Will Bangladesh’s ‘second Liberation’ bring Chittagong Hill Tracts people the rights they are due?

After the fall of the government of Sheikh Hasina in August, Bangladeshis have hailed a “second liberation”, now under an interim government led by Nobel laureate professor Muhammad Yunus. However, this revolutionary moment has provoked fear and insecurity among non-Muslim and non-Bengali minorities, who constitute 8% of the country’s 180 million citizens.

This most recently come to the world’s notice when Donald Trump tweeted about attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh. Although his statement was exaggerated, some minorities in Bangladesh have faced threats and violence for no other reason than their identity. These include Bangladesh’s indigenous or “jumma” people, who live in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a densely-wooded, hilly area on the border of India and Myanmar.

For hundreds of years, the Chittagong Hill Tracts has maintained a distinct identity from plainland Bengal, retaining a degree of autonomy under the Mughal and British empires. But with the Partition of India in 1947, it was attached to East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh in 1971. Since then, the jumma people have increasingly struggled to retain their property, rights and dignity.

Many Bangladeshis might consider the fall of Sheikh Hasina to be a new start. Yunus has hailed this as a second Liberation after the war that led to the country’s freedom from...

Read more