The early history of the Chittagong Hill Tracts is a record of constantly recurring raids on the part of the eastern hill tribes, and of the operations undertaken to repress them. The earliest mention of these raids is to be found in a letter from the Chief of Chittagong to Warren Hastings, the Governor-General, dated April to, 1777,' complaining of the violence and aggressions of a mountaineer named Ramu Khan, the leader of a band of Kukis or Lushais ; and that they continued without any long intermission down to 1891 when the Lushai Hills were annexed to British territory. The recorded population increased from 69,607 in 1872 to 101,597 in 1881, to 107,286 in 1891, and to 124,762 in 1901. The Census of 1872 was, however, very imperfect, and the actual growth of population has probably not exceeded what might be expected in a sparsely inhabited but fairly healthy tract.
When the 1901 census was taken there were no towns, and 211 of the villages had a population of less than 500, while only one exceeded 2,000. The population density, excluding the area of uninhabited forest (1,385 square miles), was 33 persons per square mile. There was a little immigration from Chittagong, and a few persons had emigrated to Tripura. The proportion of females to every 100 males was only 90 in the district-born, and 83 in the total population. Buddhists numbered 83,000, Hindus 36,000, and Muslims 5,000.
The Chittagong Hill Tracts, combining three hilly districts of Bangladesh, were once known as Korpos Mohol, the name used until 1860. In 1860 it was annexed by the British and was made an administrative district of Bengal. As of today, it is a semi-autonomous region within Bangladesh comprising the districts, namely, Chengmi (Khagrachari District), Gongkabor (Rangamati District), and Arvumi (Bandarban District).
It was really unfortunate that the last Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, who considered the grant of independence to India as his act of crowning glory, was in such a desperate hurry. His ambition was to achieve this "superhuman" task in record time. He boasted that before accepting the post of Viceroy he had told King George VI, who was his cousin: "I am prepared to accept the job only on one condition. India must be granted independence by July, 1948 and I will not stay there a day longer". Mountbatten came to India in March, 1947 and this left him just about sixteen months to complete such a gigantic task. In reality, he achieved it in five months, on 15th of August, 1947 for which he was given so much credit.
The Radcliffe Commission submitted its Report on the 9th of August 1947. At the Staff Meeting on August 12, there was a virtual explosion and V.P. Menon, who was a confidant of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, reacted most violently when it came to be known that the Chittagong Hill Tracts was going to be given to Pakistan. The following day, on August 13th, the All India Congress Committee issued a declaration alleging that the award "lacked all sense of justice, equity and propriety" and, therefore, it was "ineffective, infurctuous and incapable of execution in international consciousness". Sardar Patel wrote an angry letter to Mountbatten expressing his indignation, calling the Radcliffe award "monstrous and a blatant breach of the terms of reference". He warned that "I am urging the tribesmen to resist amalgamation with Pakistan by force, if necessary". He was indeed a great patriot and a staunch nationalist.
Originally, the award of the Boundary Commission was to be made public on the 13th of August. But Mountbatten was reluctant to spill the beans. According to Philip Zeigler, the author of Mountbatten's official biography, the case of the Chittagong Hill Tracts was uppermost in Mountbatten's mind. "He (Mountbatten) foresaw an Independence Day marred by rancour, Nehru boycotting the ceremonies, India born in an atmosphere not of euphoria but of angry resentment. So Mountbatten decided to announce the award only on the 16th of August when the celebrations were over. As Zeigler writes, "India's indignation at the award of the Chittagong Hill Tracts to Pakistan may have been a factor in making up Mountbatten's mind to keep the reports to himself till after independence".
Mountbatten was himself surprised by the ferocity of Sardar Patel's reaction to the issue. In his memoirs he wrote: "The one man I had regarded as a real statesman with both his feet firmly on the ground, and a man of honour whose word was his bond, had turned out to be as hysterical as the rest. Candidly I was amazed that such a terrific crisis should have blown up over so small a matter. However, I have been long enough in India to realize that major crises are by no means confined to big matters." It may have been a small matter for Mountbatten in that exulted position as the Viceroy of India but what about the poor people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts? When wanton children throw stones at the frogs in sport, the frogs do not die in sport, they die in earnest. As Leonard Mosley in his book The Last Days of the British Raj puts it succinctly: "This is a matter for Mountbatten's conscience.
The award of the Chittagong Hill Tracts to Pakistan was so unexpected that even Justice Mohammad Munir, a Muslim member of the Boundary Commission. said: "I was certain from the start that the Chittagong Hill Tracts would be awarded to India." Obviously, it was against all principles of justice, equity and fair play.
Mr Jaipal Singh, who was member of the Sub-Committee of the Constituent Assembly of India dealing with the Excluded Areas, recorded a minute of dissent in which he wrote: "The Chittagong Hill Tracts must be claimed back to India". Soon afterwards, in a public speech in Calcutta, Nehru himself said that gross injustice had been done in regard to the Chittagong Hill Tracts. He also declared that the matter would be taken up with Pakistan. But nothing was done.
With a deep sigh full of pathos Mohit Chakma lamented, "There was no one to listen to our appeal or champion our cause. We sent a delegation of our leaders to New Delhi to plead our cause. They were received by Sardar Patel who gave a sympathetic hearing and advised them to resist with all their might. He did not hesitate to tell the members of the delegation, 'At the moment my hands are too full with Kashmir, Hyderabad and Junagadh. Once these problems are solved, I assure you categorically that I will come to your rescue.' It was most unfortunate for the Chakmas that he did not live long enough. With the death of the indomitable Sardar on 15th December, 1950 all our hopes were dashed to the ground. Thus began a long, unending tale of woe, suffering, despair, humiliation, distress and torture. The persecution of the tribal peoples has taken the worst form of genocide. Thousands of the victims could write The Diary of Anne Frank and put Schindler's List to shame. In my dreams I often cry Bleed, My Country, Bleed. And when I wake up, I find that I have no more tears to cry."
During the 1970s and 80s, there were attempts by the Government to resettle the area with Bengali people. These attempts were resisted by the tribals, who, with the latent support of neighbouring India, formed a guerilla force called Shanti Bahini. As a result of the tribal resistance movement, successive governments turned the Hill Tracts into a militarised zone. Professor Bernard Nietschmann wrote a letter about Shanti Bahini and the Chittagong Hill Tracts people to the editor of the New York Times by published on October 25, 1986 (archived by the Fourth World Documentation Project) at the Center for World Indigenous Studies website.
The Bangladesh military and settlers have been accused of committing genocides against the minority tribal people with silent support from the law enforcers. One often citied incident took place in 1992 in Mallya and / or Logang. The Bangladeshi army, too, have been accused of numerous human rights violations within the Hill Tracts, and their personnel have been accused of torture, killings and abduction. Amongst these, the disappearance of Chakma political activist Kalpana Chakma in 1996 attracted widespread condemnation.
Following years of unrest, an agreement was formed between the Government of Bangladesh and the tribal leaders which granted a limited level of autonomy to the elected council of the three hill districts.
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