Commentary: Issue 01:
25 April 2012
THE true intentions of the
government have been revealed when Sajeda Chowdhury, deputy leader of
parliament and convenor of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Treaty Implementation
Committee, at a function at Bangladesh
Shishu Academy
said, ‘It is the country of the Bengalis. None other than the Bengalis can live
here.’ She further said, ‘The country was liberated with the Bangabandhu’s idea
of Bengali nationalism. Any idea that is contradictory to this ideology is
unacceptable.’ (New Age, 5 April).
Quite expectedly, her comment
drew sharp criticism. The New Age, in an editorial next day, took her to severe
task, terming her comment as ‘reflective of Bengali chauvinistic mindset and
fascistic attitude.’
However, Sajeda’s comment was
soon followed by a similar comment which was published in the same English
daily on 6 April. According to a news report, the chair of Bangladesh
Information Commission, Muhammad Zamir, in the course of a debate over the
definition of the term ‘Bengali’, said he ‘preferred saying that all the people
living in Bangladesh
are Bengalis’. Sadeka Halim, a member of the Commission, took exception to his
view and said the people living in Bangladesh
are Bangladeshis, not Bengalis. She argued that the state has no right to
impose Bengali identity on the people of other ethnicities. (New Age, 6
April)
While many will be outraged, and
rightly so, at the comments of these two top government functionaries, given
the anti-minority policies of the successive governments of Bangladesh,
they come as no surprise. Both Sajeda and Zamir may be blunt and to some extent
rude in their comments, but for all practical purposes they represent the real
intentions of the ruling elite of the country. They are also quite consistent
with the government’s position vis-a-vis the indigenous peoples or ethnic
minorities. For, the present constitution, as modified by the fifteenth
amendment, recognizes the existence of only one nation – and that is Bengali.
Worst still, article 6(2) imposes Bengali national identity on the indigenous
peoples of the country.
While all this is as obvious as
daylight, a vested interest group among the Jumma people is now working
overtime to confuse the people with a wrong interpretation of the constitution.
A few days before Sajeda’s comment, state minister for Chittagong Hill Tracts
Affairs, Dipankar Talukder, at a school function in Dighinala had it to say:
‘The small ethnic groups have been granted constitutional recognition through
the fifteenth amendment to the constitution. There was no such recognition
before. We had to struggle for this. But today, after achieving this
recognition, some of my friends are engaged in propaganda against the
government and creating anarchy by giving a wrong interpretation.’ [Kalerkantho,
28 March] Mr. Talukder repeated this paean in other meetings elsewhere in
the CHT including Rajstali. [Suprobhat Bangladesh,
Daily Purbokone, 31 March]
Dipankar Talukder may be a good
player in realpolitik, but his uninhibited praise for the 15th amendment
doesn’t surprise any of us either. For, he was one of the three Jumma MPs who
voted for it without a blink of the eye, completely ignoring the sentiment of
his fellow Jummas. Secondly, he was the one who gleefully put the Bengali
outsiders on the list of Internally Displaced Persons, making the IDP issue
more complicated – to the point that today it seems almost insoluble.
Now, let us see who is accused of
wrong interpretation of the constitution – Dipankar or his unnamed friends. A
reference to the relevant articles of the constitution will help us.
Article 6(2): ‘The people of Bangladesh
shall be known as Bangalees as a nation and the citizens of Bangladesh
shall be known as Bangladeshis.’
Article 23A: ‘The state shall
take steps to protect and develop the unique local culture and tradition of the
tribes [upajati], minor races [khudro jatishaotta], ethnic sects and
communities [nrigoshthi o shomprodai]’. (Translation by CHT Commission)
One does not need to be a rocket
scientist to understand the meaning of these two articles. While the former
asserts that the people of Bangladesh,
regardless of their ethnic identity, are to be known as Bengali, article 23A
relegates the ethnic nationalities to a second class citizen status. Both these
articles taken together can be interpreted to mean that someone, say a Chakma
or a Marma or a Tripura or whatever, may be ethnically different from an ethnic
Bengali, but his nationality is Bangalee, because the constitution admits of no
other national identity. The 15th amendment gives a Marma (or a member of any
other ethnic minority) the right to choose any of the four statuses referred to
in article 23A, but on the question of nationality he/she must identify himself
or herself as Bengali. ‘You are tribes, minor races, ethnic sects and
communities, but not jati or nation; you are part of our Bengali nation, and
you are inferior to us Bengalis.’ this is the real message of the 15th
amendment to the indigenous peoples of Bangladesh.
A man or woman can change his or
her faith, religious belief and citizenship, but he or she cannot change his
national identity, which is determined by birth and in which he or she has no
hand. The ruling Awami League government has taken away just this inalienable
birth-right of the Jumma people.
In this context, we should also
bear in mind that the government dared to impose Bengali nationalism upon
indigenous peoples through the adoption of the 15th amendment because it saw
that the Jumma people have become weak after years of internal strife. Today,
the government may not be forcing us to write ‘Bangalee’ in our certificates,
IDs and passports. But time will come when the government will shed this ‘buy
time’ tactic. If the fratricidal conflict goes further on and the Jummas are
left with no effective power to resist, then the government will come and force
us to become Bangalee both ‘in black and white’ and in practice. Sajeda and
Zamir’s comments are indicative of that possibility.
This is the grim reality that all
indigenous peoples of Bangladesh
face today. Dipankar Talukder may be smart, but he is not going to take the
Jumma people for a ride. An earlier attempt to make them Bangalee has not been
successful. This one is also doomed to fail. [End]