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Bengali Nationalism & the Chittagong Hill Tracts

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“Cultures of Chittagong Hill Tracts and other indigenous peoples are still marginalized in Bangladesh, in mainstream cultural practices. They're made invisible. And there is a kind of appropriation too. A Chakma dance is danced by Bengali dancers.”

Researcher Kabita Chakma in conversation with Advisory Editor Mahmud Rahman talked about her own experience writing and translating in Bangla and Chakma, as well as the longue durée history of the Chakmas and the Chittagong Hill Tracts, particularly after the formation of CHT as a district in 1860. Colonial cartographies split the Chakma population between countries, districts, and states between Tripura, Assam, Mizoram in India, Burma, Bangladesh, and their global diasporas. How robust, Mahmud Rahman asks, is the readership of Chakma texts?


RECOMMENDED: "Muscular nationalism, masculinist militarism: the creation of situational motivators and opportunities for violence against the Indigenous peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh" (International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2022) by Glen Hill & Kabita Chakma

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Interview
Chittagong Hill Tracts
Bangladesh
CHT
Indigeneity
Chakma
Chakma History
Indigenous Art Practice
Indigeneous Spaces
Politics of Indigeneity
Language Diversity
Language
Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord
Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samiti
United People's Party of the Chittagong Hill Tracts
Kaptai Dam
Bengali
Nationalism
Jumma Communities
Jumma
Chakma Communities
Shaheen Akhtar
Militarism
Military Crackdown
Shomari Chakma
International Mother Tongue Day
Intellectual History

KABITA CHAKMA is an independent researcher, writer and architect. Writing in the Chakma, Bangla and English languages, Kabita’s research interests include the history, literature, art, architecture, cinema, environmental sustainability, human rights, women’s rights and Indigenous peoples’ rights. Her academic papers have appeared in university journals and edited book chapters. Her investigative articles have appeared in the Daily Star, the New Age, Himal Southasian, the publications of various cultural and educational institutes, including the online platforms Jumjournal, thotkata.com, and alalodulal.org. Her creative works include poems and short stories. Her book of poems, Jawli Na’Udhim Kittei!/ Rukhe Darabo Na Ken! was written in Chakma and Bangla languages and translated into English by Sajed Kamal. She recently translated a short story by Shaheen Akhter, Chander Pahar (Moon Mountain), for the magazine Out Of Print.  In the context of a paucity of fictional works in indigenous CHT languages, she is now working on Chakma language historical fiction.

Interview
Chittagong Hill Tracts
9th
Dec
2020

On That Note:

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