Members of the parliamentary caucus on indigenous peoples yesterday said they had seen no constitutional bar on the use of “Adivasi” or the term “indigenous.”
“I do not think that there is any constitutional bar to use the term Adivasi. We will continue using it in our caucus’ name,” Fazle Hasan Badsha, convenor of the caucus, said during a meeting at the National Museum auditorium.
The Press Information Department on August 7 issued a release urging the people to avoid the word “Adivasi” at discussions and talk-shows on the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples observed on Saturday.
Badsha said some over-enthusiastic officials were doing this. “I do not think that the government high-ups have any involvement with this statement.”
Chairman of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Chittagong Hill Tracts Affairs Ministry RAM Obaidul Muktadir Chowdhury said he also believed that an over enthusiastic group within the government had done it. “I went through the constitution and did not find anything that creates obstacles in using the term ‘Adivasi,’” he said.
Speaking at the meeting, another caucus member AKM Fazlul Haque urged his colleagues to take steps with a view to uphold the rights of the indigenous people in using the term “Adivasi.”
Chairman of the CHT Regional Council Jyotirindra Bodhipriya Larma said everyone had delivered positive words but they brought no concrete result.
“The CHT Peace Accord has not been implemented in the last 17 years,” he said adding that the present government in its two terms had not taken any steps against the military rule imposed in the CHT region for the last 43 years.
