The Hills Run Red: Settler Genocide in Bangladesh’s Tribal Lands

Plantations, hotels, and military checkpoints are being built on lands stolen from the Jumma people

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Counter Arts

12 min read1 day ago

The ongoing siege of Gaza, with its viscerally horrifying images of massacred civilians, starving refugees, and wrangled bodies being pulled from rubble, has become the epicenter of a global conversation about militarized occupation and the systematic destruction of indigenous communities. Intensifying brutality in the West Bank, in which illegal settlers have exploited a culture of impunity to intimidate, assault, and displace native Palestinians who have called these lands home for generations, has similarly renewed calls for decolonization and addressing settler violence. Through the unprecedented online documentation of such crimes against humanity and the widespread fury they have sparked on social media, the world is rightfully becoming more conscious of the barbarity of settler colonialism and the horrors that indigenous peoples across the globe are routinely subjected to.

The newly focused attention on decolonizing indigenous lands should be a call for South Asians and the world’s Brown community to take an honest look at the crimes occurring in our own homelands in the very same vein. The 20th century history of the subcontinent has been defined in large part by the liberation of our people from European colonial powers that have attempted the erasure of our native identities, laid unjust claims to the lands our ancestors have called home, and established control through systematic and genocidal violence. Yet, even in the wake of “decolonization” at the turn of the century, our freshly independent governments seemed to have taken a page out of the British Raj’s book — asserting exploitative control over minority and marginalized groups while orchestrating the same settler-colonizer brutality we claim to have freed ourselves from. As a Bangladeshi and a Bengali — a distinction that is often overlooked but is necessary in recognizing tribal groups within my country’s borders who do not identify as Bengali — national, cultural, and linguistic pride has been a defining element of my nation’s collective identity. We did indeed secure self-determination through generations of martyrdom, protest, and resistance, having emerged from the 1971 Liberation War as no longer East Pakistan but as an independent Bangladesh. But the fact that we unshackled ourselves from an authoritarian government that imposed draconian military rule, actively suppressed cultural self-expression, engineered systematic sexual violence, and barred us from benefiting from our own natural resources, should give us pause. It should push us to consider the treatment of indigenous groups within our borders and the ways in which we are continuing the legacy of the very authoritarianism we fought against. Every time we are confronted by the realities of genocidal settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing elsewhere in the world — which we have had plenty of opportunities to contend with over the last several months — we have a responsibility to address and oppose the same inhumanity at home.

The indigenous population of Bangladesh, also known as adibashis or aboriginals, is mostly dispersed across the plainlands of the north and southeast. A prominent portion, however, is concentrated in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). These hilly regions form the eastern edge of the Chittagong District that I call home, a peninsula jutting into the Bay of Bengal. The roughly 11 tribes that live within the CHT — including the Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Bawm, Lushai, and others — are collectively known as the Pahari (“mountain people”) or Jumma. This latter term refers to their mountainous cultivation practice known as jum or jhum. In 2021, Genocide Watch issued a “genocide warning” for the Jumma, noting with deep concern the colonialist violence and cultural erasure their lives have been steeped in. The Chittagong Hill Tracts, though hungrily commercialized by the national government as a tourist site with its lush greenery and cinematic mountainous landscape, runs red with the blood of the Jumma who have been attacked, raped, displaced, and denied justice since the founding of Bangladesh.

Bangladesh was founded upon the democratic principle of cultural self-expression and independence, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the way the Jumma have been deprived of the most fundamental civil liberties. The Constitution, ratified in 1972 with little input from the region’s adibashi communities (despite vigorous advocacy by tribal leaders), recognized only Bangla as the national language and declared all citizens as Bengali, in spite of the numerous groups who did not and do not identify as such. There is no meaningful mention of the Jumma or any other segment of the tribal population. The roughly 30 to 50 distinct indigenous languages of these tribes remain ignored to this day, and the assimilation of such groups into the dominant culture threatens to largely erase their linguistic and traditional identities. Aboriginal tongues such as Mahali, Malto, Razoar and Rajbangshi face “cultural genocide” according to Dhaka University linguistics professor Shourav Sikder. Sharp criticism of a series of government administrations has centered around their refusal to take any substantial measure to protect such identities, instead promoting Bangla as the sole and seemingly sacred “mother tongue” of the country — ignoring, tragically and ironically, the adibashis’ right to their own mother tongues. Bangladesh has also failed to adopt the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which enshrines the right to cultural and ceremonial self-expression for such groups. (Other countries that rejected the declaration at the time include the United States, Canada, and Australia, all of which have built their states on the exploitation, enslavement, and suppression of their indigenous populations.)

Yet this erosion of tribal identities in favor of cultural homogeneity — contributing heavily to the poison of nationalistic intolerance that has seeped into the Bangladeshi social landscape and endangered various minority communities — is not the only form of silencing such groups have been forcibly subjected to. In fact, they have been silenced in the most literal way possible. In 2015, the Home Ministry of the Bangladeshi government issued an order prohibiting the Jumma tribes from “speaking to foreigners or Bangladeshi citizens from outside the Chittagong Hill Tracts’’ except in the presence of a military or government official. The government enforcing limits on who people can talk to may sound outrageous, and that’s because it is. It flies in the face of every conceivable democratic principle. It is a direct contradiction of the very notion of linguistic and cultural self-determination that the country waged a war of independence over. But with some historical and concurrent context, it makes perfect sense why the government would not want the Jumma speaking to anyone outside the CHT and further exposing the system of slaughter and injustice they have been trapped in.

For generations, the aboriginals’ right to live on their own lands has been rendered an impossibility through state-sponsored settler colonization, which has wreaked havoc and destruction on indigenous communities with little consequence. Under British rule prior to 1947, the CHT experienced moderate regulation “but generally enjoyed self-autonomy”, according to Chakma Queen Rani Yan Yan. Pakistani governance starting from 1947, however, brought with it various legal enactments and colonial impositions that undermined tribal independence. Infamously, the construction of the Kaptai Dam in 1962 displaced over 100,000 aboriginals without compensation, leading to widespread backlash and protest but to little avail. Circumstances hardly improved under an independent Bangladesh in 1972. Prominent Chakma leader Manabendra Narayan Larma, understanding the need for clearly established safeguards to ensure the safety and continued existence of his people, advocated for such legal protections during the drafting of the Bangladesh Constitution in 1972. His concerns only elicited racist disparagement, including threats from the revered founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to forcibly impose a Bengali identity upon adibashi groups that did not identify as such. With essentially no meaningful consideration of the liberties and well-being of the aboriginal peoples, the Constitution paved the way for the generations of mistreatment, abuse, and systematic injustice that would follow.

As feared, the national government ordered the militarized occupation of the CHT starting 1972, sending in soldiers to monitor and assert control over the Jumma population. This included the development of military bases, army cantonments, firing ranges, and “security” checkpoints that were ostensibly meant to maintain order but only enforced the suppression of indigenous speech and activity. Resistance was met with bloodshed. Having no legal recourse or access to the justice system, armed resistance groups such as the Shanti Bahini have emerged in defense of the aboriginal people’s safety and security. Yet even such efforts, stymied by lack of sustainable resources and the lethal targeting of indigenous leaders by military forces, have failed to materialize the gains needed to protect the Jumma in any lasting, meaningful fashion.

“It was a . . . challenge for the military to subdue indigenous peoples. You can’t just go in with tanks and mortars in the hilly inaccessible terrain which indigenous peoples know so well and had an upper hand in a guerrilla war,” indigenous Chakma Queen Rani Yan Yan said, speaking to Melbourne Asia Review. “So one of the strategies the military employed was to make us minorities in our own land by demographic engineering, by bringing in and settling large numbers of destitute Bengali people from the plains.”

Hundreds of thousands of such non-aboriginal settlers flooded the CHT, not only dispossessing the Jumma of their land but also committing large-scale genocidal violence in the process. In the words of a Tripura refugee, “with the assistance of the government . . . settlers were relocated to our village and they continued to [assault and attack us]. They took all the food grain. Whenever we seek any justice from the army, we don’t get it.” Non-indigenous businesses were allowed to seize thousands of acres for commercial development, the economic benefits of which were never enjoyed by the adibashis whose land they stole. Tobacco, rubber, and tea planters backed by corporations and the national government have enjoyed zero accountability or restraint in driving the Jumma out of their homes. Roads, hotels, and resorts have been constructed with no compensation granted to the hundreds of villages displaced in the process. As I write this, there is a 5-star “tourism project” including a Marriott hotel being developed on land stolen from the indigenous Mro people of the CHT, displacing tens of thousands and eliciting an outcry from the UN Human Rights Committee. Since the militarized occupation and settlement of the Hill Tracts began decades ago, Bangladesh has seen the rise and fall of a series of governments, ranging from military dictatorships to the current “democratic” administration. Regardless of party or power structure, the Jumma people have seen no end to the systematic theft of their land or the massacres of their people.

90% of the CHT population was once indigenous. Today, it is less than half. This is settler colonialism. This is ethnic cleansing.

The history of the Jumma under Bangladeshi occupation has been punctuated by a series of massacres orchestrated by settlers, the military, or both in collaboration. These began before Bangladesh had even fully achieved independence. On December 5th, 1971, the Mukti Bahini (“Freedom Fighters”) of the Bangladesh Army massacred 34 tribal men in the Panchari-Dighinala areas of the CHT and plundered their communities. The 1976–77 Thanchi Massacre saw over 1,000 Jumma people slaughtered and hundreds raped. Villages were seized and handed over to settlers. The Bhusanchara Massacre of 1984, as described by an indigenous villager who had been beaten and left for dead, subjected the Jumma to a genocidal campaign that saw “children tossed into burning huts, women raped and disfigured with bayonets, and people hung upside down and beaten.” This small handful of massacres offer only a glimpse into the barbaric reality that the Jumma have been subjected to over the last fifty years and continue to be terrorized by today. It should go without saying that such attacks are almost never followed up with government investigations, creating a culture of zero accountability for such inhumane acts.

A particularly sickening element of the horrors faced by the Jumma is the weaponization of sexual violence. Amnesty International reported that “in 2014 alone, 117 indigenous women faced physical and sexual abuse, 57% of these being children. Twenty one of these women were raped or gang-raped and seven were killed afterwards . . . [many] confirmed rapes were reported within sight of military checkpoints that were supposed to bring security to the area.” Medical staff are routinely pressured to not report sexual assault cases, and local police reportedly make no effort to pursue justice. A female Tripura refugee interviewed about sexual violence by the Bangladeshi military recounted her harrowing experience: “About 50 army personnel came in the night and rounded up the whole village and gathered us in one place. In the morning all the men were arrested. I was tied up, hands and legs, naked. They raped me. There were three women there. They raped me in front of my father-in-law. After that we were tied up together, naked, facing each other. Then they left. Three other girls were raped in front of me.”

In 2014, settlers attempted to rape a 10-year-old Tripura girl in Khagrachari. 2015 saw the rape of an 8-year-old Marma girl by a plantation owner, drawing international condemnation and disgust. Such individual cases are not isolated incidents but indicative of a longstanding pattern of abuse that adibashi communities are continuously subjected to. The International Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission has noted in its investigations that the “majority of the communal attacks or incidents of violence against women in the CHT have taken place in the vicinity of the check-posts”, pointing to the total (and clearly deliberate) failure of local security forces. Indigenous lawyer Samari Chakma has described the CHT as “a rapist’s heaven” due to the systematic denial of justice and accountability.

In a similar vein, the abduction of adibashis has emerged as a reprehensible tool in the military’s terrorization of aboriginal life. Kalpana Chakma has tragically become a symbol for this pattern of kidnapping and forced disappearance. A prominent Jumma women’s rights activist, Kalpana devoted her life to advocating for the safety and emancipation of aboriginal communities. This placed a searing red target on her back. Around 1 AM on June 12th, 1996, a Bangladeshi military unit forcibly entered her home, blindfolding her family and kidnapping Kalpana. Her brother Kalicharan described hearing her scream “Dada, Dada, mahre baja (brother, brother, rescue me)” as she was carried away, never to be seen again. Her abduction, despite drawing an outcry from the indigenous population and activists across Bangladesh, was never fully investigated, and no arrests were made. One can only imagine what horrors Kalpana was subjected to at the hands of a military hell-bent on the subjugation of her people.

Kalpana’s family will likely never find answers for what happened to her. Neither will the thousands upon thousands of families who have had their homes burnt, villages razed, and members abducted, raped, and massacred. There is no justice to be delivered in a system intentionally designed to inflict suffering, dispossession, and abuse upon the indigenous people of Bangladesh. From the very first days of the country’s existence — in fact, before we even won the war — a culture of impunity and terror has reigned over its most ancient communities. The Chittagong Hill Tracts are soaked in blood.

Bangladeshi activist Mesbah Kamal, whose Research and Development Collective charity helps empower and support indigenous communities, noted the irony underpinning the government’s apathy and cruelty towards the existence of the adibashis. “Our people fought for the rights of their mother language, thanks to which we’ve got an independent Bangladesh. Yet it’s a shame that on the same land, other languages [and cultures] are dying out fast,” he said.

This contradiction should be plain to see for anyone who bothers to look. Bangladesh was founded in 1971 after a brutal liberation war to tear ourselves free from the grasp of authoritarians determined to exterminate our native culture. Yet literally before the war even ended, the Bangladesh Army began subjecting adibashis to the same cultural erasure and violence that we had been resisting. That pattern has not ceased. We have only followed further in the footsteps of the racist, colonialist rulers we claim to despise. Bangladesh, the victim of a genocide, had become the perpetrator of another. It is worth remembering that we are not alone in this: the Indian Subcontinent is comprised of nations who have been colonized and plundered, fought for liberation, and then imposed the same barbarity upon its most marginalized people.

As the world reckons with the realities of settler colonialism and genocide, there must be room made for the victims who do not appear in international headlines. Many of the adibashis of Bangladesh will likely never be able to tell their own stories to the globe. But the arc of history bends towards justice, and we must do our part to make sure that happens. We cannot forget what is happening within our own borders. I cannot forget what is happening a couple hours from my childhood home. Speak about this. Remember this. Bring attention to the brutal injustices suffered by the colonized and the dispossessed, everywhere. A world where such atrocities are allowed to be committed against someone, can never be a safe place for anyone.

Further Reading

The Hills Run Red: Settler Genocide in Bangladesh’s Tribal Lands

Plantations, hotels, and military checkpoints are being built on lands stolen from the Jumma people

Written by Adeeb Chowdhury