole CHT region is not subject to the 1997 Accord. Of the total CHT area of 5093 square miles, about 3670 square miles are reserve forests, which accommodate the Kaptai Hydro Electricity Project, the Betbunia Earth Satellite Station, many state-run industries, and government-owned lands, which are not subject to the Accord. This means that only about 1423 square miles strewn across the three CHT districts are subject to the Accord.

^95. The 2011 Census of Bangladesh puts the populations of the CHT districts as follows: 383,000 in Bandraban, 608,000 in Khgrachari, and 596,000 in Rangamati.

^96. See Chakma, ‘Structural Roots of Violence’, 9–11.