Between Ashes and Hope
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Between Ashes and Hope Chittagong Hill Tracts in the Blind Spot of Bangladesh Nationalism Between Ashes and Hope Chittagong Hill Tracts in the Blind Spot of Bangladesh Nationalism Edited by Naeem Mohaiemen Translations & Additional Editing Hana Shams Ahmed Farah Mehreen Ahmad Jyoti Rahman Tazreena Sajjad Photo Editor Zaid Islam Drishtipat Writers' Collective This anthology © 2010 Drishtipat Writers’ Collective, Bangladesh. All rights reserved. Texts © the authors. Images © the photographers. Unless otherwise noted. Photographs Shahidul Alam Naeem Mohaiemen Brian Palmer Ittukgula (Shuvasish) Chakma Wasfia Nazreen Tanvir Murad Topu Hana Shams Ahmed Samari Chakma Jannatul Mawa Momena Jalil Cover Photo: Naeem Mohaiemen Cover Correction: Arifur Rahman Graphics: Khayrul Hasan ISBN: 978-984-33-1982-1 Drishtipat Writers’ Collective www.drishtipat.org/dpwriters [email protected] Printed by Arka, Dhaka Price Bangladesh: BDT 350 Rest of the World: US$ 18 Drishtipat is a non-profit, non-partisan volunteer organization committed to safeguarding human rights in Bangladesh through action-oriented projects that provide direct assistance to those individuals whose voices are unheard. Drishtipat Writers' Collective (DWC) is a subsidiary organization of Drishtipat, whose projects include the blog Unheard Voices (www.unheardvoice.net/blog). Manusher Jonno Foundation is mandated to work in solidarity with poor and marginalized people to help them in gaining more control of their lives as well as creating an environment where both duty bearers and rights holders feel responsible to fulfill their respective obligations. Table of Contents Introduction 1 Setting the Frame 7 The Other Shahid Minar – Saydia Gulrukh 9 We Also Want to Live – Jui Chakma 11 This Land is Your Land – Farah Mehreen Ahmad 13 Adivasis and the Monarchs' Mind – Dipayan Khisa 15 Once We Were Heroes – Tazreena Sajjad 17 Untitled – Samari Chakma 19 The Case of National Minorities – Anu Muhammad 21 Indigenous Struggle In CHT – Jenneke Arens & Kirti Nishan Chakma 23 Peace in Our Time? (1715-1997) – Sagheer Faiz & Naeem Mohaiemen 26 Connecting Visible Dots (1997-2010) – Naeem Mohaiemen 31 Betraying a Treaty 35 The Dream That Turned Into a Day – Den Doha Jolai Tripura 37 Solution Impossible if Accord Bypassed – Abhoy Prakash Chakma 39 Ten Wasted Years – Brig Gen (Retd) Shahedul Anam Khan 41 Promises Pending – Kajalie Shehreen Islam 43 Status of Implementation – Mangal Kumar Chakma 47 Between Ashes and Hope – Naeem Mohaiemen 49 An Unquiet Violence 51 Manush Bachao – Jyoti Rahman 53 Ominous Signs in the Hills – Brig Gen (Retd) Shahedul Anam Khan 55 Budhdhapudi Chakma – Audity Falguni 57 Fire on the Mountain – Zafar Sobhan 59 Bangladesh Erupts in Ethnic Violence – Pinaki Roy 61 The Mahalchhari Incident – Meghna Guhathakurta 63 A History of Unsolved Disappearances 67 We Will Not Let Them Forget You – Hana Shams Ahmed 69 My Sister’s Language – Shahidul Alam 71 We Owe it to Kalpana Chakma – Khushi Kabir 73 Resistance Politics in the Hills – Meghna Guhathakurta 74 Silence is Emblem Of Our Ethnic Chauvinism – Manosh Chowdhury 77 Collateral Damage of Development 79 Dammed or Damned? – Ainun Nishat & Mahfuz Ullah 81 Dams and Environmental Refugees – Saleem Samad 84 Indigenous People's Economy, Myths and Realities – Pradanendu Bikash Chakma 86 Impact of Development – Chandra Roy 89 Culture, Identity and Development – Prashanta Tripura 91 Politics of Development – Zobaida Nasreen & Masahiko Togawa 93 Collateral Damage of Development – Farida C. Khan 99 Whose Land is it Anyway 103 Land Survey, Last Nail in the Coffin – Priscilla Raj 105 UN Declaration and Land Crisis in CHT – Sontosh Bikash Tripura 107 Structural Roots of Violence in CHT – Bhumitra Chakma 109 Land Survey for Conflict Resolution? – Ashok Kumar Chakma 112 Resolving Land Disputes and Ethnic Conflicts – Shapan Adnan 114 What brings the IFC and MDBs to CHT Forests – Sudatta Bikash Tanchangya 120 Reserved Forests Complicate Land Issues – Philip Gain 122 Resisting Onslaught on Forest Commons in Post-Accord CHT – Devasish Roy 125 Settlers, Weapons of Mass Displacement 133 Broken Promises – Ziauddin Choudhury 135 Changing Context in the CHT – Meghna Guhathakurta 138 Righting a Historic Wrong – Air Commodore (Retd) Ishfaq Ilahi Choudhury 139 Nowhere People in Limbo 141 The Chakma Between Bangladesh and India – Deepak Singh 143 Migration and Indigenous Peoples – Binota Moy Dhamai 149 Displacement and Dislocation in CHT – Bina D'Costa 151 Trapped in Ekushey Paradox 155 Language Identity and State – Amena Mohsin 157 Matribhasha – Ilira Dewan 167 Languages Matter in Education – Mathura Bikash Tripura 169 Indigenous Language Maintenance – Arshi Dewan Roy 171 The Quota Debate – Jagaran Chakma 173 State of Education – Mong Shanoo Chowdhury 175 Invisibility, Violence and Erotic Fantasies 179 Women Invisible in CHT Accord – Chanchana Chakma 181 Insecurity of Indigenous Women – Sadeka Halim 183 Women in Hill Society – Ilira Dewan 190 Pristine "Fairies" and "Sexy Pahari Girls" – Biplob Rahman 192 Violence Against Indigenous Women – Ainoon Naher & Prashanta Tripura 194 "Terrorists" and Security Discourse 199 Political Problem Cannot be Viewed Through Military Lense – Faruk Wasif 201 Unidentified Terrorists in the Hills – Rahnuma Ahmed 204 Ethnically Singular Nationalist Narratives 207 Mass Media, CHT and Marginalization – Pavel Partha 209 Need for a Change in Perspective – Shaktipada Tripura 211 The Bengali Sense of Victimhood – Rahnuma Ahmed 213 Who Decides on Whose Identity? – Ashok Kumar Chakma 216 Ethnically Singular Nationalist Narratives – Rahnuma Ahmed 218 "Bangladesh Has No Indigenous People" 221 Identity Rights – Rupayan Dewan 223 Indigenous vs. Small Ethnic Group – Lelung Khumi 225 Who are Indigenous? – Aditya Kumar Dewan 227 ILO Conventions – Abhilash Tripura 229 Debating Zainal Abedin – Borendra Lal Tripura 231 De-colonising the National Imagination 235 Colonial Foundation of Pahari Ethnicity – Prashanta Tripura 237 Dulu Kumuri and Post-nationalist Histories – Kabita Chakma & Glen Hill 245 Using Architectural History to Invent a Nation – Kabita Chakma & Glen Hill 250 De-colonising the National Imagination – Rahnuma Ahmed 254 Author Biographies 263 Introduction © Shahidul Alam Editor's Note At age fourteen, I was about the same height as the railing. The noise was tremendous, but over it, my uncle was giving a description of machinery. He had just been promoted to Brigadier and appointed chairman of Power Development Board; his engineer's curiousity was taken with hydroelectric power. I listened with attention – the machines were a technical marvel and I was dreaming of a science project back in school. Until my father retired from Army Medical Corps, his postings were usually in Dhaka. Trips to Kaptai were not for work, but study tours or "nature trips", as members of an army family. Other thoughts didn't intrude: that we were at the edge of a civil war zone; or standing in a drowned world. This was 1983. My high school years were a decade before the Accord. Jumma (Pahari) students were rare in the capital, and on the rare occasion of a sighting, classmates would call out, with the casual cruelty of youth, "Eyy, Chinku." As I grew older, I started meeting Jumma activists, and I began visiting Chittagong Hill Tracts again, this time in their company, this time as a "civilian". A chasm opened up: between the stories we grew up with, and the reality of the Jumma people's resistance movement. At home, there were arguments at the dinner table. I wondered if this was also a generational passage. Why Hill Tracts, someone asked. Deshe to onek shomoshya. It's true, deshe asholeo onek shomoshya. But Chittagong Hill Tracts is the blind spot at the heart of Bengali (and Bangladeshi) nationalism. The bloody history of the hills delineates a continuing contradiction between our history of liberation from Pakistan (Ekattur), and our replication of that same hegemony (language, security, regional autonomy) on our Jumma citizens. Progressive Bengali activists present this conflict as linked only to a few post-71 regimes. But the reality, as documented in this book, is continuous expansion of an aggressive Bengali nationalism – one that encroaches, marginalises and displaces. A nation state that patronizes and brutalizes the "other" within its borders. History is deleted and rewritten by victors. In 1997, the Jumma people's armed resistance came out of the jungle, surrendered weapons and demobilized. The other side, the Bangladesh state, did not fulfill their side of the agreement. Continued media agitprop about "insurgents", "miscreants", "foreign interference" and "who is indigenous" tries to drown out this reality with a wall of white noise. Confounding the contours of the conflict is the state strategy of using landless subaltern Bengali peasants as a weapon of ethnic displacement– a project that grants state actors the convenient shield of "both sides are landless" (even though only one side is backed by state funding, institutions and firepower). Fabrications regarding the Jumma people's struggle are so insidious, they reveal the infrastructure and profit potential of Bengali racism. For some time now, we have been discussing the need to explore counter-narratives: Jumma voices, Bengali refuseniks, conscientious objectors. We hope this book will be one among many steps in that direction. Naeem Mohaiemen, Drishtipat | [email protected] 3 Introduction Publisher's Note Drishtipat Writers' Collective (DWC) is a subsidiary organization