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ABSTRACT
Violence against the Indigenous peoples of the once-remote Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) has been perpetuated by ongoing ethno-religious demographic engineering through state-sponsored mass transmigration in order to achieve Bangladesh's nationalist, masculinist aspirations of state security and power. This article uses the case of the CHT to explore how the hegemonic masculinism of the state and the military – pursuing an ethnically based nationalist security agenda – has manifested as pervasive existential violence for the CHT’s Indigenous peoples, especially Indigenous women. In order to understand the conditions created in the CHT that allow – or even encourage – violence against Indigenous peoples while shielding perpetrators, this article looks to recent theorizations of feminist and situational criminogenesis. These suggest that situational opportunity may do more than facilitate the actions of an already motivated offender; it may even create the motivation for criminal behavior. The article concludes by demonstrating how the cumulative transformation of the CHT’s political, military, and civil context has resulted in a potent set of situational motivators and opportunities for violence, particularly sexual violence, against the Indigenous peoples of the CHT.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 There are at least 46 Indigenous groups in Bangladesh, many outside the CHT (Chakma Citation2010, 30).
2 They have their own distinct languages, which are different from Bangla. The Chakma and Tanchangya languages are classified as Indo-Aryan languages, while the other nine languages are classified as Tibeto-Burman.
3 Some have their own traditional scripts, some have no traditional script and use the Roman script, and some recently developed their own scripts that are not Bangla (for example, the Mro and Tripura/Kokborok scripts).
4 Jummas are religiously diverse, traditionally following religions that do not include Islam, the majority religion in Bangladesh. Chakmas, Marmas, Tanchangyas, Chaks, and Khyangs primarily follow Buddhism. Tripuras follow Hinduism, Lushais and Bawms follow Christianity, and Mros follow Buddhism and a new religion known as Krama. Khumis and Pangkhuas primarily follow community religions, but many are also followers of Christianity. All 11 Jumma groups have animist rituals, which give a unique inflection to their religions. Recently, there have been religious conversions to Islam from Indigenous religions.
5 For the pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial history of the CHT, see Roy (Citation2011), van Schendel (Citation1992a, Citation1992b, Citation2009), and van Schendel, Mey, and Dewan (Citation2000). For the pre-colonial history of the CHT, see Serajuddin (1984, 90–98) and Qanungo (Citation1998).
6 Lord Mountbatten was the last Viceroy of India. He oversaw the transition of British India to independence.
7 The 1972 Constitution declared all citizens of Bangladesh to be Bengalis, while the 1977 Amended Constitution added an Islamic declaration, and the 1988 Amended Constitution declared Islam the state religion of Bangladesh.
8 The number of Bengali transmigrants during this period was originally about 400,000; however, 15 percent of these left the area because of insecure and inhospitable living conditions (Adnan Citation2004; Barkat et al. Citation2009).
9 Banerjee’s (Citation2012, 2) key binary is the martial man versus the chaste woman.
10 Under the Bangladesh Constitution, the Prime Minister is Leader of the Armed Forces. Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina have been Prime Ministers for 27 of the last 30 years.
11 This figure includes 350,000 to 400,000 government-supported transmigrants as well as unsupported transmigrants.
12 This view ignores the fact that the hilly forested land is unsuitable for plow cultivation capable of supporting a higher population. As early as 1918, when there were only 200,000 people living in the CHT, a report commissioned by the British government and written by F. D. Ascoli indicated that the area had reached capacity (Roy Citation1996, 5–6).
13 Banerjee (Citation2003, 169) notes that communities have their own hegemonic definition of masculinity: “Although there may be many competing images and values of male and female adulthood in society, there is always a hegemonic definition of masculinity/femininity.”
14 This is calculated from the figures provided in ACHR (Citation2014, 8).
15 The executive order was carried out through an operation named Dabanal (wildfire). In 2001, the name was changed to Uttoron (upliftment) (IWGIA Citation2012, 10).
16 After a long campaign by Indigenous peoples from the CHT, the post was given to an MP in 1996.
17 A new road system financed by the World Bank connecting Bangladesh to India via the CHT is currently being negotiated (Chakma and Hill Citation2016).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Glen Hill
Glen Hill is an Honorary Associate Professor and a previous Director of the Master of Architecture program at the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney, Australia. His research focuses on design-related aspects of social and environmental sustainability. He has an interest in architectural design as an expanded practice, particularly its relation to Indigenous and disadvantaged communities.
Kabita Chakma
Kabita Chakma is an architect and an independent researcher. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Indigenous Jumma Association Australia (CHTIJAA). Her research interests include the history, literature, art, cinema, architecture, and sustainability of disadvantaged communities, particularly the Indigenous peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. She is the co-author (with Glen Hill) of the chapter “Silencing Films from the Chittagong Hill Tracts: Indigenous Cinema’s Challenge to the Imagined Cultural Homogeneity of Bangladesh,” published in South Asian Filmscapes: Transregional Encounters (2020), edited by Elora Halim Chowdhury and Esha Niyogi De.