The post-colonial state and minorities: ethnocide in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper argues that ethnocide in post-colonial states can be located in the interplay of three processes: (1) nation-building and development visions of the bureaucratic state; (2) the struggle for autonomy by the minorities; and (3) militarised pursuit of national security agenda by the bureaucratic state. The bureaucratic, political, economic, cultural and military penetration of the state into the territories of the indigenous communities often results in the marginalisation of those communities and destruction of their cultures and identity. It leads to demand for autonomy by the minorities. The state reacts to the struggle for autonomy by pursuing a militarised security agenda. Ethnocide in the post-colonial state occurs against the vortex of these processes. The Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh is an interesting case of ethnocide in the above context.

Keywords:

• ethnocide
• nation-state
• nation-building
• autonomy
• militarisation
• Islamisation
• ethnic cleansing
• peace accord

Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges the generous funding of the British Academy which facilitated research for this paper.

Notes

Levene argues that the CHT situation is a case of ‘creeping genocide’ (Levene, 1999).

Hechter (1975) termed this process as ‘internal colonialism’.

The British delimited the boundaries of the CHT as an administrative unit in 1860. In 1947 it became a part of Pakistan as a district. In the 1980s, the CHT was divided into three separate districts.

The decision to give the CHT to Pakistan was made under the Radcliffe Award. About the inclusion of the CHT in Pakistan under the Radcliffe Award, Professor Bernard Nietschmann has maintained: ‘This was a craven and criminal deed that awarded non-Moslem peoples and nations to a new state created by violence and millions of deaths to establish the Moslem state of Pakistan. The mere existence of non-Moslem peoples and national territories within the Islamic state was an invitation to invasion, attempted conversion, and repression’ (Nietschmann, 1985).

For example, military utility rather than economic use was prioritised in the construction of roads by the CHTDB in the 1970s and 1980s.

The author is witness to numerous such incidents. Two killings are specifically noteworthy here. In the late 1970s, Samiron Talukdar, from the village of Gorgojya Chari and a student of Kamal Chari High School, was killed by the Bangladesh armed forces while he was caught during an army operation in his village. Samiron died when he was hacked by a ‘Tagol’, a chopping instrument commonly used for domestic purposes in the region. The second killing took place in 1981. A person named Mriganga Chakma, alias Tundurungya, from Kamal Chari village, who was a member of PCJSS, was caught by the armed forces during an army operation. After several months of torture when the members of Bangladesh armed forces realised that the person would not survive, Tundurungya was brought to a place very close to Kamal Chari village and shot dead. Then the army personnel summoned the seniors of Kamal Chari village and forced them to sign in a paper which stated that Tundurungya was shot while he was trying to escape. A well-known case of disappearance is that of Kalpana Chakma (age 23), the organising secretary of the Hill Women Federation. Kalpana was from Lallyagona village in Baghaichari thana, Rangamati Hill District. She was kidnapped by plaincloth security personnel on the night of 11 and 12 June 1996. Since her abduction, Kalpana has not been traced. See the CHT Commission (1997: 8–9); for details on Kalpana's disappearance, Guhathakurta (1997: 109–126); Hill Women Federation (2001).

The former Deputy Commissioner of Chittagong district has provided an inside account of the Bengali settlement programme which he opposed because he thought it would have a disastrous impact on the indigenous communities (Choudhury, 2010).

This is based on author's survey in the CHT in July–August 2008.

It is also important to take into consideration that the construction of the Kaptai dam in the 1960s inundated 40 per cent of the district's cultivable land and dislocated about 100,000 people or 27 per cent of its population (Islam, 1978). Pakistan government failed to resettle these uprooted people because of the paucity of cultivable lands in the CHT.

Seventy thousand hill people took refuge in India in the 1980s (for details see Debbarma and George, 1993).

Seleem Samad's report in Dhaka Courier, 8 July 1994.

Al Rabita has its office in Rangamati and Longudu. It runs a hospital in Longudu. It has also established an Islamic missionary centre in Alikadam.

Author's interview with several people in the CHT in August 2008.