State of the original people
Md. Masum Billah finds a new work on the theme informative
Small Ethnic Groups of Bangladesh
A Mapping Exercise
Mohammad Rafi
Panjeree Publications Limited
Small Ethnic Groups of Bangladesh ---A Mapping Exercise retains the history and culture of ethnic people who constitute an integral part of our population. The historic, linguistic, cultural and social attributes of our ethnic people remain latent in the form of CDs to unfold before us. Social and political scientiss may find rich spicy materials in this seemingly small book. The ethnic groups of Bangladesh have enriched our traditional culture and participated in the freedom movement, though these facts have not been widely circulated or known. This book bears the testimony to those realities. The writer has gone to pains to record them for us. This study proceeds with three objectives --- finding out the exact number of small ethic groups; estimating their size and identifying their locations; and gathering selected information on the demographic , educational and socio-economic status of these groups. Though the study deals with these basic parameters, it rather tends to tilt toward education.
Bangladesh boasts a rich mosaic of ethnic groups, with Bengalis being outstandingly prominent. The rest of the ethnic groups, a little more than 70 in number, demonstrate a rich spectrum of cultural diversity and richness. The small ethnic groups together constitute less than two percent of the total population of the country. But this numerical insignificance should not in any way be seen as marginalization. On the contrary, such diversity adds substance to Bangladesh's cultural matrix. It is regrettable that our policies and practices have more often than not failed over the years to help the various cultural groups to develop string bonds with the rest of the country. Indeed, a strong sense of social , political and economic exclusion, lack of recognition, fear and insecurity, loss of cultural identify and social oppression have been the reality. Mainstream development efforts also have mostly ignored their concerns.
The indigenous people of this land are the descendants of the original inhabitants in these parts. In many cases they overcome conquest or settlement by aliens. The indigenous groups consider themselves distinct from the other sections of society. Owing to the presence of other groups they have become a non-dominant body of people, but they are determined to preserve, develop and transmit their ancestral territories and identity to future generations. These factors form the basis of their continued existence as people with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems.
It has been observed that small ethnic groups are located commonly among the poorest segments of a population. They engage in economic activities that range from shifting agriculture in or near forests to wage labour or even small-scale market oriented activities in rural or urban areas. SEGs can be identified in a particular geographical area by the presence of the following traits or characteristics in varying degrees: a close attachment to ancestral territories and natural resources in the area, language often different from the national language, presence of customs and primarily subsistence-oriented production, and, most importantly, self-identification and identification by others as members of a distinct cultural group. In fact, social and cultural identity distinct from the dominant society makes them vulnerable to being disadvantaged in the development process.
Anthropological research has brought to light the fact that amongst the majority ethnic groups in Bengal there prevail various kinds of proscriptions and prescriptions concerning marriage, eating and drinking, and religious rituals. In prehistoric times Bengal was inhabited by Austric and Dravidian language-speaking people. Again, among these groups the majority spoke different Austric languages. Following the invasion of Bengal by the Aryans, communication between victor and vanquished was made in Aryan languages. Bangla arose as a pidgin language with the influence of Sankskrit on it. After sometime it was spoken at home and transmitted as a first language. Therefore, it became what is known as creole. Of course, Bangla first got established as creole, then as a literary and official language.
A culture of the minority, particularly in the national development effort, is not often found in Bangladesh and important segments of society are left without the tools to participate in the process. However, local non-government organizations are working to fill this gap. Most ethnic minorities are incidentally trapped in social underdevelopment. Though education has been recognized as a universal and fundamental human right, quality education continues to elude indigenous learners in the Chittagong Hill Tracts region. Inadequate educational resources coupled with high dropout rates --- with almost 20 percent of the dropouts linked to linguistic obstacles ---create an environment where inhabitants are neither benefiting from development efforts nor are they equipped to participate in them. And yet Article 17 of the Bangladesh constitution stipulates that all children should receive an education compatible with the needs of society, an indication that there is no legal barrier to providing education in regional languages.
Although it is well known that Bangladesh is ethnically heterogeneous, to our surprise available studies, including the national census of Bangladesh, could hardly answer a very fundamental question: how many small ethnic groups reside in Bangladesh? Such a startling observation prompted this mapping exercise. In fact, the exercise is a census of small ethnic groups of Bangladesh but unconventionally it is of the households rather than of the individuals as done in the case of census. The study proceeded with such objectives such as finding out the exact number of small ethnic groups in Bangladesh, estimating their size and identifying their locations and gathering selected information on the demography, educational and socio-economic status of these groups.
It may be assumed that in the beginning various communities were confined to their own enclaves, more or less unaware of the existence of other language groups in the neighbourhood or were indifferent to those. Sometimes, the boundary between two languages was knife-edged, by a hill, forest or river; but in the case of others, for practical reasons, communities with different languages interacted. While linguistic pluralism was a state of mutual existence of several languages in a continuous space, it did not preclude the possibility of interconnections between one language and the other. Along the line of contact between two languages, first there developed a zone of transition in which people were bilingual. Subsequently, give and take between the language groups often resulted in systemic borrowing from one language to the other. As a result, languages over time evolved or transformed and took a new form and in cases became dead as their users picked up the language with which it came in contact.
The data generated for this study in its tabular form comprise about 1870 pages. To make the data set user friendly, it has been provided in a compact disc along with an interactive program which would allow users to draw a part of the data from the whole set as desired. The disc is pocketed on the inside back cover of this booklet. The disc also includes maps showing the status of SEGs in unions throughout the country. The book, to the best of our knowledge, is the first comprehensive account of small ethnic groups in the region. This extensive quantitative research based on field observations should attract a wide range of users. Policy planners, politicians, social anthropologists, government administrators, students of development studies and, most importantly, the small ethnic groups themselves will come to regard this as a pioneering work.
Reviewed by Md. Masum Billah is Senior Manager, Brac Education Program, PACE
Email: mmbillah2000@yahoo.com, mmbillah@dhaka.net
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