Chakmas, The the largest ethnic group
of Bangladesh. They also call
themselves Changmas. They are
concentrated in the central and
northern parts
of
the chittagong hill tracts where
they live amidst several other
ethnic groups. Exact population
figures are lacking but the most
reliable estimates put their number
at 140,000 in 1956 and 230,000 in
1981. According to the 1991
population census, there were about
253,000 Chakmas. More than 90
percent of them are concentrated in
rangamati and khagrachhari
districts. About 100,000 Chakmas
also live in India, particularly in
the states of Arunachal, Mizoram and
Tripura. Small groups have settled
in other countries as well.
Historical Background:
The first written reference to Chakmas of the
Chittagong Hill Tracts dates from
about 1550 AD when the Portuguese
map maker Lavanha indicated on the
earliest surviving map of Bengal
that Chakmas lived in a settlement
on the karnafuli river. Two main
theories have been put forward about
the earlier history of Chakmas. Both
assume that they migrated to their
present homeland. The most
convincing theory links Chakmas with
central Myanmar and arakan, and with
groups such as the Sak (Chak, Thek)
who live in the Chittagong hills and
Arakan. The other theory, for which
historical evidence is lacking,
assumes that Chakmas migrated to the
Chittagong hills from Champaknagar
in northern India. In the late
eighteenth century, Chakmas were
found not only in the Chittagong
Hill Tracts but also in other hilly
areas of the present-day districts
of chittagong and cox's bazar.
It was only after the annexation of the
Chittagong Hill Tracts by the
British (1860) and the promulgation
of rules, which forbade hill
agriculture (jhum, shifting
cultivation) in Chittagong district
that these Chakma cultivators (and
other hill cultivators such as the
marma) moved east to the Chittagong
Hill Tracts. In the precolonial
period, the Chittagong Hill Tracts
had not been part of any state,
although they had long been
influenced by the waxing and waning
of power centres in Tripura (to the
north), Arakan (to the south) and
Bengal (to the west). In the
seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, the Mughal empire
collected tribute (cotton) from the
area through local intermediaries.
One of the most prominent of these
intermediaries was the Chakma chief
residing in an elevated landmass in
the Karnafuli river channel. His
family had considerable landholdings
in the plains of Chittagong, ie,
inside Mughal territory, and resided
in rangunia.
When the British took control of the plains in
the mid-eighteenth century, they
continued the arrangement, and when
they annexed the Chittagong hills a
century later, they made the Chakma
chief responsible for tax collection
in the central region of the new
possession. Two other chiefs were
made responsible for the southern
part (the Bohmong chief) and the
northern part (the Mong chief). The
Chakma chief, now a colonial grandee
endowed with the personal title of
raja and some of the trappings of
indirect rule, moved to Rangamati,
the capital of the new district
which the British named Chittagong
Hill Tracts. The colonial tax system
also gave new powers to old
functionaries at the local level (talukdar,
dewan, khisa) which came to form the
Chakma gentry. The Chittagong Hill
Tracts Regulation of 1900 formalised
this system and also stressed the
fact that the area, though
administered from calcutta, was not
a regular part of Bengal. Its
administrative system, land rights,
and closure to outside settlers all
set it apart from the rest of
Bengal. This status was reconfirmed
in the 1930s, when the region was
declared an excluded area under the
Government of India Act. After
decolonisation (1947), the
Chittagong Hill Tracts were
incorporated into East Pakistan and
later (1971) Bangladesh. The special
administrative status of the
Chittagong Hill Tracts was
continued, and the Regulation of
1900 was never clearly rescinded,
despite piecemeal mutations. For
this reason, the office of the
Chakma (and Bohmong and Mong) chief
survives till today.
In 1906, a hydroelectric project was proposed
to be built, using the flow of the
water in the Karnafuli river. But it
was not until the 1950s that the
plan took shape and a large
hydroelectric project was
commissioned at kaptai, a riverside
village close to Rangamati. When the
Kaptai dam was completed in 1960, a
big lake formed in the Karnafuli
valley, flooding many villages and
leading to the great exodus (or Bara
Parang, as the Chakmas call it).
About 100,000 people are thought to
have fled the waters, most of them
Chakmas. Many settled elsewhere in
the district, including reserved
forest areas, but in 1964, tens of
thousands sought refuge in India.
Chakmas felt that their grievances were not
taken seriously by the authorities,
first in Pakistan and then in
Bangladesh. This led to an armed
conflict between the PCJSS (Parbatya
Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samiti, or
United People's Party of the
Chittagong Hill Tracts) founded in
1972, and the Bangladesh armed
forces. The PCJSS, led mainly by
Chakmas, signed a peace agreement
with the Bangladesh government in
1997.
Socio Economic Aspects:
Traditionally, the Chakma lifestyle was
closely linked with hill agriculture
or shifting cultivation (jum in
Chakma and jhum in Bengali). Living
in settled villages, they would
cultivate plots on surrounding hills
for some years, then leave them
fallow to recuperate naturally.
Chakmas also cultivated land in
river valleys. They had a
well-developed system of land
rights, which differed sharply from
those in the plains (see land
tenure).
According to early observers, the living
standard of cultivators in the
Chittagong hills was relatively
high. rice, cotton and vegetables
were important crops. The bamboo was
essential as building material. The
bamboo had so many other uses that
the Chakma lifestyle has been
described as a 'bamboo civilisation'.
In the colonial period, social
differentiation grew as an elite
developed, basing its lifestyle on a
share of the government tax and on
educational achievements. In the
twentieth century, population growth
made hill cultivation more
problematic mainly because fallow
periods had to be shortened - and
more Chakmas had to find
non-agricultural jobs.
Their problem was intensified by the
government policy of transmigration.
From the late 1970s, hundreds of
thousands of poor Bengali lowland
cultivators were brought to the
Chittagong hills under military
protection. Land scarcity increased
sharply, and Chakmas (and other hill
people) saw their lifestyle
threatened further. Many were forced
into low-income wage labour (e.g. on
new rubber plantations); over 50,000
fled their country and lived on
doles in refugee camps in Tripura
(India) from 1986 till their
repatriation in 1998.
Social System:
Chakmas distinguish themselves from
surrounding groups by their
language. Although there are
indications that Chakmas used to
speak a Tibeto-Burman language,
their present language is
Indo-European. It is closely related
in structure to Chittagonian Bengali
from which it differs by a distinct
vocabulary. Most Chakmas are
bilingual and speak Chakma and
Bengali; many know other regional
languages as well. The Chakma
language has its own script,
although today this is not commonly
used and Chakma is now usually
written in Bengali letters. Chakma
literature runs from the oral
traditions of the gengkhuli singers
through literary periodicals (the
first of which was Goirika started
in 1936) to modern poetry. Another
modern art form in which Chakmas
made their mark is painting.
The vast majority of Chakmas are Buddhists,
and they form the largest Buddhist
population in Bangladesh. Integrated
in their Buddhist practice are older
religious elements, such as worship
of the powers of nature. One of
their annual highlights is the Bizu
festival held in Chaitra, the last
month of the Bengali year.
Culturally, the Chakmas are in many
ways more Southeast Asian than South
Asian. They know neither the dietary
restrictions nor the strict gender
segregation of their Bengali
neighbours. [Willem Van Schendel]
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