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| Tribal people in Chittagong Hill Tracts once largely depended on Jhum (slash and burn) cultivation |
During my recent travel to southeastern port
city Chittagong I had a brief chat with one Church high official in and he told
me they read ucanews.com reports
in here regularly. I was glad to know that because few people (about 4%) use
internet in Bangladesh and to be online for information is not yet an essential
part of life for most people here.
The Church dignitary (who didn’t want to be named) lauded our efforts in covering the life of the Church. However, he warned me to be cautious while reporting on some issues from Chittagong, one of the diverse Catholic dioceses in the country.
In an earlier post I wrote about the significant nature of the diocese where Bengali and ethnic tribals make up over 39,000 Catholic population.
Half of the Catholics in the diocese are tribals, mostly Tripura people who live up on hills at three southeastern Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) districts along with about 25 fellow tribal groups.
The official several times cautioned me not to mention in reports anything about evangelization, conversion and Church statistics, especially from Church on hills. There are six Catholic parishes and some sub-centers in CHT.
From the very beginning we had been very vigilant to skip reporting any issues relating to evangelization and conversion, but we include Church statistics sometimes in our reports to show Church life and growth.
“Constitution and the law of the land allow us to freely practice our religion and administer missionary activities, (but) there is a continued political pressure,” he said.
He further added that intelligence and detective branches often ask Church authorities to provide them with Church statistics. They fear that if the number of Christians grow they will join neighboring Indian states where tribal Christians make-up significant portion and split from Bangladesh.
“This is an unrealistic and imaginative idea, but who will turn it around, as they don’t think otherwise because of political anxiety,” the official lamented.
The life of tribals on hills is unique, unparallel and most significantly challenging in forested and impassable region. They are very simple people and have their own way of living the life.
When Catholic Church reached to CHT in 1950s and eventually once Caritas started operating there things changed rapidly.
Now fewer people depend on Jhum cultivation which is destructive for the environment. Besides, the Church pioneered education, health and so on for tribals as necessary. It is regrettable that the Church is under surveillance now.
The recurring trouble has a real long root of origin.
The tribals are oldest settlers of CHT from an undocumented period of time. During 1970 and 1980s successive governments in the country attempted to resettle Bengali people on hills that were resisted by tribals. The influx of Bengali people was a premeditative counter insurgency measure.
Governments perhaps were worried that CHT might split out from the newly independent country and may join in to any other neighboring country that borders Bangladesh.
The tribals led by Parbatto Chattogram Jono Shanghati Samiti (PCJSS, United People’s Party of the CHT) formed a militia force called ‘Shanti Bahini’ (Peace Force) and it continued fighting against Bengali settlers and government forces.
The 23 years battle ended with much-desired Peace Accord in 1997. From the beginning of fighting the area was heavily militarized and even after over a decade it is still left that way. That means political worries didn’t wash away.
A fraction PCJSS and some disgruntled tribals opposed the treaty and later formed an armed force called United People’s democratic Front (UPDF) and continued sporadic fighting with pro-accord parties and also with Bengali settlers. Now-a-days clashes between Bengali and tribals are frequent on hills.
The war
ends, but the fight ends never.
A recent UN report catalogued mass human rights violations in CHT and another blog post put forth the voice of one of the victims.
The undeserved pressure for Church in hills is not likely to go away soon, nor will the hills return to total peace. No one knows how long this wall of suspicion will haunt people on hills.
@UCAN
Blogs on June 22, 2011
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