Be it sunshine or rain, Anamika Chakma leaves her home every day in the remote Kamala Bagan Para village in Bandarban’s Thanchi upazila and has to walk 6km to reach the Bolibazar School, where she is a student of class four.
The daily journey of 12km to and from the school fails to daunt the child; instead it seems to be strengthening her resolution of succeeding in life.
Despite living in an underprivileged, vulnerable and uncertain state of life, Anamika and her parents dream that she would become a doctor someday.
Anamika is not alone in dreaming of a better future.
Although children in remote localities in the hilly districts have limited access to education, they are not afraid to dream big.
Talking to children who were around Anamika’s age and lived in different remote villages of Bandarban and Rangamati, the Dhaka Tribune found that all had high hopes of becoming doctors, nurses, engineers or teachers.
All of them, however, shared a common goal: serving their own indigenous communities that were deprived of the basic needs and more than often experienced their rights being threatened.
“We want to educate them [the children] properly and also hope they will do good jobs in future, but we are not sure whether our wishes will be fulfilled,” said Anamika’s mother Punnomukhi Chakma, who also has a son studying in Bolibazar School.
However, 44-year-old jhum farmer Sangkha Sur, who has a son studying at a school in Bandarban and a daughter at a local school, said he doubted how long he would be able to provide for his children’s education.
“Our life is gradually becoming full of increasing hardship. Our jhum farming is decreasing, we are losing our land and heavily suffering from financial crisis... We do not have government school or college nearby; education is very expensive for poor people like us.
“We consume less food ourselves to ensure our children’s education, but we cannot continue if we gradually lose our sources of earning,” Sangkha added.
Any student living in a remote village such as Kamala Bagan Para faces an uphill battle. For example, once a child completes their primary education at Bolibazar School, the nearest school that would offer secondary education is located at Thanchi upazila town, which is 17km from the village.
Education is not the only sector that is lagging behind in such remote areas. Indigenous communities in the hilly districts also have limited access to basic health and utility services that are essential to their development.
To make matters worse, indigenous people are regularly falling victims to unannounced forced evictions and attacks by both local authorities and muscle-flexing settlers from plain land; while also as a part of land-grabbing technique, restrictions are being introduced against the traditional jhum cultivation on particular pieces of land. The people who are tasked with protecting the local communities often become the biggest threat to the rights of the indigenous communities, giving rise to a sense of mistrust and insecurity among the locals.
Twenty-nine-year-old Chin Pak, an indigenous student set to graduate from the National University in sociology, shared a story with the Dhaka Tribune about his family’s struggles.
“In December 2007, I was a student of Dhaka’s Notre Dame College. I was returning to my village home [at Sualok union in Bandarban sadar upazila] with a happy mood. But when I reached our village at Kramadi Para, I saw there was no villager in our village, only a few pigs were moving around. Only when some villagers came to feed those pigs, I came to know that our whole village had been evicted overnight by the army, who said they would set up a firing centre in the area.”
The news of the sudden eviction did not reach Chin as the area did not have mobile network coverage at the time.
“After finding out the location of all villagers, I went to my family and saw that each and everyone was leaving in makeshift tents made with banana leaves,” said Chin.
Many of the evicted Kramadi Para villagers – who currently live in Purapara village – told the Dhaka Tribune that the eviction was done in a rushed state and nobody was given any time to bring their belongings with them. However, the firing centre by the army was yet to be set up in the last seven years.
The evicted people – who belong to the Mro community – claimed that the land in Kramadi Para had been inhabited and cultivated by their ancestors, adding that they had lost all land overnight. If they wanted to carry out jhum cultivation on the lands around their new village in Purapara, “Khajna” or tax needed to be paid to the army, the locals claimed.
Echoing other villagers, Chin said: “We are struggling to survive only on cultivating some land in exchange of Khajna. We pay Khajna to a local army camp at Amtoli. A subedar receives our Khajna.”
Such struggles were making it difficult to protect the Mro community’s culture, language and heritage.
Different local small groups, with the support of national-level NGOs, have been trying to preserve the heritage of different indigenous communities of the hilly districts.
Janalal Chakma, director of a local NGO called the Center for Integrated program and Development, said: “Many universities abroad conduct research based on indigenous knowledge; but in Bangladesh this knowledge is vanishing gradually.
“Once we were called ‘Upojati’ (tribal), then we were called Adibashi (indigenous), and now we have been given a new identity named ‘Khudro Nree Goshthhi’ (small ethnic group)... Our new identity as ‘small ethnic group’ is not appropriate. We want to be identified as indigenous people,” Janalal told the Dhaka Tribune.
However, on Thursday the government issued a circular, asking the media and civil society members not to use the term “Adibashi.”
Janalal added that the indigenous communities themselves would observe the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People, even though the government had stopped observing the day.
The International Day of the World’s Indigenous People will be observed today across the globe with the theme “Bridging the gap: implementing the rights of indigenous peoples.”
Meanwhile, talking to the Dhaka Tribune, parents and students at the Bange Bhushon Chhara Community Primary School in Rangamati’s Barkal upazila also claimed that they wanted to be identified as “indigenous people.”
Eshika Chakma, a college student, said: “We were Adibashi, still we are Adibashi and we want to be identified as Adibashi.”
Eshika’s father Kamol Krishno Chakma said: “You [anyone in general] have a name. If I call you by a different name, will you accept it? It is not possible.”
Sanjeeb Drong, secretary of Bangladesh Adibashi Forum, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday: “There is no universally accepted definition of indigenous people. The Garo, the Santals and all other nationalities have a right to identify themselves as indigenous peoples.”
He claimed that in accordance with the United Nation’s declaration “we have the right to self identification as indigenous people.
“The state has to recognize our self identity; does a state have the right to change any ethnic identity?” Sanjeeb added.
“I apprehend that it would be easy to grab our land if the state does not recognise our identity as indigenous people... The state should take special care of indigenous people. We want special measures for Adibashis in Bangladesh to ensure their rights on their land, economic and social development and human rights,” he said.
