The Bengali Muslim Settlers are land less Bengali speaking Muslims from
the plain land districts of Bangladesh, majority are from Chittagong, Noakhali,
Comilla, and Sylhet districts. The Bangladesh Government and the Military lured
the poor Bengali Muslim families with money and promise of empty land in the
Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT).
1. ABOLITION OF
CHITTAGONG HILL TRACTS ACT 1900
The abolition of special status in 1964
opened up the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) to outsiders. Bengali Muslim
families started settling there in numbers large enough to alarm the Jummas,
who felt that it was official government policy to outnumber them on their own
land.
Grounds for this fear could be seen in
the industries like Kaptai hydroelectric power station, Chandraghona paper mill
whose founding in the CHT coincided with the influx of Bengali Muslims who were
given preferential employment.
2. SECRET MEETING
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| Bangladeshi President Zillur Rahman (1929-2013) |
A sum of Taka 60 million was allocated
to the scheme, but the budget heading under which this state money was provided
was not disclosed. As a result of the meeting, implementation committees, made
up of government officers and leading Bangladeshi settlers, were formed at
district and sub divisional levels.
The district commissioner headed the
district committee and sub divisional officers the sub divisional committees.
The committees appointed agents from among the Bangladeshi settlers and
assigned them to contact land less Bangladeshis willing to settle in the CHT.
These were not hard to find and from
February 1980 truckloads of poor Bangladeshi families poured into the CHT
attracted by the government scheme to provide five acres of land, Taka 3,600 to
each new settler family. According to USAID in July 1980, the government
decided to resettle 100,000 Bangladeshis from the plains in the CHT in the
first phase of this scheme.
3. GOVERNMENT
SPONSORED MIGRATION
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| Rioting Bengali-Muslim settlers. |
Myani valley in the northern part of
the CHT contains 40,000 indigenous people and about 10,000 Bangladeshis, a
large number of whom arrived in the valley in 1980. In Chengi valley the
Bangladeshi settlements received 1,500 families between 1978 and 1980.
By the same date there were 1,000
Bangladeshi families at Kaptai and 5,000 families in Rangamati sub-division of
which 3,500 families alone settled at Kalampati. In the southern part of the
CHT, the Lama thana had about 3,000 Bangladeshi families and even more were
settled at Nakyangchari.
In Rangamati town, in 1980, the Jummas
were accounted for about 30 per cent of the population. The Bangladesh
Government initially denied its settlement program, however in May 1980 the
government confirmed its policy towards the Chittagong Hill Tracts and started
actively to encourage settlers to move there.
A secret memorandum from the
commissioner of the Chittagong Division to government officials in other
districts stated that it was "the desire of the government that the
concerned deputy commissioners will give top priority to this work and make the
program a success".
During 1980 some 25,000 Bangladeshi
families were settled in the CHT. At the same time thousands of Jumma families,
dispossessed by the Kaptai dam project in the early 1960s, were still
attempting to get some kind of monetary or land compensation.
Under the second phase of the plan each
land less settler family received five acres of hill land or four acres of
mixed land or 2.5 acres of wet rice land. They also received two initial grants
of Taka 700 altogether, followed by Taka 200 per month for five months and 24
lb. of wheat per week for six months.
In July 1982 a third phase of
Bangladeshi settlement was authorized under which a further 250,000
Bangladeshis were transferred to the area.
4. DISPOSSESSION OF
JUMMA LAND
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| Scenic Buddhist land of ugly Islamic Bangladesh. |
One excuse often given for allowing or
encouraging this immigration is the relatively low population density in the
CHT. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) had noted
that "the Chittagong Hill Tracts are
relatively less crowded than the plains of Bangladesh. Because of this
difference in population densities, there has for some time been a migration
from the crowded plains to the hills".
In 1967, a study commissioned by Dhaka,
however concluded that "as far as
its developed resources are concerned, the hill tracts is as constrained as the
most thickly populated district... The emptiness of the hill tracts, therefore
is a myth". Only 5 per cent of land outside forest reserves is
suitable for intensive field cropping.
In spite of the shortage of farming
land in the tracts, the government has succeeded in attracting many thousands
of land less Bangladeshis. To be land less in Bangladesh is to be absolutely
poor and dependent. Jobs are seasonal, insecure, and pay is enough for
subsistence only.
An agricultural labourer receives about
five Takas a day when he is working and is usually unemployed for about six
months of the year. For the overwhelming majority of Bangladesh's rural
population there is little hope to escape from constant poverty.
The settlement plans offer an
opportunity which no land less or poor Bangladeshi family can ignore. The land
however unarable, and the money and food grants, however depleted by corrupt
officials, can mean survival for six months or more for poor Bangladeshi
peasants.
The Bangladeshi peasants who move to
the Chittagong Hill Tracts come principally from the plains districts of
Chittagong, Noakhali, Sylhet and Comilla, and have no experience of hill slope
cultivation. When they find they cannot make a living from the land they have
been given they encroach on Jumma owned land.
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| Illegal Bengali-Muslim settlers of Buddhist-land in Bangladesh. |
"In 1980-81 the
Bengalis moved in. The government gave them rations of rice etc. and sponsored
them. The settlers moved into the hills, then they moved the Jummas by force
with the help of the Bangladesh Army. The Deputy Commissioner would come over
and say that this place was suitable for settlers so Jumma people must move and
would receive money in compensation. But in reality they did not get money or
resettlement. In 1980 the Jumma people had to move by order of the
government".
Attacks on Jumma peoples' villages are
the most common way to evict the inhabitants from their lands. A Tripura
refugee in India from Bakmara Taindong Para near Matiranga described what
happened to his village in 1981 when the settlers moved into his village:
"Muslims from
different parts of Bangladesh were brought in by Bangladeshi authorities.
Before that our village was populated only by Chakma, Tripura and Marma. With
the assistance of the government these settlers were rehabilitated in our
village and they continued to give us troubles..they finger at the Jummas and
the army beats them and rob.
They took all the
food grain. Whenever we seek any justice from the army we don't get it. All
villagers lived under great tension due to various incidents all around. Three
days after an incident when six persons had been killed, just before getting
dark, many settlers came to our village, shouting 'Allah Akbar' (Allah
is Great). When they arrived we escaped so the settlers got the opportunity to
set fire".
A Chakma refugee in Tripura told what
happened to his village in 1986:
The following interview refers to
events which took place on 21 November 1990:
"Muslim settlers
wanted to take us villagers to a cluster village (concentration camp), but we
refused to go there. The villagers were beaten up by the Muslim settlers of
which three families managed to escape, one of which is mine.
These three families
came to Kheddarachara for 'jhum' cultivation. We stayed there for one and a
half years. The day before yesterday the Muslim settlers came to the same
village and rounded up the households. The settlers were accompanied by
Bangladeshi soldiers. I took shelter in a nearby latrine when the villagers
were rounded up.
Later I tried to
leave the latrine to go somewhere else. The village had been surrounded. As I
was trying to escape, the Muslim settlers shot me. It was a singled barreled
shot gun. The incident took place in the early morning around 6 o'clock. After
getting the bullet injury I ran away into a safe place. I don't know what
happened to the other villagers.
I ran away from the
place for about half a mile. Then I fainted and lost consciousness. Two
refugees went there to collect indigenous vegetables and brought me to the camp
about 10 o'clock. I have been twice attacked to be taken to a cluster village,
the second time I was shot."
Violence, intimidation and arson are
the main methods used by the both the Bangladesh Army and the Bangladeshi
settlers to force the hill people to leave their villages. Entire villages have
been forced to flee from their lands.
5. SETTLEMENT IS A
POLITICAL ACT
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| Beautiful Buddhist people of ugly Islamic Bangladesh. |
Indeed organizations of land less
people are often put down with the utmost brutality by hoodlums hired by local
landlords, the police, the army, or by all three. The government's power rests
with the middle and upper classes in the urban areas and with rich farmers. The
Bangladeshi poor will seize any survival chance they are presented with.
Illiterates have limited horizons and they are not fully aware that the
government's scheme to settle them in the CHT is not essentially an attempt to
improve their lot. It is a political act to nullify the question of Jumma
peoples' rights of self determination by increasing the number of Bangladeshis
in the CHT to majority.
6. SETTLERS USED AS
CANNON FODDER
The Pakistani government instituted a
settlement plan in the Feni valley bordering India because it distrusted the
Jumma people living there. Bangladeshi governments have similarly used poor
Bangladeshis against the Jumma people as cannon fodder.
There seems to be a determination to destroy Jumma society and if
necessary the Jumma people.
Illiterate Bangladeshi peasants who,
under this scheme move to the CHT, know nothing of the Jumma situation. All
they know is that the government has given them land and is prepared to assist
or at least to turn blind eye to encroachment on Jumma land.
7. GOVERNMENT'S
CONSTITUTIONAL ARGUMENT
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| Rioting Bengali-Muslims in Bangladesh. |
This argument takes little account of
the economic or political realities of the CHT, where little of the land is
suitable for farming and where the traditional owners are coerced into giving
up their property. As an example India could have used the same argument in the
Muslim majority state of Kashmir, where most of the land like the CHT is empty.
By settling people from overcrowded
part of the country to Kashmir India could have altered the demographic profile
of Kashmir from Muslim majority to Hindu majority state. But Indian
constitution forbids settlement in areas like Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh,
Mizoram etc, because of their distinct cultural, religious and ethnic
background.
8. WIDER POLITICAL
OBJECTIVE
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| Buddhist people being displaced by Bengali-Muslim Settlers. |
The Bangladeshi settlers, in
collaboration with the Bangladesh Army and Police harass the Jumma people.
Civil suits taken out by Jumma people have increased substantially but, since
the judiciary is manned mainly by the Bengali Muslim officials, they have been
unsuccessful. Resulting from this, Jumma families have been forced to leave
their homesteads and become land less.
