Plight Of Adivasis Due To Chauvinistic Mindset Of Bangladeshis ..... ..... Re: India hindoo Human Abuse Report - Part 4

On May 11, 9:32 pm, "VognoDuut2024" <zilm...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
India hindoo Human Abuse Report - Part 4


Plight Of Adivasis In Bangladesh ..... .....

http://www.newagebd.com/2007/apr/05/nat.html#2

New Age, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Thursday, April 5, 2007

Chauvinistic mindset of Bengalis responsible for Adivasis' suffering

The indigenous people throughout Bangladesh - be it in the northern
districts, in Madhupur Garh of Garo Hills, Khasia Punji of Sylhet or
in the Chittagong Hill Tracts - are in a sorry state.

The successive governments' indifference and negligence rather
intensified the miseries of the ethnic minorities who are being
marginalised every day.

The statements were made by a group of speakers at seminar styled
'Bipanna Bhumija' (Endangered Sons of Soil) on the dispossessed
Adivasis. The discussion was followed by the screening of a
documentary film - Bipanna Bhumija'. The director of the film, Mamunur
Rashid, answered queries of the audience at the end of the
discussion.

The conference on ethnic diversity and First Adivasi Theatre
Festival observance committee held the seminar on 'Endangered Sons of
Soil' in the Liberation War Museum.

Former diplomat and military officer Amin Ahmed Chowdhury,
Professor Syed Manzurul Islam and Ajay A Mri participated in the
discussion chaired by Sanjeeb Drong and moderated by New Age editor,
Nurul Kabir.

Amin Ahmed Chowdhury said that the time has come for a synchronised
effort by the Adivasis and the Bengalis to obliterate the
discrimination against indigenous people.

He said that liberation did not benefit the ethnic minorities as
the political leaders who led the country after the liberation war had
a pre-conceived notion that these people might not think themselves to
be an integral part of the new state, and tried to impose the Bengali
culture on them.

Sanjib Drong, who presided over the session, said the lands, which
the ethnic minority communities have been using for centuries without
any documents, are either being acquired by the governments or
encroached on by Bengalis with the blessings of influential persons in
the government.

Writer and teacher Syed Manzurul Islam said the indigenous people
suffer from a 'double subaltern' status - they are victims of class
exploitation on the one hand and oppression of the dominant Bengali
ethnic group on the other.

He suggested the formation of a land commission to recover the
grabbed lands of the indigenous people, cancellation of the eco-park
projects and implementation of the CHT peace accord to improve the
situation of the Adivasis.

Ajay A Mri said the present government had initiated talks with the
indigenous people on their land rights, and right when the movement
took shape an Adivasi activist, Chalesh Richil, was killed in army
custody. 'Whenever such movements were initiated, barriers were built
up. I do not know whether they were coincidental or planned by an evil
axis in the administration.'

Nurul Kabir said it was the dominating and chauvinistic attitude of
the Bengali political elite that stood in the ways of the political,
economic and cultural emancipations of the country's ethnic minority
communities.

'Despite gaining independence twice, in 1947 and 1971, the people
belonging to minority nationalities remain suppressed', said the New
Age editor. 'Their rights would not be realised without any
synchronised political movement, while the active support of the
democratic sections of the Bengalis will be required for the success
of the movement.'

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