Can't we resettle some in plain lands?
THE people of the hills and the people of the plain lands are two diametrically opposite entities. They do not belong to each other's worlds. Their religion, traditions, customs, values, food, language and lifestyles are worlds apart. "Never the twain shall meet." So, let's face it, with due honesty, they can never live side by side in peace and harmony. Therefore, it is sheer foolishness to politically sweet-talk them or militarily force them to live as neighbours. Everyone is paying a high price for this. Today, in their own land, hill people are searching for cover to save themselves from the cutters of the settlers. So, our progeny, for centuries to come, will often wake up hearing the cries of death and destruction in the hills, unless the process is reversed.
The settlers from the plain lands, like some invading marauders (see Avatar), were forced upon the simple people of the hills, and it resulted in a man-made catastrophe that better be rolled back. It is a slow and deliberate process of marginalisation of the ethnic people, who are part and parcel of this country, but with unique characteristics of their own. No one has the right to destroy those unique characteristics in the name of integration.
The hill people have been living there for over one thousand years and they never came down to the plain lands to grab the land and property of the people there. But on our part we pushed them farther into the hills as we kept on grabbing their land with impunity, starting from Cox's Bazar. In the sixties, Cox's Bazar was a predominantly Chakma village, clean and beautiful with Chakma boys and girls selling trinkets to the handful of tourists. Today, Cox's Bazar looks like Sadarghat. Rangamati looks like Sadarghat in the making.
Let's not try to hide the fact that the hills have lost their beauty with settlers swarming like rats everywhere. They are noisy, raucous, unclean and undisciplined, to say the least. Most of them loaf around, as works are limited. If you look closely you will find that an overwhelming number of the settlers are good-for-nothing people who have been sent there by corrupt politicians. They grab anything in the hills that comes their way to earn a living. Many others have taken various types of crimes to the hills that never existed there before. These criminals continue to thrive with the blessings of some corrupt policemen and politicians.
What is the solution? Where is the answer? How can the situation be reversed? Is their any way the hills and the hill people can be saved from the clutches of the plain land settlers, before all the hills are razed to the ground by the earth contractors with the backing of the corrupt politicians and law enforcers? We look so helplessly around for answers but it seems the rakkhaks have turned bhakkhaks (protectors turned molesters).
Yet, in our frantic bid to be of any help, we try to come up with some idea and hope that someone in the administration would be bold enough to place it before the higher authorities. The idea is, why can't we resettle a large number of the present settlers in CHT in the un-inhabited, un-occupied char lands (shoals) like Urir Char and Nijhum Deep, and also in new lands that are coming up in the Meghna basin area? Plain land people are basically adept in fishing and farming, so they would easily find ways and means of earning a living there.
According to scientists, Bangladesh could acquire new landmass measuring 10 to 15 thousand square kilometres, simply by placing cross dams in the southern part to trap sedimentation coming down from the Himalayas. In this regard, proposals have been submitted to the governments of the past with assurance of funds and technical assistance from the Dutch government, but for some mysterious reasons no one showed any interest. It's amazing that in a land-hungry country no government gave the prospect of acquiring new land in the south any priority!
If the present government is serious about peaceful settlement of the volatile CHT issue, it will have to take other options into consideration. Whatever has been done in the past was not hundred percent foolproof and not enough. The recent flaring up of violence is a burning example of that. Therefore, find alternate places to settle the plain land people (as suggested above) and do not allow growth of the population of the settlers in the hills any further. Except for some, Bangalis should not be allowed to settle in the hills in the hinterlands.
It is the cardinal duty of the government and the people of the country to preserve the sanctity of the ethnic people, and one way of doing it is not to ever encroach upon their lands, homesteads, cattle-heads and culture. Therefore, by sending some riff-raff to the hills we have not been able to achieve anything but create enemies of the once peace-loving people of the hills. The sooner we leave them alone the better.
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