**5.3 Bangladesh (1971- ) and the indigenous people of the CHTs**

The constitution of the sovereign Bangladesh declared Bangladesh as a unitary State and Bengali as the State language. It also declared that citizens of Bangladesh are to be known as Bangali. During that time there was only one representative from the CHTs in the National Parliament who refused to endorse the constitution since it did not recognize the existence of other national communities or sub-national identities (Chowdhury, 2002; Shelly, 1992). Available report suggests that Jumma people remained indifferent to the cause of war against Pakistan (Chowdhury, 2006).

After the liberation, Jumma people demanded for i) autonomy for the CHTs, ii) retention of the CHTs Regulation 1900, iii) recognition of the three kings of the Jummas, and iv) ban on

Conflict and Corollaries on Forest and Indigenous People: Experience from Bangladesh 193

permitted to own land and the *Bangali* immigrants became sharecroppers. Even knowing that the CHTs land is not arable and life would be very risky, landless floating people accepted migration in order to get a piece of land and a house of their own, along with other financial and food grains support of the Government (Uddin, 2008). During 1979 - 1984 about half a million non-indigenous people have been settled into the CHTs. Bhikkhu (2007) reported that during late 1970s to the early 1980s, more than 400,000 muslims from various plain districts of Bangladesh were systematically migrated to the CHTs under Government sponsored military led settlement programs. It was found that 92% of the respondents and 100%of the key informants viewed this huge migration as demographic invasion or more specifically '*islamization*' of the CHTs. They think that this has been done to diminish their political clout in the muslim dominated Bangladesh. So this State sponsored migration has made the Jumma people a minority in their own homeland. Talukdar (2005) in his study suggested that if this conflict goes on without any resolution, the Jumma people will soon

find themselves in a situation of going for unconstitutional struggle.

Source: Talukdar, 2005; Uddin, 2010

Fig. 3. Change in population composition in the CHTs

**5.3.2 Land crisis and dispossession of Jumma land** 

According to the available information on site quality, physiognomy and topography, the CHTs do not allow intensive irrigated agriculture except in the limited valley and lowlands (Roy, 2004). According to the soil survey report, only 3.1% of the CHTs lands are suitable for agriculture and 72.9% are suitable for forestry (GOB, 1966). Besides, Kaptai hydro-electric dam further increased the land crisis inundating 21,862 ha of cultivable land (GOB, 1975). In spite of the shortage of fertile farming land and inundation of the available cultivable land, the Government settled thousands of landless non-indigenous people in the CHTs. Besides, each land less settler family was given a legal ownership of 2 ha of hill land or 1.5 ha of

the influx of the non-Jummas into the CHTs (Chowdhury, 2006). The Government rejected these demands and urged the indigenous people to become Bangali, ignoring their ethnic identities (Chowdhury, 2002). This has been considered as the starting point of new conflict of the Jummas with Bangladesh Government. The Jumma people rejected the imposition of Bengali nationalism. According to the summarized result of the focus group discussion and key informant interview, the failure of the Government to recognize the identity of hill people and their political and economic marginalization led them to form an indigenous people's organisation called 'Parbattya Chattagram Jana Samhiti Samiti (PCJSS)' in 1972. A military wing called *Shanti Bahini*5 was added to PCJSS in the same year (Mohsin, 1997).
