Telling a true story few Indians know

One of the major advantages of pursuing LLM in a foreign university is that you come to meet with students with varied cultures and traditions from around the world, unlike Indian NLUs with generally monochromatic student population (hailing from educated middle class or upper middle class, English speaking, fancy schooled, city dwelling families). While pursuing LLM at a somewhat reputed UK university I met a Bangladeshi student from the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), my knowledge about Chittagong was quite limited, though I knew that it was a port of some significance, there was blockade in 1971 Indo-Pak war and that it had a medium capacity good cricket stadium (atleast that is what I gathered from the televised matches). I also vaguely remembered that some time ago there was a talk among the diplomatic community in India that Bangladesh Government might let Chittagong be used as an alternate gateway/port for NE India. But what this Bangladeshi-Chakma student told me greatly altered my understanding of ethnohistoriography of Eastern India during the perilous times of Independence and the irrelevance of partition by a colonial master.

We all know something or other about the partition and its fallout every Indian would have heard of the Kashmir story (irrespective of what view he/she may hold on the issue), most know about the partition of Bengal and Punjab (and the enormous emotional-economic hardship borne by the displaced people), many would know about integration of Hyderabad, Junagad and Goa by force to Union of India, some may know that North-West Frontier Province of British India (presently the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and FATA in Pakistan) which decided to join Pakistan in a referendum would have joined India if Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan (also known as the Frontier Gandhi) and his volunteer/political faction/followers (the Red Shirts) had not abstained from voting (during consultations on the future map of India and Pakistan, Patel/Gandhi is thought to have conceded that NWFP should be part of Pakistan, hearing this Khan is said to have famously lamented that ‘You have thrown us to the wolves’), few Indians may know that in Sylhet (today a province of Bangladesh) only a majority of 43.8 per cent voted in favour of being part of Pakistan.

But almost none of the Indians today know that in the last days of British Raj, the Boundary Commission which divided British India (which worked on the principle that a region should be awarded on the basis of its religious demographics, simply put Muslim majority area would goto Pakistan and no-Muslim majority area would be awarded to India) by a mere pen stroke had given to Pakistan a land area of over fifteen thousand square kilometres (to put in perspective about half the size of Kerala or larger than any NE Indian state except for Assam) which were populated by 97% tribal non-Muslims in 1947. This area is today known as the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) and the demographics have completely altered with the native tribal non-Muslim population trimmed to 52% in 1991.     

Let us dive back into history into the fateful year of partition and independence, India and Pakistan gained independence on 15^th and 14^th August, the boundary was not defined and there were religious riots but people celebrated throughout the subcontinent, in CHT people raised the Indian flag on 15^th August quite confident that a region with 98.5% non-Muslim population would definitely be part of India.   

The award of the Boundary Commission was declared on 16^th August 1947 at around 5 PM at the Government House in New Delhi where Mountbatten represented British Govt., Pandit Nehru, Sardar Patel along with other delegates represented India and on the Pakistan side there were Liaquat Ali Khan, Fazlur Rahaman among others. Radcliffe had taken charge of the commission on July 8 and had completed the task of dividing India and Pakistan on map by August 9, a superhuman effort but which was bound to contain some ill judged decisions.  According to, the sanitized, minutes of the award commission meeting, available at the British Library Online Archives, Pandit Nehru said that the Radcliffe Boundary Commission could not award CHT to Pakistan as it was overwhelmingly non-Muslim in character and that the terms of reference of the Boundary Commission did not include the area of CHT. However the Pakistan delegation and the British countered these points by saying that CHT is economically tied with Pakistan and Mountbatten commented that ‘whole economy of the Chittagong Hill Tract would be upset if they were not left with Pakistan’, also Pakistan wanted to gain control of the Karnaphuli River which flowed through the CHT, Mountbatten proposed a compromise formula whereby Pakistan would be allocated a strip of land on both side of the river, however both the parties rejected this formula Nehru said that India should have the complete control of CHT while Liaquat Ali Khan said that CHT would be the only source of hydro-electric power in East Pakistan. Thus CHT was awarded to Pakistan.

The leaders of CHT were stunned when they heard over radio on 17^th August that they were part of Pakistan, they ran from pillar to post in the hope of joining India, they sought military help from Pandit Nehru who turned them down reportedly by saying ‘Do you propose to bring India again under foreign rule?’. Thus ended all hopes of indigenous population of Chakma, Marma, Tripuri, Tenchungya, Chak, Pankho, Mru, Murung, Bawm, Lushai, Khyang, Gurkha, Assamese, Santal and Khumi tribes (collectively called Jumma) to join India. The next 50 years saw recurring cycles of cultural genocide, ethnic cleansing and inexorable demographic shift. The Pakistan government saw these Jumma people as completely alien to their culture (in fact the entire East Pakistan was thought be a lesser partner) with the added fact that bulk of the population in CHT was non-Muslim and the incidence of raising the Indian flag branded them forever as ‘pro India’. CHT initially had a special administrative status in the Pakistan federation as an ‘excluded area’ which meant that the CHT Act of 1900 would to some extent protect the native culture of the region, uphold the British administrative structure and restricted unsupervised/indiscriminate settlement by non-native population. However by 1964 the CHT Act of 1900 was abolished/repealed and CHT became an ordinary tribal province with no special constitutional guarantee; thousands were made homeless by hydroelectric projects and communal violence, close to 1,00,000 (more than quarter of the native CHT population) Chakma people from CHT fled to India where they were settled in Arunachal Pradesh.  

With the creation of Bangladesh in 1971, there were hopes among Jumma people that a country which newly got independence on the notion of ethnic/cultural/linguistic difference from the ‘Punjabi’ Pakistan would address the legitimate cultural/ethnic issues of Jummas of CHT. However under the fervour of Bengali Nationalism Sheikh Mujibar Rahaman, the champion of Bangladesh Liberation Movement did not want to give any special status to CHT, if sources are to be believed he threatened to settle ethnic Bengali people in CHT to reduce Jummas to minority. There were political movement to gain regional autonomy and preserve the indigenous culture, United People's Party of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (UPPCHT) was formed in 1973. However the cycle of repression and a strive to skew the ethnic balance (which increased the non native population in CHT in 1974 to 8 times to the size in 1947) led to an armed insurgency. After the assassination of Mujibar Rahaman in 1975 Bangladesh was taken over by Ziaur Rahaman who followed a policy of alignment with Pakistan and China (traditionally the rivals of India) and at the same time distancing from India. Indira Gandhi perceived policy of Rahaman as anti-India and ordered R&AW, India’s external intelligence agency, to intervene and arm the militia wing of UPPCHT named Shanti Bahini or peace force. With defeat of Indira Gandhi in 1977 elections, the R&AW backing was withdrawn and Shanti Bahini started targeting soft targets like ethnic Bengali settlers, the retaliation by Bangladesh state organ was massive, there were alleged cases of systematic rape, arson, religious persecution and methodical killings. Much like the cultural genocide perpetrated by the Chinese in occupied Tibet, Bangladesh (which ironically was itself the victim of cultural repression under Pakistan) sought to destroy/dilute the cultural identity of Jumma people.

By 1991 the percentage population of Jumma people fell to 51.5% of the total population of CHT from 98.5% in 1947. The population census data of 2001 in Bangladesh does not contain elaborate religion demographics data however it notes that 12.65% of population in Chittagong Division are Buddhists (this data needs to be seen in the perspective of the whole Chittagong Division which also has two other large districts which has large Muslim population). However even then the situation is quite alarming as the demographic graph shows below.

If the rate of reduction of native population continued at the pace between 1974 and 1991 then by 2015 the non-Muslim population of CHT would be less than 1% of the population of CHT (trend line A in the graph). Unfortunately there is no reliable up to date data for confirming or rejecting this frightening scenario. 

The situation is thought to have improved after the signing of Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord in 1997 which led to demobilisation of the militia wing Shanti Bahini and led to formation of tiered tribal administrative councils which would have elected representatives from various tribes. The council would have high degree of autonomy in domestic and internal affairs like law and order, social justice, general administration, it was an indirect and partial throwback to British era CHT Act of 1900. However there has been allegations that the flow of non-native population to CHT has not diminished. It is also alleged that Bangladesh government maintains one security personnel for every six Jumma person in CHT even after the peace accord.      

At this point let us come back to my colleague the Bangladeshi-Chakma student, he comes from an affluent family, his father is a high ranking administrative officer in city of Chittagong. My student friend, though a Buddhist, goes by an Islamised name and tries hard to look ‘Bangladeshi’. After I researched on CHT and enquired of him as to what he thought of the peace accord he summarised it as ‘too little too late’ to have any meaningful impact on turning the irreversible demographic shift towards extinction of indigenous culture. He succinctly reviewed the current situation as where most young people of CHT speak in Bengali and have slowly forgotten their tribal roots and customs, they dress and eat like Bengali and adopt Islamic name to reduce chances of discrimination and willingly adopts other Bengali cultural traits to gain better employment and living opportunities. He lamented that while Pakistan successfully used irregular tribesmen to capture about parts of Kashmir (which had 25% non-Muslim population), India refused to help tribesmen who wanted to accede to India a province which had 98.5% non-Muslim population. His last observation was even more damning ‘population percentage of Muslims in conflict zone of Kashmir Valley increased from 93% in 1947 to 95% in 2003, the non-Muslim population has shrunk in CHT from 98.5% in 1947 to around 15% in 2010.’ I guess like Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan many unsung leaders of CHT and my young Chakma friend might have rightly lamented that India had betrayed them in their darkest moments.          

In hindsight if India did press for CHT as non-negotiable in Boundary Commission or did give a go ahead for armed rebellion, there could have been a sea-port in NE India which would have theoretically solved many of the public services inequities and infrastructural bottlenecks plaguing NE India through rapid transport of raw materials and other commodities. And we could have possibly saved half a million people from certain cultural genocide. Given the spectre of China encircling India, signing of the CHT Peace Accord and the relatively friendly relation between India and Bangladesh, today there seems to be no chance of India supporting the CHT cause in any form or forum. Indeed generations of native population of CHT had to repay in blood and wanton cultural destruction to the diffident attitude of the Indian leadership as they ‘made a tryst with destiny’ and pledged to ‘larger cause of the humanity’ only later to refuse assistance to people who overwhelmingly wanted to be part of India as she ‘discovers herself again’.