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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 April 2025
Population resettlement in contested ethnoterritories is an old practice that states have pursued for centuries. There is a nascent theory of demographic engineering to explain the phenomenon, although a robust theory on the issue is yet to be built. Theorists generally agree that states transfer and resettle populations to gain territorial control over contested ethnoterritories. But what is not clear in the current scholarship is how states accomplish this or what techniques they deploy to gain territorial control. To address this theoretical lacuna, it is asserted that states seek to gain territorial control in two ways: ‘right-peopling’ (settlement of ‘preferred people’ to alter the demographic balance of the contested area) and ‘unpeopling’ (the extermination of the existing inhabitants). In this article these pathways to gain territorial control are explained by exploring the case of demographic engineering in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh.
1 There are 11 ethno-groups—Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Tanchangya, Lushai, Pankho, Bawm, Mro, Khyang, Khumi and Chak—in the Chittagong Hill Tracts who are collectively known as Pahari (hill dwellers) or Jummo (swidden cultivators). Pahari is used in this article.
2 This figure is noted in a report prepared by the international commission on CHT affairs quoting government sources. See The CHT Commission, ‘Life is Not Ours: Land and Human Rights in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh’, The Report of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission, update 2, April 1994, p. 26.
3 Syed Aziz al-Ahsan and Bhumitra Chakma, ‘Problems of National Integration in Bangladesh: The Chittagong Hill Tracts’, Asian Survey, vol. 29, no. 10, 1989, p. 963. During my fieldwork, informed Paharis disputed the figure of 48.57 per cent, saying that it was a manipulated figure.
4 Milica Zarkovic Bookman, The Demographic Struggle for Power: The Political Economy of Demographic Engineering in the Modern World (London: Frank Cass, 1997); Oded Haklai, ‘Settlers and Territorial Control’, International Studies, 2022; available at: https://oxfordre.com/internationalstudies/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.001.0001/acrefore-9780190846626-e-631, [accessed 17 February 2025]; John McGarry, ‘“Demographic Engineering”: The State-directed Movement of Ethnic Groups as a Technique of Conflict Regulation’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 21, no. 4, 1998, pp. 613–638; Judith Banister, ‘Impacts of Migration to China’s Border Regions’, in Demography and National Security, (eds) Myron Weiner and Sharon Stanton Russell (New York: Berghahn Books, 2001), pp. 256–302; Ian Lustick, Unsettled States, Disputed Lands: Britain and Ireland, France and Algeria, Israel and the West Bank (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1993).
5 Haklai, ‘Settlers and Territorial Control’; Lachlan McNamee and Anna Zhang, ‘Demographic Engineering and International Conflict: Evidence from China and the Former USSR’, International Organization, vol. 73, issue 3, 2019, pp. 291–327; Lachlan McNamee, ‘Mass Resettlement and Political Violence: Evidence From Rwanda’, World Politics, vol. 70, no. 4, 2018, pp. 595–644.
6 Brendan O’Leary, ‘The Elements of Right-Sizing and Right-Peopling the State’, in Right-Sizing the State: The Politics of Moving Borders, (eds) Brendan O’Leary, Ian S. Lustick and Thomas Callaghy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
7 Kaamil Ahmed, ‘“Like an Open Prison”: A Million Rohingya Refugees Still in Bangladesh Camps Five Years after Crisis’, The Guardian, 23 August 2022.
8 Originally, the term was ‘unperson’, used by George Orwell in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Chomsky modified it to ‘unpeople’, in Noam Chomsky and Andre Vitchek, On Western Terrorism: From Hiroshima to Drone Warfare (London: Pluto Press, 2013), p. x. In the case of Bangladesh, Abul Barkat has applied the concept to illustrate the dynamics of unpeopling the indigenous/Pahari peoples. See Abul Barkat, Political Economy of Unpeopling of Indigenous Peoples: The Case of Bangladesh (Dhaka: Muktobuddhi Prokasana, 2016). Also see Abul Barkat, ‘Political Economy of Unpeopling Indigenous Peoples: The Case of Bangladesh’, Bangladesh Journal of Political Economy, vol. 31, no. 1, June 2015, pp. 121–212.
9 Muhammad Ala Uddin, ‘Dynamics of Struggle for Survival of the Indigenous People in Southeastern Bangladesh’, Ethnopolitics, vol. 15, no. 3, 2016, pp. 319–338; https://doi.org/10.1080/17449057.2015.1037060
10 Haklai, ‘Settlers and Territorial Control’; McGarry, “Demographic Engineering”.
11 Some important theoretical works on population resettlement include: Johannes Becke, The Land Beyond the Border: State Formation and Territorial Expansion in Syria, Morocco, and Israel (New York: State University of New York Press, 2021); Ehud Eiran, Post-colonial Settlement Strategy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019); Oded Haklai and Neophytos Loizides, Settlers in Contested Lands: Territorial Disputes and Ethnic Conflicts (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015); McNamee and Zhang, ‘Demographic Engineering and International Conflict’; Bookman, The Demographic Struggle for Power.
12 Haklai and Loizides, Settlers in Contested Lands, p. 3.
13 Haklai, ‘Settlers and Territorial Control’.
14 McNamee, ‘Mass Resettlement and Political Violence’.
15 McGarry, “Demographic Engineering”.
16 McNamee and Zhang, ‘Demographic Engineering and International Conflict’.
17 Harris Mylonas, The Politics of Nation-Building: Making Co-Nationals, Refugees, and Minorities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. 24.
18 Oren Yiftachel, Ethnocracy: Land and the Politics of Identity Israel/Palestine (University Park: University of Pennsylvanian Press, 2006); James Anderson, ‘Ethnocracy: Exploring and Extending the Concept’, Cosmopolitan Civil Societies, vol. 8, no. 3, 2016, pp. 1–29; Lise Morjé Howard, ‘The Ethnocracy Trap’, Journal of Democracy, vol. 23, no. 4, 2012, pp. 155–169; Dripto Bakshi and Indraneel Dasgupta, ‘A Model of Dynamic Conflict in Ethnocracies’, Defence and Peace Economics, vol. 29, no. 2, 2015, pp. 147–170.
19 Bookman, The Demographic Struggle for Power; Ilan Pappé, ‘The 1948 Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine’, Journal of Palestine Studies, vol. 36, no. 1, 2006, pp. 6–20.
20 Milica Zarkovic Bookman, ‘Demographic Engineering and the Struggle for Power’, Journal of International Affairs, vol. 56, no. 1, 2002, p. 38.
21 Paul Morland, Demographic Engineering: Population Strategies in Ethnic Conflict (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2014).
22 Kaushik Ghosh, ‘Between Global Flows and Local Dams: Indigenousness, Locality, and the Transnational Sphere in Jharkhand, India’, Cultural Anthropology, vol. 21, no. 4, 2006, pp. 501–534; Tania M. Li, ‘Articulating Indigenous Identity in Indonesia: Resource Politics and the Tribal Slot’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 42, no. 1, 2000, pp. 149–179.
23 Wolfgong E. May, ‘Political System in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh: A Case Study’, in Asian Highland Societies in Anthropological Perspective, (ed.) C. Von Fure-Haimendorf (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1981).
24 On the Regulation, its historical evolution, and present-day relevance, see Raja Devasish Roy and Pratikar Chakma, The Chittagong Hill Tracts Regulation, 1900, 2nd edn (Dhaka: Association for Land Reform and Development, 2014).
25 al-Ahsan and Chakma, ‘Problems of National Integration in Bangladesh’, p. 962.
26 Ibid., pp. 965–966.
27 Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the father of the Pakistani state, propagated the theory, arguing that the subcontinent needed to be divided into two independent states for the Muslims and the Hindus as they formed two distinct nations. On the creation of Pakistan, see Keith Callard, Pakistan: A Political Study (London: Allen and Unwin, 1958).
28 Unable to reverse the CHT’s inclusion into Pakistan, Jana Samity’s leaders, Sneha Kumar Chakma and Ghana Shyam Chakma, migrated to India. On the Partition controversy, see the writings of Sneha Kumar Chakma, in D. K. Chakma (ed.), The Partition and the Chakmas and Other Writings of Sneha Kumar Chakma (Agartola: Pothi.com, 2013). The author has obtained a copy of the publication.
29 Reports of the Bengal Boundary Commission and Punjab Boundary Commission Radcliffe Awards, Ministry of Culture, the Government of India; available at: https://indianculture.gov.in/reports-proceedings/reports-bengal-boundary-commission-and-punjab-boundary-commission-radcliffe, [accessed 17 February 2025]. This argument is controversial because the northeast Indian states, particularly adjacent Mizoram and Tripura, should similarly have been awarded to Pakistan on the ground of proximity and economic closeness.
30 Siddartha Chakma, Prasanga: Parbatya Chattagram (Issue: The Chittagong Hill Tracts) (Calcutta: Nath Brothers, 1986).
31 Chakma, The Partition.
32 On this point, see Chakma, Prasanga.
33 al-Ahsan and Chakma, ‘Problems of National Integration in Bangladesh’.
34 In the first constitution of Pakistan in 1956, the CHT was made an ‘excluded area’ and restrictions were imposed on land ownership by outsiders. The 1962 Pakistan Constitution declared the CHT as a ‘tribal area’, thus maintaining restrictions on the settlement of outsiders. The National Assembly then removed the status of ‘tribal area’ in 1964 thus opening up the CHT for settlement by non-hill people. See Rajkumari Chandra Kalindi Roy, Land Rights of the Indigenous Peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh. IWGIA Document no. 99 (Copenhagen: IWGIA, 2000), pp. 46–47.
35 Syed Nazmul Islam, ‘The Karnafuli Project: Its Impact on the Tribal Population’, Public Administration (Chittagong University), vol. 3, no. 2, 1978.
36 M. Emran Ali and Toshiuki Tsuchiya, ‘Land Rights of the Indigenous People of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh’, Fourth World Journal, vol. 5, no. 1, 2002.
37 Face to face interview with S. S. Chakma, a retired administrative official in both the Pakistan and Bangladesh governments, who was brought to the CHT from Gaibandha to calm the situation, 25 July 2022, Dhaka.
38 Samari Chakma, Kaptai Baadh: Bor Porang (Kaptai Dam: Big Migration) (Khagrachari: Comrade Rupak Chakma Memorial Trust, 2018); Anindita Ghosal, ‘Between Legality and Illegality Citizenship and the Chakmas in North-East India’, in Citizenship in Contemporary Times, (ed.) Gorky Chakraborty (New Delhi: Routledge India, 2023), pp. 260–277.
39 On this, see Rounaq Jahan, Pakistan: Failure of National Integration (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971); Talukdar Maniruzzaman, The Bangladesh Revolution and Its Aftermath (Dhaka: The University Press Ltd., 1980); Robert Jackson, South Asian Crisis: India-Pakistan-Bangladesh (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1975).
40 It is estimated that ten million Bengalis took refuge in India. See Maniruzzaman, The Bangladesh Revolution.
41 S. Kamaluddin, ‘A Tangled Web of Insurgency’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 23–29 May 1980.
42 There is no exact data on Bengali settlement in the CHT in the immediate aftermath of the Bangladesh war. This figure is based on an interview with S. S. Chakma on 25 July 2022.
43 Parliament Debates 1972 (Dacca: Government of Bangladesh, 1972), p. 20.
44 Mangal Kumar Chakma (ed.), Life and Struggle of Manabendra Narayan Larma (in Bengali) (Rangamati: MN Larma Memorial Foundation, 2009), pp. 152–153.
45 Government of Bangladesh, National Assembly Debates (Dacca: Government of Bangladesh, 1972), p. 5.
46 Bangladesh is a multi-ethnic state. The 2022 Bangladesh population Census shows that there are 50 minority ethnicities in the country. At the time of the adoption of the constitution in 1972, the CHT was an overwhelmingly indigenous populated region.
47 Rafiqul Islam, ‘The Bengali Language Movement and the Emergence of Bangladesh’, Contributions of Asian Studies, vol. 11, 1978, pp. 142–152.
48 Amena Mohsin, The Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh: On the Difficult Road to Peace (New York: Lynne Rienner, 2003).
49 Ridwanul Hoque, ‘Inclusive Constitutionalism and the Indigenous People of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh’, in The Indian Yearbook of Comparative Law 2016, (ed.) M. P. Singh (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 217–248.
50 al-Ahsan and Chakma, ‘Problems of National Integration in Bangladesh, p. 963; Amena Mohsin, The Politics of Nationalism: The Case of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh (Dhaka: University Press Ltd., 1999).
51 al-Ahsan and Chakma, ‘Problems of National Integration in Bangladesh’.
52 Ibid., p. 967.
53 Willem van Schendel, ‘The Invention of the “Jummas”: State Formation and Ethnicity in Southeastern Bangladesh’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 26, no. 1, 1992, p. 117, n. 80; doi:10.1017/S0026749X00015961.
54 Interview with a Pahari student leader of that time who was closely associated with the drafting of the 15 demands, 10 September 2023, online. The interviewee now lives in exile and wanted to remain anonymous.
55 The name ‘Jana Samhati Samity’ or JSS came from the defunct political organization, the ‘Jana Samity’, which opposed the inclusion of the CHT in Pakistan in 1947, led by Sneha Kumar Chakma and Ghana Shyam Chakma who subsequently migrated to India. The inclusion of the word ‘Samhati’ (unity) was proposed by the then student leader referred to earlier in a speech given at a gathering held at Indoropilly Cinema Hall in Rangamati where representatives from all parts of the CHT assembled. The reason for including the word ‘Samhati’ was to unify all 11 ethno-national groups of the CHT.
56 The name SB was popularized by the general public because the SB members were protecting them from the armed gangs that sprang up in the wake of the 1971 secessionist war. Interview with the student leader noted above.
57 Chakma, Life and Struggle of Manabendra Narayan Larma, pp. 152–153.
58 Mohsin, The Politics of Nationalism.
59 al-Ahsan and Chakma, ‘Problems of National Integration in Bangladesh’, p. 968.
60 In that military coup, Prime Minister Mujibar Rahman was killed, along with most of his family members except for two daughters who were overseas at the time.
61 On India’s policy towards the CHT insurgency, see Subir Bhaumik, Meghna Guhathakurtha and S. B. R. Chaudhury (eds), Living on the Edge: Essays on the Chittagong Hill Tracts (Kolkata: Calcutta Research Group 1997).
62 Mark Levene, ‘The Chittagong Hill Tracts: A Case Study in the Political Economy of “Creeping” Genocide’, Third World Quarterly, vol. 20, no. 2, 1999, p. 354.
63 B. P. Barua, Ethnicity and National Integration in Bangladesh: A Study of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (New Delhi: Har-Anand, 2001), p. 70.
64 Bhumitra Chakma, ‘The CHT and the Peace Process’, in Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Bangladesh, (eds) Ali Riaz and M. Sajjadur Rahman (New York: Routledge, 2016).
65 Mohsin, The Politics of Nationalism.
66 The CHTDB was established with assistance from the Asian Development Bank and other donor countries.
67 Muhammad Ala Uddin, ‘Displacement and Destruction of Ethnic People in Bangladesh’, Canadian Social Science, vol. 4, no. 6, December 2008, p. 21; also see The CHT Commission, ‘Life is Not Ours: Land and Human Rights in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh’, The Report of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission, May 1991, p. 39.
68 al Ahsan and Chakma, ‘Problems of National Integration in Bangladesh’.
69 Rafiqul Islam, Susanne Schech and Udoy Saikia, ‘Climate Change Events in the Bengali Migration to the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in Bangladesh’, Climate and Development, vol. 13, no. 5, 2020, pp. 375–385.
70 Julian Berger and Alan Whittaker, The Chittagong Hill Tracts: Militarization, Oppression and the Hill Tribes (London: The Anti-Slavery Society, 1984), pp. 71–73.
71 Chittagong district’s former deputy commissioner has provided an inside account of the Bengali resettlement programme, which he opposed due to his concern that it would have a serious impact on the Pahari people. See Ziauddin Chowdhury, ‘Broken Promises’, Forum: A Monthly Publication of The Daily Star, vol. 3, issue 4, April 2010.
72 The CHT Commission, ‘Life is Not Ours’, p. 26.
73 Chowdhury, ‘Broken Promises’.
74 Bhumitra Chakma, ‘Bound to Fail? The 1997 Chittagong Hill Tracts “Peace Accord”’, in The Politics of Peace: The Case of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh, (ed.) Nasir Uddin (Dhaka: Institute of Culture and Development Research, 2012), pp. 121–142; Mohsin, The Politics of Nationalism.
75 Shapan Adnan and Ranajit Dastidar, Alienation of the Lands of the Indigenous Peoples in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh (Dhaka: The Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission, 2011).
76 Uddin, ‘Displacement and Destruction’, p. 21. For further details on this issue, see Amnesty International, Bangladesh: Pushed to the Edge. Indigenous Rights Denied in the Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts (London: Amnesty International, 2013).
77 It is also important to take into consideration the consequences of the construction of the Kaptai Dam in the 1960s outlined above. See Islam, ‘The Karnafuli Project’. The Pakistan government could not resettle the displaced Paharis due to the scarcity of cultivable lands.
78 Raja Devasish Roy, ‘Chittagong Hill Tracts: Land Crisis, Economic Drawback, Settlement Problem’, The Chakma Voice, Quarterly News Bulletin of the World Chakma Organisation, Bizu edition, Calcutta, April 1995, p. 8. Also see S. S. Chakma, ‘Can Chittagong Hill Tracts Accommodate More People?’, in On the Margin: Refugees, Migrants and Minorities, (ed.) C. R. Abrar (Dhaka: Refugees and Migratory Movements Research Unit, 2000), pp. 185–189.
79 The CHT Commission, ‘Life is not Ours’, and various updates; Adnan and Dastidar, Alienation of the Lands of the Indigenous Peoples; Raja Devasish Roy, ‘The Population Transfer Programme of 1980s and the Land Rights of the Indigenous Peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts’, in Living on the Edge, (eds) Bhaumik, Guhathakurtha and Chaudhury, pp. 167–208; Chakma, ‘Bound to Fail?’; Adnan, Migration.
80 Of many such incidents, the arson attacks on Pahari villages in the Baghaichari area of Khagrachari by settlers with support from security forces in February 2010 are noteworthy. The Pahari villagers fled to forests to save themselves after the attacks. When they returned later on, in most cases they did not get back their homesteads and lands because they had already been occupied by the settlers. The key objective of these arson attacks was to usurp the lands of the Paharis. For details, see Bhumitra Chakma, ‘Structural Roots of Violence in the Chittagong Hill Tracts’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. XLV, no. 12, 20 March 2010, pp. 19–21.
81 While no exact figures exist on internally displaced people, the number is estimated to be roughly 100,000.
82 About 70,000 Paharis fled to India in the 1980s. For details on Pahari refugees in India, see P. K. Debbarma and S. J. George (eds), The Chakma Refugees in Tripura (New Delhi: South Asian Publishers, 1993).
83 A Task Force on Rehabilitation of Returnee Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons was created after the 1997 accord. A 20-point aid package was agreed by the Bangladesh government in 1997 to provide food assistance, house-building funds, and livestock to returning refugees. While Pahari refugees received food assistance in the initial years, they did not get back their land and houses because they were occupied by settlers. Also, the land restitution programme was not implemented. See Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, ‘Refugees: Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace (CHT)’, University of Notre Dame, 2020; available at: https://peaceaccords.nd.edu/provision/refugees-chittagong-hill-tracts-peace-accord-cht, [accessed on 17 February 2025]); also see Adnan and Dastidar, Alienation of the Lands of the Indigenous Peoples. For a detailed discussion on internally displaced people in the CHT, see Mongsanu Chowdhury, Parbattya Bhumi Sahayika: Parbattya Chattogramer Bon O Bhumi Adhikar, Ijara ebong abbhontarin udbasta samassha (in Bengali; Compendium on Hill Lands: Lease, Forest and Land Rights in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, and Internally Displaced Problem) (Rangamati: Association for Land Reform and Development, 2021).
84 Bhumitra Chakma, ‘Indigeneity and Security: The Case of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh’, in Security Studies: Critical Perspectives, (eds) Xavier Guillaume and Kyle Grayson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024). Also see José R. Martinez Cobo (Special Rapporteur), ‘Study of the Problem of Discrimination against Indigenous Populations’, vol. V, 1986 (UN Doc e/cn.4/sub.2/1986/7/add.4, 1986), para. 379.
85 Major-General Mohammed Abul Manzur said this on 26 March 1977 at a public meeting, quoted in Mohsin, The Politics of Nationalism, p. 111.
86 Amnesty International, Bangladesh; The CHT Commission, ‘Life is Not Ours’.
87 Amnesty International, Bangladesh; The CHT Commission, ‘Life is Not Ours’; Saleem Samad, ‘What is Happening in the Chittagong Hill Tracts?’ (in Bengali), Robbar (A weekly magazine in Bengali), 22 June 1980. For a graphic description of the massacre, see Hayat Hussain, ‘Problem of National Integration in Bangladesh’, in Bangladesh: History and Culture, Vol. 1, (eds) S. R. Chakravarty and Virendra Narain (New Delhi: South Asia Publishers, 1986). The Bangladesh government did not carry out any investigation of the massacre, but a fact-finding mission by three opposition parliament members independently carried out an investigation and asked the government to conduct a full judicial enquiry into the incident. The author has obtained the press release of the mission.
88 Levene, ‘The Chittagong Hill Tracts’, p. 359. Also see Jenneke Arens, ‘Genocide in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh’, in Genocide of Indigenous Peoples, (eds) Samuel Totten and Robert K. Hitchcock (New York: Routledge, 2011).
89 Mohsin, The Politics of Nationalism, p. 179.
90 Saleem Samad’s report in the Dhaka Courier, 8 July 1994.
91 Mohsin, The Politics of Nationalism, p. 179.
92 Al Rabita has its offices in Rangamati and Longudu. It runs two hospitals in Barkal and Alikadam. It has also established an Islamic missionary centre in Alikadam.
93 This information was obtained during field research.
94 Mohsin, The Politics of Nationalism.
95 Notes from fieldwork interviews in 2022 and 2023; Muhammad Ala Uddin, ‘Continuing Conflict—Critical Transition to Peace in the Post-Conflict Southeastern Bangladesh’, Anthropos, vol. 112, issue 1, 2017, pp. 63–74; Rafiqul Islam, Susanne Schech and Udoy Saikia, ‘Violent Peace: Community Relations in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in Bangladesh after the Peace Accord’, Conflict, Security and Development, vol. 22, no. 3, 2022, pp. 271–295; Istiaq Jamil and Pranab Kumar Panday, ‘The Elusive Peace Accord in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh and the Plight of the Indigenous People’, Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, vol. 46, no. 4, 2008, pp. 464–489; Editorial, ‘CHT Accord Implementation Still Incomplete: How Much Longer Must the People of CHT Wait?’, The Daily Star, 1 December 2022; Chakma, ‘The CHT and the Peace Process’; Chakma, ‘Bound to Fail?’; Mohsin, The Chittagong Hill Tracts.
96 Amnesty International, Bangladesh; Adnan and Dastidar, Alienation of the Lands of the Indigenous Peoples; Bhumitra Chakma, ‘Demographic Engineering: Muslim Bengali Settlement in the Adibashi Lands of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh’, paper presented at the European Conference on South Asian Studies, Turin, Italy, 26–29 July 2023; Islam, Susanne and Saikia, ‘Violent Peace’.
97 Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, ‘Peace Accords Matrix: Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord’, University of Notre Dame, 2022.
98 UNB, ‘Incomplete Implementation of CHT Accord has Grave Impacts: UN’, The Business Post, 3 December 2022; available at: https://businesspostbd.com/national/incomplete-implementation-of-cht-accord-has-grave-impacts-un, [accessed 17 February 2025]; Editorial, ‘CHT Accord Implementation Still Incomplete’; Chakma, ‘The CHT and the Peace Process’; Bushra Hasina Chowdhury, ‘Building Lasting Peace: Issues of the Implementation of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord’, unpublished manuscript for the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2002.
99 These are the frequently cited issues on the CHT problem which I gathered during my field research in July 2022 and February–March 2023.
100 The mechanism has yet to be put into practice and no land dispute has yet been resolved. For an analysis of this issue, see Hana Shams Ahmed, ‘CHT Land Commission Work, and the Power Struggles, Contradictions, and Tensions Around It’, The Daily Star, 10 August 2022; Pranab Kumar Bal, ‘Tin Parbatya Jelai Bhumi Birodh’ (in Bengali) (Land Disputes in the Three Hill Districts), Prothom Alo, 8 September 2022.
101 It is likely that there was possibly an unwritten understanding between the two parties on the repatriation of Bengali settlers. Arguably, the PCJSS leaders would not have agreed to sign the 1997 accord without addressing this issue because of its importance to them. Indeed, it was one of their core demands when the negotiations began. However, the government side convinced them to sign the accord, arguing that if the repatriation of the Bengali settlers was put in the accord, the government would not be able to make it acceptable to the public. According to the Peace Campaign Group, the government representatives argued to keep the issue of settler repatriation out of the written agreement by saying that ‘[T]he domestic constituency does not allow the simple majority Awami League Government to openly address the issue in the agreement … because once the issue is addressed in the agreement, the opposition parties, particularly the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), will come out in the streets with mass agitation that can even raise the question of survival of the government in power. In that situation, the possibility of an agreement between the two sides will be jeopardized. Of course, the Government understands and supports the concerns of the JSS over the issue and can include some provisions in the agreement for the gradual removal of the settlers from the CHT.’ Quoted in Raja Devasish Roy, ‘The Discordant Accord: Challenges Towards the Implementation of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord of 1997’, Journal of Social Studies, no. 100 (April–June 2003), p. 30, n. 23.
102 Chakma, ‘Bound to Fail?’.
103 Mohsin, The Chittagong Hill Tracts.
104 The interviewee wanted to remain anonymous.
105 Mokammel Shuvo, ‘CHT Peace Accord: 25 Years On, Full Implementation Still Elusive’, The Daily Star, 2 December 2022.
106 UNB, ‘Incomplete implementation of CHT accord has grave impacts: UN’.
107 UNPFII (The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues), Economic and Social Council, ‘Study on the Status of Implementation of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord of 1997’, Tenth Session (E/C.19/2011/6), 18 February 2011, p. 16.
108 Field research in 2022 and 2023; Zarif Faiaz, ‘Attacks, Land Grabs Leave Bangladesh’s Indigenous Groups on Edge’, Al-Jazeera, 30 July 2021; available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/30/bangladesh-indigenous-groups-chakma-khasi-santal-land-grab, [accessed 18 February 2024].
109 Chowdhury, ‘Building Lasting Peace’.
110 This point is eloquently explained by Chakma Circle Chief Raja Devasish Roy in an interview with Bengali daily Prothom Alo. See Partha Shankar Saha, ‘Bishesh Sakkhatkar: Parbattyabashi mone kore shekhane sangghat ghotte deya hochse’ (in Bengali; Special Interview with Raja Devasish Roy: Hill People Think Conflicts are Allowed to Happen There), Prothom Alo, 29 September 2024.
111 Chakma, ‘The CHT and the Peace Process’.
112 Adnan and Dastidar, Alienation of the Lands of the Indigenous Peoples.
113 Chakma, ‘Indigeneity and Security’.
114 Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, ‘Peace Accords Matrix’.
115 The author observed it first hand during field research.
116 Islam, Schech and Saikia, ‘Violent Peace’.
117 The JSS fears that such projects would have a similar devastating impact on the Paharis as that of the Kaptai Dam project and facilitate Bengali migration in the CHT. The author has obtained a circular from the JSS in this regard.
118 Kohinur Khyum Tithila, ‘Rights Activists: Luxury Hotel Project in Bandarban Unjust and Illegal’, Dhaka Tribune, 12 December 2020.
119 Barkat, ‘Political Economy’.
120 Obayedul Hoque Patwary, ‘The Dynamics of Conflict in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh in the Post Peace Accord Period’, Social Alternatives, vol. 42, no. 1, 2023, pp. 40–45; Matthew Wilkinson, ‘Negotiating with the Other: Centre-periphery Perceptions, Peacemaking Policies and Pervasive Conflict in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh’, International Review of Social Research, vol. 5, no. 3, 2015, pp. 179–190.
121 Ibid., p. 42.
122 Shudeepto Ariquzzaman, ‘Turf War in the Hills’, The Star (magazine of the English daily The Daily Star), vol. 10, issue 5, 4 February 2011; available at: https://www.thedailystar.net/magazine/2011/02/01/law.htm, [accessed 18 February 2024].
123 Partha Shankar Saha, ‘Who are Behind the KNF, What’s Behind the Recent Attacks?’, Prothom Alo, 6 April 2024.
124 In an interview, Chakma Circle Chief Raja Devasish Roy has indicated that someone has propped up various Pahari groups, without naming any entity. By this, he actually meant the Bangladesh Army and intelligence agencies. See Saha, ‘Bishesh Sakkhatkar’. This is consistent with my fieldwork notes. During my field trip, in interviews, several members of the civil society in Khagrachari (who wished to remain anonymous for their personal safety) cited in particular the example of the splitting of the UPDF and the rise of the UPDF (Democratic) which was instigated by the military intelligence agencies.
125 Mangal Kumar Chakma, ‘Why Conflictual Situation Persists in the CHT’, Prothom Alo, 2 December 2021.
126 This information is based on fieldwork.
127 S. S. Chakma, Ethnic Cleansing in Chittagong Hill Tracts (Dhaka: Ankur Prakashani, 2006).
128 I met a Pahari during field trip who said that he possessed a piece of land but could not cultivate it because it was surrounded by settlers. A settler family has taken it over for cultivation. I also encountered cases where Pahari owners had to sell their land for security reason as it was close to settler villages.
129 Although there is no data on this migration, it is estimated that 5–10,000 Pahari families have started the process of moving to India. I met people during my fieldwork who have already taken Indian identity cards (Aadhar card) and in some cases their children are studying in the Tripura state of India.
130 Bhumitra Chakma, ‘The Post-colonial State and Minorities: Ethnocide in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh’, Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, vol. 48, no. 3, 2010, pp. 281–300; https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2010.489746.
131 Munasir Kamal and Mesbah Kamal, ‘Historicizing Kaptai Dam, Collective Trauma, and Political Awakening in the Chittagong Hill Tracts’, The Bangladesh Environmental Humanities Reader: Environmental Justice, Development Victimhood, and Resistance (Environment and Society), (eds) Samina Luthfa, Mohammad Tanzimuddin Khan and Munasir Kamal (New York: Lexington Books, 2022), p. 186.
132 This information was obtained during fieldwork interviews.
133 S. Basu Das, ‘Indigenous Children are at Risk of Forced Religious Conversion’, Dhaka Tribune, 4 January 2017.
134 ‘Conversion of Jumma People to Islam in CHT’ (special report), Hill Voice, 14 June 2020; available at: https://jummaland.news.blog/2020/06/14/conversion-of-jumma-people-to-islam-in-cht/, [accessed 18 February 2025].
135 For a discussion on this point in the context of the CHT, see Barkat, Political Economy.
136 This is because Tripuras, a Pahari community, belong to the Hindu faith which mixes them up with Bengali Hindus. Similarly, the Baruas are ethnically Bengali but religiously Buddhist. They distort Pahari and Bengali population categories.
137 Ministry of Planning, Government of Bangladesh, ‘Population and Housing Census 2022 Preliminary Report’; available at: https://sid.portal.gov.bd/sites/default/files/files/sid.portal.gov.bd/publications/01ad1ffe_cfef_4811_af97_594b6c64d7c3/PHC_Preliminary_Report_(English)_August_2022.pdf, [accessed 18 February 2024).
138 Several interviewees said that Bengalis constitute 65–70 per cent of the CHT population.
139 Bangladesh was dependent on foreign aid in the first few decades of statehood. For a discussion on foreign aid, see Rehman Sobhan, The Crisis of External Dependence: The Political Economy of Foreign Aid to Bangladesh (Dacca: The University Press Limited, 1982).
140 ‘Army Chief Visits CHT Border Road Project’, New Age, 22 August 2022.