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Brief
History of the Chittagong Hill Tracts
The
Chittagong Hill Tracts, situated in the southeastern corner
of Bangladesh, is a home to a number of ethnic minorities
such as Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Chak, Bawm, Murang, Panku
etc. They are collectively known as Jumma people. For the
last three decades or so they have been waging a fierce struggle
for their right to self-determination.
For
those who are not so familiar with the Chittagong Hill Tracts
and its ongoing resistance, a brief historical background
of the region would not be out of place.
a.
During British Colonial Period
The Chittagong Hill Tracts, prior to the advent of British
rule, was an independent state free from outside control.
In the precolonial period, the Chittagong Hill Tracts had
not been part of any state, although they had long been influenced
by waxing and waning of power centres in Tripura (to the north),
Arakan (to the south) and Bengal (to the west).1
The powerful Mugal rulers tried unsuccessfully to bring the
CHT into its full suzerainty, but they had to be content with
a kind of trade relation, which was beneficial for both the
CHT and the Mugal rulers. According to an agreement reached
between them, the CHT Rajas (chiefs) used to pay some sort
of a trade tax in kind (Karpas or cotton) to the Mugals in
exchange for trade facilities along the border areas of Chittagong,
a part of greater Bengal. Because of this trade tax in cotton
the Chittagong Hill Tracts came to be known as the Karpas
Mahal or Land of Cotton during Mugal era.
The
British annexed the Chittagong Hill Tracts in 1860, more than
a century after the battle of Palashy (in 1757) in which the
Nawab of Bengal Siraj Uddollah was defeated in the hands of
the British forces. During the early periods of its rule,
the British refrained from interfering with the internal affairs
of the CHT and though administered from Calcutta, the CHT
was not a regular part of Bengal. Its administrative system,
land rights, and closure to outside settlers all set it apart
from the rest of Bengal. This status was reconfirmed in the
1930s when the region was declared an excluded area under
the Government of India Act2.
Later the British enacted a legal instrument the Chittagong
Hill Tracts Regulation of 1900, also known as CHT Manual,
for the general administration of the area. Through this Regulation
the British allowed the Jumma people to enjoy a limited measure
of autonomy and banned permanent settlement of the outsiders.
b.
Pakistan Period
In 1947 when the Indian subcontinent was de-colonized the
Chittagong Hill Tracts was awarded to Pakistan. The Pakistani
government viewed the Jumma people with suspicion and took
measures to do away with the legal safeguards granted by the
British. Outsiders were encouraged to settle in the CHT. In
1960s a dam was built over Karnaphuli river at a place called
Kapati without any kind of prior consultation with the Jumma
people. The dam, which had far-reaching socio-economic and
political consequences for the CHT, submerged 54 thousand
acres of first class arable land and evicted 100,000 Jumma
people from their homestead.
c.
Bangladesh Period
In 1971 after nine months of bloody war against the Pakistani
occupation forces Bangladesh came into being. The Chittagong
Hill Tracts being a part of the then East Pakistan now became
a part of the new state. The first blow to the Jumma people
came from the new state when it tried to impose ultra-Bengali
nationalism on them. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first Prime
Minister, ordered the Jumma people to forget their own national
identities and become Bengalees. After his assassination in
a coup de tat the military dictators embarked on
a massive militarization programme, did away with protective
provisions of the CHT Regulation and encouraged and sponsored
settlement of outsiders in the CHT. Human rights violations
in the form of political repression, ethnic cleansing, genocide,
rape, arson, eviction, land grabbing continued unabated.
The
Jumma people reacted sharply to these undemocratic and repressive
measures of the successive governments of Bangladesh and resistant
movement developed in the form of an armed struggle.
The
JSS and its armed struggle
At the beginning, the people of the Chittagong Hill
Tracts organised themselves under a political party - the Jana Samhati Samiti or JSS, which was founded in
1972. A year later its armed wing Shanti Bahini was formed.
The party went underground in 1975 following the killing of
Sheikh Muzibur Rahman, the then President of Bangladesh, in
a bloody military coup that ousted the Awami League from power.
The JSS started armed struggle in 1976 and established a semblance
of parallel civil administration throughout the CHT. The party
faced a major setback in 1983 when it split into two factions
- Lamba (long) and Badi (short) - over the
party's strategic and tactical questions. The Lamba
faction led by the Larma brothers sought to achieve the right
to self-determination through a protracted guerilla war. On
the other hand, the Badi faction led by Priti Kumar
Chakma and Bhabatosh Dewan opposed this line and advocated
that the party should sever the CHT from Bangladesh with the
support of the Indian government. The conflict between the
two opposing factions led to a bloody civil war that claimed
many lives in their primes including party's founding president
M.N. Larma. The civil war ended in 1985 with the surrender
of Badi faction to the government of Bangladesh.
This helped the Lamba faction to become the sole
guerilla group with control over the whole of the CHT. But
in spite of that the civil war greatly weakened the JSS as
a party, which was much evident by the fact that the party
failed to achieve any tangible success during the post-civil
war period.
Formation
of overground Jumma organisations
Another failure of the JSS was its inability to realise
the importance of the overground political activities in the
context of the CHT politics. This resulted in the winding
up of all activities of their student body - the Pahari
Chattra Samiti (Hill Students Organisation). Later, almost
all its members were inducted into the Shanti Bahini,
the armed guerrilla wing of the JSS. Thus JSS' initiation
of armed struggle created a vacuum in the overground political
stage, which was largely filled up by reactionary elements
with the support of the government and the army. This is the
primary reason why it took long two decades to organise the
Jumma students in a new platform called Hill Student's Council.
This student body and two other overground Jumma organisations
namely Hill Women's Federation and Hill People's Council were
founded in the late 1980s.
The
formation of the Hill Student's Council (Pahari Chattra Parishad,
PCP, in Bangla) marked the beginning of a new era in the struggle
of the Jumma people. Born out of student protests against
the Longudu massacre in 1989, the PCP soon became the symbol
of democratic resistance to the oppressive rule of the government
in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
The
CHT Accord of 1997
Following a protracted negotiation the Jana Samhati
Samiti struck a deal with the Awami League government on 2
December 1997. Pursuant to the said deal, which came to be
known as the CHT Accord, the Jana Samhati Samiti and its armed
members gave up arms and surrendered to the Bangladesh Army
in phases beginning from 10 February 1998. The accord is nothing
but an instrument of surrender on the part of the JSS and
has failed to fulfill any of the major demands of the CHT
people. The above mentioned three overground democratic organisations
of the CHT people expressed strong reservations about the
accord and vowed to carry on the struggle of the CHT masses.
As a mark of protest, they burned down copies of the accord
in Dhaka, hoisted black flags and showed banners reading "No
Full Autonomy, No Rest" during surrendering ceremony
at Khagrachari Stadium.
Founding
of a new political party
In December 1998 the three organisations - Pahari
Chattra Parishad, Pahari Gano Parishad and Hill Women's Federation - met in a joint conference in Dhaka and founded a new
political party "United Peoples Democratic Front
or UPDF" on 26 December. A central convening
committee headed by Prasit Bikash Khisah was formed
to organise the progressive forces of the CHT people. The
three organisaitons now became front organisations of the
new party.
Present
political situation in the CHT
Within one year of the signing of the Accord the
euphoria, generated by electronic and print media of the country,
subsided and the grim reality came to the light. The more
time passed the more people disillusioned with the accord.
Until now the accord remains largely unimplemented and there
is no sign that the government of the BNP-led four party alliance
would implement it. [While in opposition, they opposed the
accord and demanded its annulment.] Meanwhile, JSS president
Santu Larma, one of the signatories to the accord, let out
his deep frustration over the non-implementation of the accord
and said he has committed a grave mistake by signing the accord.
Nonetheless, he and his lieutenants continue to occupy the
Regional Council and enjoy the perks and privileges provided
by the government.
As
the accord failed to bring even a semblance of peace in the
Chittagong Hill Tracts, growing number of people began to
look up to, and rally behind, UPDF as the new leader of the
struggle. The fight for the right to self-determination goes
on.
-----------------------
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Banglapedia, National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh, Asiatic
Society of Bangladesh, Volume 2. p. 406
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ibid
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