Beyond Black and White

Reflections on Racism and the Idea of Race[1]

~ Prashanta Tripura ~

In April 2015, there were massive protests and outbreaks of violence in Baltimore in response to police brutality against Black youths in the US.  Not too long ago before that, similar turns of events had unfolded in other American cities as well, e.g. in Ferguson, Missouri.  It so happens that in both Ferguson and Baltimore, the individuals whose deaths sparked waves of protests had surnames – Gray and Brown respectively – that are homonymous with two common color terms in English.  Moreover, one of the six police officers accused of being responsible for the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore was a Black female sergeant with the surname White!  While such names are quite common among English speaking communities of various ethnicities, I am pointing out the coincidental irony involved in Blacks having surnames such as White, Gray or Brown in order to draw attention to more substantive incongruities that exist at another level, in terms of the very idea of race as it is commonly used by many.

Black Lives Matter Protest, New York City, November 2014, Wikimedia Image

To anyone familiar with the way racial categories are used in the US, it may be obvious that although someone could be ‘gray’, ‘brown’ or even predominantly ‘white’ – so to speak in terms of different degrees of supposed racial admixture – he or she may still be classified as Black socially.   For example, let us consider the case of President Barack Obama.  We all know that his mother was White, while his father was from Kenya.  In theory, someone like Obama could be considered as half-White or half-Black, but in the binary world of Black-White racial divide as found in the US, there has been little room for different shades of gray, which are invariably classified as Black.  Thus, someone having only one Black person among several ancestors (say one out of eight great-grand parents) would usually be classified as Black socially and in many cases legally and administratively as well.   Such a scheme rests heavily on the strong social stigma attached to Black ancestry, a situation that is comparable to the dynamics of the caste system in South Asia, where children of a Brahmin married to a non-Brahmin cannot claim high caste status.  

~~~

In Bangladesh, a book on races by the Soviet anthropologist Mikhail Nesturkh, available in Bangla translation, was a major source of older ideas about ‘race’. 

In contemporary anthropology, a discipline that this author has been affiliated with and as practiced in the best universities of the world, the idea of race as a biological concept has been largely abandoned on scientific as well as political grounds. 

Scientifically, the idea of race as based on criteria such as skin colour and other visible physical features has proven inadequate in terms of explaining all the overt variations and overlaps found among humanity as a whole and the complex realities found at the genetic level. 

Politically, we are all aware of how racist notions about the supposed superiority or inferiority of different ‘races’ have led to atrocities such as the Holocaust, the Apartheid, and racial segregation in the US until the 1960s.  

Yet, despite our sciences and political sensibilities urging us to abandon the idea of race, it is still commonly used as a social construct, while various types of references to the same term can be found to be made in law and other professional fields.  Let me give two examples, one based on a personal experience from Berkeley, and the other related to some observations in the context Bangladesh and Bangladeshis.  

~~~

My first example is related to a story of my getting mugged near the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, where I used to be a graduate student.  As described in detail here, I was mugged one evening in the summer of 1987 on a street that ran from Berkeley to Oakland.[2]  Through an interesting chain of events that followed, and based on leads that were left in what was probably a stolen car, the police were able to identify one of the two muggers involved.  Later, I received a subpoena that asked me to be present at a court hearing as a witness in a case involving the ‘People of the State of California’ versus an accused who had a name that I vaguely recall having been something like McCoy.  Anyway, on the day of the scheduled hearing, I found two familiar faces in the courtroom: one was the police officer who responded to an emergency call after I had been mugged, and another was ‘Mr. McCoy’, who looked very much like one of the muggers whom I had encountered earlier.  There was something about his look that I remembered quite vividly. 

However, when I stood on the witness stand, and was interrogated by the Defense Attorney, I told the court that although I could not be 100% sure that Mr. McCoy was the person who had snatched my wallet, I was 95% sure.  At this point, for some reason that I can only speculate on, the Defense Attorney asked me to identify the racial identity of the muggers that had preyed on me.  I don’t know whether he wanted to suggest the possibility that I could be someone to confuse one Black face for another.  Anyway, instead of answering in the way that the question posed to me demanded, I started questioning the concept of race, leading to agitated deliberations on the part of the Defense Attorney.  I don’t remember the exact details of how the whole exchange went, but the point that I was trying to make was that as a student of anthropology, I had reservations about the concept of race, and that I believed that unnecessary or uncritical uses of racial categories led to perpetuation of racism.  I tried to clarify my point further by adding, “In Bangladesh, where I come from, we too have people of various skin colours, but we don’t categorize them in different races as such, and if someone is apprehended for a crime, we do not talk about what ‘race’ they belong to.”  The Defense Attorney became quite unsettled by my response and started saying something that amounted to the following: “The concept of race has perfect scientific basis, and I expect you to answer my question directly.”  Fortunately, the judge – who happened to have been a woman – intervened on my behalf by saying, “I think the witness has clarified his point, so we can move on.”

~~~

Before turning our attention to Bangladesh and Bangladeshis, I would like to mention that Berkeley was a place where I felt quite at home.  During the four years that I lived and studied there, I lived mostly at the International House, where students from all over the world as well as the US lived.  However, the university town itself was full of diversity of an even grander scale, and offered a setting in which one could easily blend in.  In terms of ethnic diversity, by the time I left Berkeley for good – which was at the end of 1990 – minority (i.e. non-White) students constituted the majority among the new intakes of undergraduate students.   However, despite the increasing levels of visible diversity, a counter-current that was quite discernible while I was at Berkeley was the tendency for students belonging to different ethnicities to coalesce around themselves and become increasingly more insular.  In such contexts, instead of talking about the melting pot, some commentators had already started looking for new metaphors such as the salad bowl in talking about the emergent trends of inter-ethnic relations in the US.  

~~~

Unlike in the US, the idea of race is not commonly used as a basis for ethnic divisions in Bangladesh.  But racial notions inherited from the days of British colonial rule – not to mention older categories implanted by the Brahmins – are widely held by educated classes of people and can be found deeply embedded in various accounts including school textbooks and popular histories.  For example, it is very common for Bengalis to be described as having ‘mixed’ racial origins, whereas the ethnic minorities of Bangladesh are assigned to homogenous categories that are understood to be racial, e.g. ‘Mongoloid’, ‘Austric’, ‘Dravidian’ etc.   As if as a logical culmination of such outmoded thoughts, the Constitution of Bangladesh, as amended in 2011, through the newly added Article 23A introduced some questionable terms to refer to the ethnic minorities of the country.  One of the terms, as found in the official English version of the constitution is ‘minor race’, a category that is rather uncommon in contemporary discourses in relevant fields such as anthropology and international law.   

Now, although Bangladeshis do not quite have social categories like Black or White in their own country, many of them do get used to these relatively quickly when they migrate to countries like the US.  They may also imbibe and display the same kind of racism as found in the host countries.  I was freshly reminded of this by a Facebook friend of Bangladeshi origin [who was living in the US as of 2014] when, in December 2014, we entered into a discussion of racism in the US in the context of a Facebook post of mine on news reports about some Indian right wing groups issuing threats to non-Hindus to convert to Hinduism or leave India.  Earlier, in an unrelated development in the US, huge demonstrations taking place in New York and other US cities protesting acts of police brutality against black youths had been in the news. Against that backdrop, my Bangladeshi American Facebook friend commented that “racism was overplayed by the media in the US”.  During the exchange of further comments that followed, I brought up the issues of there being more Black youths in jail than in college in the US[3], and of racial epithets that some Bangladeshi Americans used for Blacks.  In response, he called me an illiterate, and left the conversation, having unfriended me!

In Bangladesh, the government too continues to ‘unfriend’ or alienate ethnic minorities, who have sought to be recognized as ‘indigenous peoples’ instead of mere ‘tribes’, ‘minor races’ or ‘ethnic sects’ as the constitution now labels them.  On August 9, 2014 – the day an unarmed Black teenager by the name of Machael Brown was fatally shot in Fergusson, Missouri – those observing the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples in Bangladesh were busy denouncing yet another statement made by the government that there are no indigenous peoples in this country, since our constitution does not recognize the term! (Those interested to know the details may look at this news report or my ‘letter to Bangladesh’ written in August 2014).

~~~

Clearly, racism continues to operate in various forms and shades throughout the world – be it in Baltimore, Berkeley, or Bangladesh.  We must acknowledge this, and start questioning and thinking beyond categories such as Black, White or ‘minor races’ that may end up creating and perpetuating various systems of exclusion and inequalities even when one may use such terms with the intention of breaking down barriers.

Notes

---

[1] Two earlier versions of this article were published previously, first on 3 May 2015 as ‘Reflections on the Idea of Race’ in the online portalAlal O Dulal, with a revised version with a correction and some minor edits published 13 May 2015 in the ‘Opinion’ page of bdnews24 as ‘Beyond Black and White: Reflections on Racism and the Idea of Race’.  The latter is no longer available online, hence an updated (and slightly abridged) version of the same has been published here, with relevant notes added.  

[2] Since the full story has been published as a separate post on this blog, I have omitted the details – which are quite interesting in themselves – from this version of my article.]

[3] It has been suggested that the claim – once widely made – that there were more black young men in jail than in college was really a myth, as reported in this BBC report (see also, this NPR post). However, other accounts suggest that the contested statistic was not really a myth, but based on actual reality.  For example, the abstract of an article found on PubMed Central says: “In 2009, young Black men were much more likely to experience imprisonment than college graduation. Ten years later, this trend had reversed, with Black men more likely to graduate college than go to prison.”

CHT: Aspirations vis-à-vis Reality

A Perspective on Peace, Development, and  Security in the Chittagong Hill Tracts

~ Prashanta Tripura ~

The Chattogram (Chittagong) Hill Tracts (CHT) remains one of the most unique and complex regions of Bangladesh.[1] Defined by its hilly terrain and rich ethnic tapestry, it stands in stark contrast to the deltaic plains that characterize much of the rest of the country. This region, now divided into the districts of Rangamati, Bandarban, and Khagrachari, offers a distinctive landscape not only in terms of geography but also in its socio-political governance and cultural diversity.

To understand the current security environment and the ways forward, one must look at the CHT through multiple lenses. Keeping this in mind, my talk presents some personal views combining my perspectives as someone who hails from the CHT, a student of anthropology, and a development professional.[2] In this regard, I would like to start by saying that the  quest for  “peace,” “development,” and “security” in  the  CHT is not  a monolithic journey; rather, it is a narrative shaped by  historical transitions and local aspirations that often collide with state-centric realities.

A Unique Landscape of Diversity

The  CHT is home to over 12 ethnicities. While eleven are officially recognized as “tribes,” they collectively self-identify as Pahari (Hill People), Jumma, or Adibashi (indigenous  peoples). Historically, their lives were centered around   jum, a form of hillside shifting cultivation. However, this traditional livelihood has declined rapidly, replaced by new economic pressures and land use patterns.

The  governance of the  CHT is equally unique. It operates under a dual system: the  mainstream institutions found across Bangladesh coexist with CHT-specific setups. These include “traditional” systems of Chiefs, Headmen and Karbaris, as  well  as  modern administrative bodies like  the  three Hill District Councils (HDCs) and the  CHT Regional Council. This layered governance is a testament to the region’s special status, a status that has been negotiated and contested for over a century.

The Colonial Legacy and Post-Partition Struggles

The  roots of the  current situation lie  deep in  history. In  the  pre-British period, the  hills  were characterized by relatively autonomous communities living on the margins of neighboring states or having a tributary relationship based on  cotton. The advent of British rule transformed this. By 1860, the CHT was formally created as a District, and the “CHT Regulation of 1900” (Act I of 1900) established a legal framework that recognized the region’s distinct character.

In 1935, the British designated the CHT as a “Totally Excluded Area,” shielding it from some of the political changes occurring in the   plains, and with the purported aim to ‘protect’ the local inhabitants from individuals and groups perceived to be more cunning and unscrupulous. However, the   post-1947 era brought significant upheaval. After becoming part of Pakistan, the region saw its  special “Excluded Area” status gradually eroded. One of the most devastating blows came in the mid-1960s with the completion of the Kaptai hydro-electric dam. This “development” project submerged 40%  of  the  CHT’s  prime agricultural land and displaced approximately 100,000 people – a trauma from which the  region has never fully recovered. At around the same time, the “Excluded Area” status of the CHT was removed, thereby opening up the region for settlement by people from the plains. 

Independence and Conflict

While many people of the  CHT joined the War of Liberation in 1971 as in the rest of the country,  the post-independence era brought new challenges. The 1972 Constitution’s definition of Bangladesh as a “nation of Bengalees” was opposed by leaders like M. N. Larma, who went on to form the  PCJSS and its armed wing, the Shanti Bahini, demanding regional autonomy. The decades that followed were marked by militarization and the state-sponsored resettlement of approximately 400,000 people from the   plains into the   hills, leading to further displacement of the   indigenous population.

The 1997 Accord: A Half-Empty or Half-Full Glass?

Is the CHT Accord ‘half-implemented’ or ‘half-unimplemented’?

A turning point arrived in 1997 with the signing of the CHT ‘Peace’ Accord between the Government of Bangladesh and the PCJSS. It was a historic agreement that earned the then Prime Minister the UNESCO Peace Prize and promised a new era of peace and development. Key provisions included the declaration of the CHT as a “tribal area,” the dismantling of temporary military camps, and the creation of the CHT Regional Council and the Ministry of CHT Affairs.

However, nearly three decades later, the implementation of the  Accord remains  a subject of intense debate. Disagreements between the government and the PCJSS about the status of the implementation have been there for quite a long time.  For example, in 2016, the government of that time claimed that two-thirds of the  Accord (48 out of 72 sections) had been fully implemented. Conversely, the PCJSS argued that two-thirds remained unimplemented, citing that the most critical provisions—such as land dispute resolution and the withdrawal of temporary military camps—have seen little progress.

Critical Challenges and  the Way Forward

As often stated by many stakeholders, for the CHT to reach its full potential, several “critical areas” must be addressed with renewed political will:

• Resolution of Land  Disputes: The  Land Commission must be  made functional to address the grievances of those displaced.

• Democratic Processes: Necessary measures must be taken to hold long-overdue elections for the Hill District Councils.

• Empowerment of Local Councils:  Key subjects like land management and local police must be transferred to the Hill District Councils as promised.

• Rehabilitation:  Internally Displaced People  (IDPs) and refugees require comprehensive identification and rehabilitation.

Aspirations from the Margins

A strategy for the future must be built on mutual understanding and the removal of misconceptions. We must move away from top-down, state-centric perspectives of “security” and “development” and instead listen to the aspirations of ordinary citizens. In this regard, we must remember that even the   most marginalized groups possess agency, i.e. the capacity to act and decide for themselves.

The fate of the ethnic minorities in the CHT is more than a local issue; it is a window into the health of Bangladesh as a whole and an indication of the challenges facing pluralism globally. We must dare to dream of a future where children from these margins can soar toward their dreams in an inclusive and multiethnic Bangladesh that recognizes and celebrates all forms of diversity.

I would like to end this piece by drawing on some of the themes that have been highlighted in three of my books, in Bangla, as depicted by the covers reproduced below.[3]  

In the first book, I shed light on Bangladesh as a nation of many ethnicities, most of which have not be properly recognized.  The second book, written for youth belonging to ethnic minority groups, encourages the readers to dream big, and to seek to transcend their marginality by “aiming high”. Finally, the third book discusses how Bangladesh still lives in the “shadows of colonialism” in many ways, and stresses the need to decolonize many things ranging from linguistic categories to identities, everyday practices, and institutions. I would like to summarize all that I have tried to say through my writings in these collections by a single sentence shown below:       

Let us imagine a country that, like a colorful nakshi kantha, finally emerges from the shadows of colonialism, embracing every thread of its diversity.

End notes

---

[1]This article is based on a PowerPoint presentation that I used for delivering a lecture on “Chattogram Hill Tracts: Aspirations vis-à-vis Reality” at the Defence Services Command and Staff College (DSCSC) , Mirpur, Dhaka, on 12 May 2026, as part of the Symposium  on ‘Evaluation of the Current  Security  Environment in the  Chattogram  Hill Tracts and Ways  Forward.’ It may be mentioned that I delivered lectures on the CHT – specifically on the CHT Peace Process – at DSCSC twice before, once in August 2017, and another time in May 2023. Interested readers will find my notes on the 2017 lecture here.  

[2] Views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily represent that of the organization that he is presently affiliated with professionally.

[3] Interested readers may find more information about the contents of my three books in Bangla as shown through the photos of the covers (and my other publications) here.

What Does or Should ‘Indigenous Art’ Mean?

~ Prashanta Tripura ~

Background

I would like to begin this paper[1] by describing the context in which I thought of addressing the question posed in its title.  First, it so happens that since 1993, I have thought and written considerably about the meaning and relevance of the notion of ‘indigenous people(s)’ in the context of Bangladesh, where many people in positions of power often claim that the so-called ‘tribal’ peoples of the country may not be categorized as ‘indigenous peoples.’  Against this backdrop, I wrote many articles to point out the hypocrisies and inconsistencies in the views held by dominant groups and classes.  At the same time, I have also written considerably about the need for greater degrees of critical introspection in our deployment of various categories of self-identification. 

The second point relating to the context in which I conceived of this paper is the fact that to a large extent, the problem that I address here happens to be a reformulation of a similar issue that I brought up in relation to poetry in an article that I wrote, in Bangla, in April 2013.  The title of that article – which may be translated as: ‘Is there or should there be something called indigenous poetry?’ – reflected a question that had come to my mind twice in a short span of time during the period from November 2012 to January 2012.  On both occasions, I had found myself refusing to wear the hat of ‘indigenous poet’ that I had been presented with even though it had not been something that I had sought.  The first occasion was my being invited to an informal gathering of poets at Jahangirnagar University – where I had once held a teaching position in anthropology – in an unexpected manner, which prompted me to post a Facebook status update, in Bangla, as reproduced below in my own translation:

Today I received an invitation over phone to attend a gathering of poets.  I was told that there would be a session of ‘indigenous poets’.  I am not a poet.  But even if I were, I would not have wanted to be known as an ‘indigenous poet.’  Recently, at a television program that I participated in, I was introduced as an ‘indigenous researcher’, a designation that sounded odd to my ears.  I have written quite a bit in support of, and demanding recognition for, the identity of the indigenous peoples of Bangladesh.  So why do I feel uncomfortable with this label when applied to me?  In my view, the demand for recognition of indigenous identity is political, and its usage should remain primarily in this domain.  Outside of it, the uncritical use of the category in the context of poetry or literature is problematic, and in many cases meaningless or even derogatory!  [November 1, 2012]

The second time when similar thoughts came to my mind was in January 2013, when an editor, who by coincidence was also professionally affiliated with Jahangirnagar University, sent me a message to my Facebook inbox, seeking my permission for reprinting a poem of mine that I was informed had been selected for inclusion in a forthcoming anthology of ‘indigenous poetry’.  He informed me that the selected poem of mine – the title of which may be translated as ‘Banished Words’ – had already been published in another anthology of indigenous poetry.  Assuming that I would not object to it being included in another anthology of the same genre, in the message that I received, the editor of the planned publication asked if there were other poems of mine that they could include in their publication.  I wrote back saying that I had issues with the label ‘indigenous poet/poetry’.  In reply, he provided a brief justification for the planned publication, but I was too busy at that time to offer any further explanation as to why I objected to being categorized as an ‘indigenous poet’.  Later, I found out that my poem – ‘Banished Words’ – appeared in the planned anthology without my explicit consent or despite the reservation that I had expressed.  It was in such a context that I wrote my April 2013 article – mentioned already – in which I posed the question as to whether there was or should be anything called ‘indigenous poetry’.  In that piece, I presented my own view on the matter quite directly, in terms such as reproduced here in translation: “my article is an attempt on my part to take down and break out of the category of indigenous poets/poetry.”

It was against the backdrop outlined above that when I was invited to participate at a workshop held as part of the Dhaka Art Summit 2018, I thought of writing this article by focusing on my reservations about the uncritical use of the label ‘indigenous’ and by linking the discussion to ‘art’.[2] 

[Two subsequent sections of my paper, titled ‘The ‘indigenous turn’ that I experienced and witnessed in 1993’ and ‘Denial and appropriation of ‘adibashi’ identity: Developments since 2010’ are omitted from this blog post.  The main points of these sections can be found in greater detail in the articles summarized in my blog post titled Debates over Indigeneity in Bangladesh: A personal retrospective].

My re-entry into the ‘adibashi’ debate and new encounters with my ‘banished words’

For reasons that we need not recount in this paper, I left academia in 2001 to turn into a fulltime development professional working within Bangladesh.  In my new role, from 2001 to 2012, I had professional engagement with indigenous peoples – e.g. in the context of promoting mother tongue-based multilingual education for their children – but when the ‘adbiashi issue’ became a focus of much public discussion and debate in various media around 2010-2011, I could not take active part in it.  This changed by mid-2012, when I decided to try a new career path as a freelancer and I also became very active on social media.  Thus, I began speaking out against what I perceived to be the hypocrisies, inconsistencies, and racist attitudes of those who continued to deny – through various means including the invention the ‘minor anthropo-sects’ [a term that coined as equivalent to the Bangla ‘Khudro Nri-Goshthi’ that came to be used in official documents in Bangladesh since 2010] –the rights of the self-identifying indigenous peoples. However, as indicated already, I would also stress the need for adopting critical perspectives in articulating or supporting the ‘adibashi cause’, and in terms of how the label ‘indigenous’ was applied by various quarters.  In this regard, I was particularly conscious of various biases such as classism, sexism and tokenism that was reflected in the ways different individuals and groups deployed the term ‘adibashi’. It was in such a context that I found myself refusing to wear the hat of an adibashi poet, an experience that would prompt me to question the category of ‘indigenous poetry’ generally. 

In order to further clarify the point that I was trying to make around 2013, let me provide some additional contextual information regarding my poem titled ‘Banished Words’, which came to be included in two different anthologies of ‘indigenous poetry’ without my consent.   For me, this ‘poem’ was little more than a personal record – a page from my diary – expressing my emotions after taking part at a silent march that was organized in Dhaka on May 21, 1989 by students belonging to indigenous peoples of the CHT to protest mass killings that had been perpetrated at a place called Longudu on the 4^th of May 1989.[3]  Thus, it was with a note on this contextual information that I had this ‘poem’ of mine first published in a magazine brought out by a group with ties to the CHT. However, when I rediscovered the same piece of my writing in an anthology of ‘indigenous poetry’, I was struck by the depoliticized romanticism that was evident in the book’s title, which may be translated as ‘Fragrant Flowers of the Forest’! 

Apart from the incongruity with which my own piece featured in a collection named in this way, I would like to mention another pertinent observation regarding the linguistic and class-related uniformity of the ‘indigenous poets’ represented in it.  Almost all came from the urban middle class of ‘indigenous people’ who predominantly wrote in Bangla and had professional identities as doctors, engineers, bureaucrats, army officers, ministers and so on.  I too was no exception in this regard.  Thus, to me, the classed nature of an anthology like ‘Fragrant Flowers of the Forest’ was sufficient reason for us to pause and wonder about the relevance of such publications in the context of the everyday struggles of ordinary indigenous people. Moreover, I am also concerned that without knowing the diverse contexts in which the selections of such anthologies may have been written, readers could easily misread them.  For example, in case of my ‘Banished Words’, at least one reader would come up with a complete misreading of it, as I discovered one day. In an opinion piece, he remarked: “Though individuals like Prashanta Tripura agonize over losing their indigenous languages, it is in Bangla that they have to express this agony!”

Reflections on ‘indigenous’ art and culture

Let us now return to the question posed through the title of this piece:  What does or should ‘indigenous art’ mean? In this regard, in line with our previous discussion, it is obvious that our answers would depend on the various meanings that we attribute to the label ‘indigenous’, and the different purposes for which we may seek to use it in relation to ‘art’.   In this context, I would like to recall a pertinent exchange that I had with the Chittagong-based artist Joydeb Roaja who first contacted me in September 2012 saying that he and some of his fellow ‘adibashi’ artists were struggling with some questions in connection to a group exhibition on the theme of ‘Indigenous life and culture’ that they were to take part in.  The questions that they were faced with were as follows:  What does indigenous culture mean?  Does it consist of ‘traditional’ dances and songs only?  Or are there other factors to be taken into account?  [The rest of my subsequent discussion, omitted here, is largely the same as Section 2 of a Bangla article of mine referenced here: আদিবাসী সংস্কৃতি ও ঐতিহ্য বিষয়ক কিছু ভাবনা (“Some thoughts on indigenous cultures and traditions”)]

Artwork of Joydeb Roaza

The points summarized in the omitted sections of my article [e.g. relating to the notions of ‘Indigenous culture’ and ‘Invented traditions’, and matters such as ‘The purpose of art’, ‘The importance of local perspectives’, and ‘The changing nature of culture’] were, of course, hardly original.  They were not new even in the context of my own writings either. For example, years before I published my Facebook note in response to the question posed by Joydeb Roaja, I ended an article of mine – ‘Culture, Identity and Development in the Chittagong Hill Tracts’ – with the following words:

The performance of dances or songs in which jum-cultivators are depicted in an idealized setting does not necessarily conform to the historical experiences of contemporary jum-cultivators. It seems that for many urban Jummas, the quest for identity is confined to such symbolic and romanticized reconstruction of a way of life that they themselves have left behind and will never return to. On the other hand, there are still many people in the CHT for whom jum continues to be important as a principal means of subsistence. So the questions that I would like to pose are as follows: How much do we educated urban Jummas know about the conditions under which today’s jum-cultivators live? What are their futures? And so long as they want to continue to practice jum, how can it be ensured that they look like the happy people that we see depicted on-stage?

I would like to end this article by referring to the question that is in its title one last time.  In case my own answer to the question is not already obvious to the reader, I would like to offer an analogy involving a hypothetical question regarding the relationship between art and gender.  Let us imagine that we are talking about whether artworks produced by women should be categorized as ‘women’s art’, ‘feminine art’, ‘feminist art’ etc, or just as ‘art’, and how these could further the cause of gender equality.  I suppose that there can be no straightforward answer to this question, since the choice would largely depend on who is making it.  However, I think many people who care about promoting gender equality would prefer ‘feminist art’ or just ‘art’ to the other two categories mentioned.  In the same vein, in relation to the ‘indigenous art’, if we must continue to use such a category, I would propose to replace it with a new term like ‘indigenist art’.    

~~~

Notes

---

[1]This blog post is an edited and abridged version of an article of mine that was published in the following publication: Sovereign Words: Indigenous Art, Curation and Criticism, ed. K. Garcia-Antón, Office of Contemporary Art Norway, Valiz, Amsterdam, 2018.  The original published version has detailed references that have been omitted from this blog post.   

[2] Here is a YouTube video featuring my talk – at the  workshop held as part of the Dhaka Art Summit 2018 – that would lead to the article as presented here in a abridged form.  

[3]A detailed account of the circumstances leading to my participation in the silent march of 21 March 1989, and subsequent developments can be found in my Bangla blog post titled আমি কেন সিগারেট খেতাম (“Why I used to smoke”).

Letters from Lekha: A story of dreams

~ Prashanta Tripura ~

(Translated version of a Bangla article that was originally written in the form of a ‘science fiction’)[1]

Before the story begins

Lekha Tripura is a female astronaut, whom I met and talked to recently. I also received a letter from her. But all this was in a dream. Later, after waking up from the dream, I really received a letter, from Lekha, where she talks about the first dream I had….

The letter she wrote left behind some mantras composed of ‘love’ and other words. To know what these mantras are, you will have to read the story. However, the story is only for those who have the courage to dream and have faith in the future.

***

We met in Lima

I got to know Lekha[2] in 2062. You must be thinking, that’s in the future! Yes, that’s right, we’re talking about a time quite far ahead from today. We’re wandering around in a surreal world where everything is possible. So, keep listening to the story. But before talking about Lekha, let me introduce myself a little. My name is Nokha. Nokha Tripura. I too am an astronaut. I travel to Mars, but when I get a chance between different missions, I spend time with the Abindigenous people (Adi-Adivasis)[3] of the Earth.

The Abinidgenous people are those who were once known as Indigenous Peoples  in various countries of the world until 2032. But then, bad times came to planet earth, because a species from another galaxy took over the world. They have rearranged their genetic structure to look exactly like humans, and are roaming around the world. The only way to distinguish them is their eyes, which never show a glimmer of happiness or hope, as is seen in humans. These aliens who roam around in human faces are called ‘Ade’ (pronounced like ‘aid’), which is an abbreviation for the phrase ‘Aliens with dead eyes’.[4]

Initially, the Ades took over the major metropolises of the world. It was very easy for the Ades to take over the bodies and minds of the people in these places because their immune systems had weakened due to diet, lifestyle, environmental pollution, etc. Meanwhile, many of those whom the term “indigenous” meant before 2032 had intact immune systems, so the Ades could not easily overcome them. After scientists on Mars discovered this, the indigenous communities that were able to resist the Ades and were spread across various remote areas of the world began to be called “Abindigenous”.

The main strongholds of resistance to the Ades on Earth were built in areas inhabited by the Abindigenous peoples. However, even in the metropolises, a number of people, who escaped the notice of the Ades, built secret strongholds of resistance, commonly called the ‘Indigenous People’, by the people who came from Mars to resist the Ades.

My father was an indigenous person born in a place called Tindu in Bandarban, Bangladesh, and a Tripura by ethnicity, and my mother was another indigenous person born near the Chimbuk hills, whose father was a Khumi and mother was Mro. I was born in 2033, and when it was understood that indigenous people had a special ability to resist the Ades, I grew up in a fort built by Abindigenous and indigenous peoples in the Remakri area. Another such fort is in Sajek, where Lekha, who is five years younger than me, was born and raised. Both her parents identified as Tripuras, but her father’s mother was a Pankhua. Lekha’s parents are alive, but both my parents died when I was nine years old, during a guerrilla attack on the base of the Ades.

I had never heard of Lekha before. Actually, after leaving Remakri, I was busy training in various forts in Abindigenous and non-Ades areas of the world. In 2062, I went to Lima to join a team that would go to Mars for training to undertake a special operation against the Ades. I was selected as the team leader. I knew that there would be two types of people in the team, Abindigenous and indigenous, but I didn’t know anyone’s names before.

I was introduced to Lekha in Lima, like everyone else in the group. But meeting her was a huge experience for me, one I wasn’t prepared for at all.

Earlier, my life’s vow was to rid the world of Ades. And to do that, I was always ready to rush to any corner of the world, or to a distant planet, whenever necessary. So, I would never get involved in love or marriage with anyone, that was my vow. But the moment I first saw Lekha, a huge upheaval took place inside me, a feeling that engulfed my entire being, such an experience that I had never gone through before in my life.

I didn’t know that Lekha was a Tripura girl at that time. So, she is also a Tripura, I am also a Tripura – my special attraction or interest in her was not born from any such thought, it was nothing like that. Rather, the feeling that I had at the moment of seeing her cannot be explained in words. From the moment I saw Lekha, I felt like I had known her for various incarnations. We would meet in Lima, we would go to Mars together, this was the writing of destiny. I have heard and read such kind of things that many of our predecessors used to say.

However, my love-at-first-sight for Lekha did not escape the attention of Marsha !King, the team’s chief training advisor (Dr. !King was originally from the Kalahari region, and belonged to the !Kung San people; the letter ‘!’ is a sound in their language). One day, during a training session, she called me over and told me, in a whisper (a language she had learned while living for a year in the Jampui Hills fort in Tripura), ‘I understand your feelings. But remember, the important thing is to complete the mission properly.’ I knew that too, so I never said anything openly.

The training continued. In our free time, we talked. We played ‘Wii-Sukui’ (a Wii version of the Tripura game of Sukui, which is part of everyone’s regular exercise routine.) After thirteen days of training, one day, during lunch, Lekha suddenly said to me, ‘Do you love me? Do you want me? You will have me on one condition. You have to make sure first that your parents, their parents, everyone will love me. Here is a letter. Everything is written here.’

The first letter and my shattered dream

‘Nokha, the moment I first met you, I understood that just as you were looking for me deep in your heart, so was I…’ After reading this, I suddenly woke up. I found myself in the hostel, sitting on a chair, with my head resting on my folded hands on the study table, falling asleep. The hostel is Martin Hall, the dormitory of Notre Dame College. I live there with two other friends – one is Tura Mri from Chunia village in Madhupur, the other is Ira Hembrom from Kankanhata in Rajshahi. An open laptop in front of me.

I fell asleep while working on an assignment for the ‘Science and History’ course. The course was taught by Anna Toppo, who I really like. She taught in a very interesting and emotional way how Europeans spread all over the world after Columbus’s so-called discovery of America, how biodiversity in different parts of the world started changing, how European scientists started to call their own ‘discoveries’ by collecting the folk knowledge of indigenous peoples – many things like that.

Our beloved teacher gave an assignment, “In the next two years, i.e. by 2020, the world’s population will exceed 8 billion. Let’s say, in this huge population, on average, each family has one car, one flat, one TV… that is, all the average ideas of the street person about a ‘better’ lifestyle that you have come up with by going near Shapla Chattar and conducting a quick survey on the street. Can this world bear the burden of such a lifestyle? Using what that the Jumia couple from Thanchi said in the seminar that day, their words, the readings of the class, and the information found by searching the college’s e-library – write a paper of 5000 words.”

I was working on the assignment given by Anna Toppo, and in between writing, I was chatting with Lekha on Facebook. Her home is Sajek. She is my age. She is very talented. She is currently studying in a college in Beijing, where many people from different parts of the world come to study after completing secondary school. Her dream is to join the Mars-based ‘Space Biology Lab’ that is supposed to be launched by 2030. So, I woke up and looked at my laptop, and I saw a new message on Facebook, sent by Lekha. She wrote, ‘I have sent a letter by e-mail. Read it. It is very important.’ Without delay, I opened the email and started reading the letter that the writer had sent.

Second letter, love spell

‘Dear Nokha, I met you in Lima. Are you surprised? I know it’s hard to explain and make you believe. But today I’m going to tell you something else that’s even more unbelievable. I’m in a hurry, so I’ll be very brief. It’s very important and urgent. You should read every word very carefully and delete this email as soon as you are done reading it.

The fact is, the Ades are all around us. They have been spreading across the planet for hundreds of years – some say three or five thousand years ago. Scientists on Mars aren’t exactly sure how this happened. But they are certain that the Ades first arrived in the form of microorganisms from distant galaxies, then somehow took over the bodies and minds of many people, and slowly spread across the globe.

Anthropologists believe that the rapid spread of the state and market system in human history is due to the Ades Moreover, the Ades have spread their influence throughout the world in all institutions, from the education system to religion. Machoviruses take over the human body and mind in innovative ways. Certain species of bacteria and viruses carry their genetic code. Among the microbes are a bacterium called ‘E. coli’, and several viruses of the ‘Reseclaw’ family.

The Ade virus enters the brains of children between the ages of three and ten, but remains dormant for many years. The virus spreads through contact with adults who have mumps. Ades use various techniques, such as inserting themselves into books, or activating airborne viruses with remote-controlled magnetic waves and injecting them into children’s bodies with dust.

I have little time, but the reason I am writing to you is that the number of Ades has increased alarmingly recently in the Chittagong Hill Tracts area. They have taken over a few forts. This is happening in other parts of the country and in other parts of the world as well. But this expansion of Ades must be stopped at any cost.

The good news is that a medicine made from the juice of the roots of some trees easily available in the hilly areas has been discovered, which, if taken regularly, can completely eliminate the bacteria and viruses that cause tuberculosis from the brains of children. However, the challenge is that this medicine will have to be taken regularly for several years in a row. To do this, we need many volunteers who will go to different schools and work as teachers. This must be done without the supervision of the tuberculosis patients, because in many places they have appointed people who have become tuberculosis patients as school teachers.

Remember one thing, you can’t identify an Ade by their outward appearance. They may be Pahari, Bengali, Chakma, Barua, Muslim, Christian, or whatever they are, but to understand whether they are human or Aee, you have to look closely at their eyes.

Another thing, along with giving children preventive medicine, we should also teach them a mantra. Children should be taught to chant the mantra with deep faith, with all their heart, every day while taking medicine. If you see a glimmer of light in the eyes of the children while chanting the mantra, you will understand that the Ades have not spread much among them. And the good thing is, we should try to cure all children. Who is a hillman, who is a Bengali, who is a tribal, who is a native – we cannot waste time by making such judgments.

However, now read the mantra carefully so that you don’t forget it. Read: “I love Lekha”….

Last letter: The password for the future

…At this point I really woke up. I realized that I had been dreaming within a dream all this time. I was happy to realize that. “I love Lekha” – I screamed out in my dream while reading the words, because my mind could not accept the idea that someone else would want Lekha, that she would belong to someone else.

In the house I stayed at in Barapara village, I opened my solar-powered laptop and saw a picture of Lekha. I was introduced to Lekha in Rangamati, at the Teachers Training College. She is from Sajek. After completing her studies in Australia, she decided to become a primary school teacher in her area.

I once planned to become an engineer, and I was studying in Khulna, but a lot of things happened in between… At one point, I decided to teach in Barapara village. That’s how I went to Teachers Training College for training, where I met Lekha. It was love at first sight… but we decided that we won’t get married now. The vow with which we started teaching, to spread the light of education in Sajek’s Hachuk Kami and Khagrachhari Sadar’s Barapara – we will continue that for now. We write letters to each other regularly. Old-fashioned handwritten letters. I opened the letter that came today and started reading it, and while reading it, I was shocked again! Lekha has written:

Nokha,

This is my last letter to you. I am telling you some words, they will serve as the key to the future, as the password to the portal. Do you know the first key? Think about what the word ‘Lekha’ means in Kokborok, then when the question appears on the portal, pronounce the word in that language (if you have forgotten the meaning of the word ‘Lekha’, it is written below, check it out*).

The names of the bacteria and virus families I mentioned have also been used to create passwords, which you have to remember. They will be needed to operate some weapons in the future. Remember ‘E Colo’ as European Colonialism. And remember ‘RaSeClaO’ as ‘Racism, Sexism, Class Domination and Other Diseases’. And some samples of the roots of the plants I was talking about consuming regularly are kept in some villages in Remakri and Sajek. Find them.

The trees have some words written on them – equality, humanity, fellowship (Ehuf) and love for nature (Lofon). Ehuf and Lohon, these two words should be engraved in your mind so that you don’t forget the symbols.

Now, memorize the entire mantra I taught you: “I love Lekha. I love dreaming. I want Leha. I want to reach my dreams. I want to be human.” Never forget this mantra. The children who utter these words with deep conviction will be able to cross the portal to the future. Make sure to write these words down, in your notebook. See you in Lima, in 2062.

~~~

*Lekha = Education

[The story was first published in 2013, in the 2nd issue of Tripura Students Forum’s magazine Yakhlwi, and later compiled in the author’s book On the Edge of the Nation-State: From the Abyss of Marginality to the Space of Dreams, published by Samhati Prakashan in 2018. The current blog version [in Bangla] was first published on August 16, 2013, with several minor edits.]

---

[1] This is an edited English version of a story, originally in Bangla, as translated using an AI tool available on the WordPress site on which the original is posted.  The title of the story as automatically translated was “Writing Letters: A Dream Story”, which the author has changed in the course of editing the AI-translated version. 

[2] Since ‘lekha’ means ‘writing’ (or ‘to write’) in Bangla, in many parts of the story, the name of the main character of my story – Lekha – has been translated by AI as ‘writing’!

[3] The term ‘Abindigenous’ is a play on the two related terms ‘Aboriginal’ and ‘Indigenous’.  

[4] The name of the aliens, as presented in the original story in Bangla, is “Mochovi”, an acronym based on the Bangla for “Dead-eyed aliens” (মড়া চোখের ভিনগ্রহী).  Interesting, in various places, AI translated “Mochovi” as mosquitoes! But the AI translation gets even more interesting towards the end of the story, with ‘Mochovi’ translated as ‘machovirus’ in may places! While editing the AI-translated version of my story, I used the terms ‘Abindigenous’ and ‘Ade’ (ADE) in line with their first usage in a Facebook post that I wrote on the day I finished writing the story. Here is a screenshot of that Facebook post.

The Roots of Bangladeshi Identities

~ Prashanta Tripura ~

Reflections on the origins of Bengali Muslim and other identities in Bangladesh[1]

There is a tendency for people to talk about ethnic divides and conflicts in terms of supposed genetic (or racial) groupings that are actually based on cultural or linguistic categories. This is [certainly] true of many Southasian[2] conflicts [as represented in various media]. Popular misconceptions aside, modern anthropology tells us that despite immense diversity, humans are really one, both biologically as a species and culturally in terms of the innate potentials and tendencies of diverse groups. The latter point basically expresses the postulate of the Psychic Unity of Mankind, originally formulated in the 19th century by German anthropologist Adolf Bastian, and which endures to date in one form or another in anthropology and various other disciplines. But how does the humanistic view expressed in Bastian’s postulate help us comprehend real situations in which human groups locked in conflict either fail or refuse to see their common humanity across ethnic, religious or political divides?

[My article, ‘Becoming Bangladeshi’, that this blog post in based on] focuses on conflicts involving Bengali Muslims, which, briefly put, are of two types. First, within Bengali Muslim society in Bangladesh, there is an unresolved tension between two poles of collective identity – Bengali and Muslim. Second, since the British colonial period, the growth and geographical expansion of the Bengali Muslim population has been associated with conflicts against non-Bengali ethnic groups living along or across the borders of present-day Bangladesh. In this context, after reviewing the historical emergence of Bengali Muslims, I consider questions of identity and connections to the past as these relate to contemporary Bangladeshis.

Bengal’s frontiers

As is well-known to students of Bengal’s history, it was a military commander named Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khilji, who, through his conquests around 1204-1205, ushered in Muslim rule in a region that came to be known as ‘Bangala’, and later as ‘Bengal’ in English. Legend has it that Bakhtiyar Khilji – who was operating under a Delhi-based Turkish sultan named Qutb-ud-din Aibak, and who himself hailed from the Turkic Khilji (Khalji) tribe long settled in what is now southern Afghanistan – defeated Lakshman Sen, the king of Bengal at the time, with just 18 horsemen. This fact (or myth) has led to much caricature and Hindu-nationalist anguish regarding the latter’s incompetence. The history of the rise of Islam, particularly the emergence of a Bengali Muslim agrarian society, may be known in broad outlines, but the ethnic and cultural processes involved in this transformation remain poorly understood among the educated classes in Bangladesh, and in Southasia generally. In this regard, Richard Eaton’s The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204-1760 is one of the few books to significantly address this lacuna.

…

Eaton dislodges some conventional views regarding the emergence of Bengali Muslims. One of these conventional views, for example, is that large numbers of Bengalis embraced Islam to escape the stigma and oppression associated with ‘Hindu’ caste society. Against such views, Eaton makes the point – one that may be missed upon a cursory reading of his book – that Islam took root in much of eastern Bengal, which, unlike other parts of Bengal, had not been deeply penetrated by ‘Aryan’ or ‘Sanskritic’ models of social formation. So it is not necessarily the case that the Bengali Muslims of eastern Bengal were ‘Hindus’ – or ‘Buddhists’ for that matter – prior to their conversion to Islam. Rather, many indigenous communities possessing non-Aryan cultures came into contact with Islam without necessarily ever having been under much Brahmanic or Buddhist influence. Here, the Islam that Eaton speaks of is not one that was introduced by the sword or through trade, but rather by charismatic Sufi spiritual leaders – known locally by terms such as pir and aulia – who are still spiritually alive, so to speak, at numerous mazars or dargahs (shrines) devoted to them in Bangladesh. Eaton points out that this strand of Islam came to the subcontinent with the Turks, many of them Persianised to varying degrees, some of whose Sufi beliefs and practices went back to Turkish nomadic traditions predating their conversion to Islam.

…

Who is indigenous?

What indigenous communities did inhabit Bengal, particularly its eastern half, when the Turks and later the Mughals ruled the region? Before discussing this, let us note that lately the word ‘indigenous’ has become anathema in Bangladesh government circles. This is because internationally, Bangladesh has repeatedly faced criticism of its treatment of so-called ‘tribal’ people, particularly in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, who now want to be known as ‘indigenous people’ in accordance with current usage among the UN and its affiliated bodies. Accused of violating the rights of indigenous people, representatives of the Bangladesh government sidestep their obligations under relevant international laws by falsely arguing that there are no ‘indigenous people’ in Bangladesh.

In fact, some government spokespersons went so far as to say … that the ‘tribal’ people who claim indigenous status are in fact ‘nomads’ or ‘recent immigrants’, and that it is the Bengalis who are the true indigenous people of Bangladesh. It should be noted here that such a position … is not entirely new, having been pursued by Bangladesh’s civil and military bureaucracies for over two decades. Ironically, this type of official position is at odds with the self-perception of many status-conscious Bengalis who regard themselves as descendants of ancestors who came from outside. For example, Bengali Brahmans and other ‘upper’ caste Hindus who regard themselves as descendants of ‘Aryans’ are essentially asserting non-indigenous ancestry. In the case of Bengali Muslims, those who claim to belong to one of the four categories of ‘noble’ origin – Sheikh (Shaikh), Syed (Sayyid), Mughal or Pathan – are also asserting their descent from ‘forefathers’ who came from outside Bengal. […]

Be that as it may, let us address the question as to who the indigenous communities of eastern Bengal were from a linguistic point of view. Those familiar with the linguistic history of Bangla know that although it is classified as belonging to the Indo-European (or Indo-Aryan) linguistic ‘family’, it owes much of its structure and vocabulary to non-Aryan languages – primarily to those belonging of the Austro-Asiatic family, and particularly its Munda branch which also includes languages such as Munda and Santali. The second group of languages that have influenced the emergence of Bangla – or, more correctly, many of the ‘dialects’ of Bangla in areas like Chittagong, Sylhet, and Mymensingh – belong to the Tibeto-Burman family. These include Bodo (including Koch, before the language was largely lost), Garo, Kokborok (Tripura), Meithei (Manipuri), Marma, and all other languages spoken in the Chittagong Hill Tracts except for Chakma and Tanchangya, which would be considered ‘Indo-Aryan’ in terms of their current vocabulary. Although the specific connections between various non-Bengali indigenous languages and the local ‘dialects’ of Bangla spoken in Bangladesh have not been studied very extensively, scholars of Bangla generally agree on the deep influence of Munda-type languages, and the secondary influence of Tibeto-Burman languages. In other words, indigenous communities speaking Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman languages contributed significantly to the emergence of Bangla and Bengali identity.

…

Image taken from the original online version of the source article as published by Himal Southasian.

Tracing foreign ancestry

[T]here is much evidence, both direct and indirect, of indigenous groups having become Bengalis, in some cases on a large scale, through the Sanskritisation or Islamisation of their cultures and the ‘creolisation’ of their languages. For example, there are significant numbers of people who use titles such as Roy, Rajbangshi and Barman, who speak Bengali and identify themselves as ‘Kshatriya’ (ie. Aryan) Hindu. Most of them are, as per historical and ethnographic records, of Koch or Bodo origin (in the linguistic sense of the latter term), but very few of them would openly admit it, or even be aware of it, today. There are also occasional instances of specific individuals, families, or even whole communities that are regarded as Bengalis, but have a clear Koch lineage…. But how many Bengali Muslim families today would pass on such information about their origins, particularly after adopting titles like ‘Shaikh’, ‘Syed’ or ‘Khan’?

Consider the last of the above-mentioned titles – ‘Khan’ – and examine the assumptions that go with it. We all know of the most famous Khan of world history: Genghis (Chenghis). The descendants of Genghis, founder of the Mongol empire, and many other Mongol chiefs and generals also used ‘Khan’ – a Mongolian word with cognates in Turkic languages – as a title to mark high status. The Mughal emperors – ‘Mughal’ is derived from ‘Mongol’ – did not use this title for themselves, but conferred it on some of their followers. Many Turkic chiefs and generals also used this title, as do many people who claim Pathan descent. I know of one former colleague, a university professor, who used to wear his ‘Khan’ title proudly, and claimed that his ancestors had come to Bengal from Afghanistan. Once, this claim of ancestry prompted a quip from another colleague of ours who added, ‘via Tamil Nadu’ – a swipe at the professor’s dark complexion, which, in popular belief, is more common in South India than in the north.

The anecdote narrated above reveals confusion regarding the relationship between race and language, or race and culture. This is something that anthropologists have addressed widely, but still persists in popular conception, as well as in textbooks. Franz Boas, the ‘father of American (US) anthropology’ and a student of Bastian, the proponent of the Psychic Unity of Mankind, was one of the pioneers in addressing the racist notions that existed in his time regarding the linguistic and racial classification of different groups. He rejected the idea that people thought to be primitive culturally were also considered to be so racially, and vice versa. He also demonstrated that people who speak a common language may come from different racial or ethnic origins, while people belonging to the same race or ethnicity may end up speaking different languages belonging to different ‘families’. In fact, in modern anthropology, the concept of ‘race’ has largely been abandoned as being problematic and useless for the purposes of understanding cultures.

…

Unaccommodating nation

Unfortunately, racialist notions concerning human diversity still persist in many parts of the world, partly because unexamined notions abound in the textbooks, journalistic writing, art and literature that shape people’s understanding of themselves and ‘others’.

…

In the age of the Internet, how relevant is nationalism, which flourished during the time of print capitalism?[3] Should we not be thinking of defining our identities in terms of the new imaginative possibilities opened up by the communication technologies at our disposal? These are questions that concern Bodos, Bengalis, and others alike, and are being tackled in all countries, particularly as nation-states fail to accommodate the identities and aspirations of many of their citizens in a changing, ever more interconnected world.

…

---

[1] This post consists of excerpts of an article – Becoming Bangladeshi – published in Himal Southasian on 11 October 2012.  It may be mentioned that this article, as published by Himal, evolved from a much longer piece that I had originally submitted under the title ‘Two Weddings, a Funeral, and Riots in Assam:  Musings on Genes, Memes and the Psychic Unity of Humanity’.  Parts of my original submission that were left out in the process of the revision of the article can be found in the following blog post of mine:  Random Musings on Identity.

[2]Readers who have come across Himal Southasian may be aware that this magazine uses the geographical category South Asia as one word.  Their explanation for this usage may is provided on their website here.  

[3] The notion of ‘print capitalism’ is used here in the sense in which it has been deployed by Benedict Anderson in his Imagined Communities.

The Native America of My Thoughts

Personal reflections on the Indigenous Peoples’ Day as observed by many in the USA in lieu of the Columbus Day

~ Prashanta Tripura ~

Background

The second Monday of October, which has been a federal holiday – officially named as the “Columbus Day” – in the USA since 1971, is increasingly being observed as the Indigenous Peoples’ Day by a growing number of cities, states, communities and individuals across America.  On such a day, namely 14 October 2024, I happen to be in Waltham, the city in Massachusetts where my alma mater, Brandeis University, is located.  Thus, I am thinking of the extent to which “Native America” – constituting the Native Americans and their lands, cultures and histories – was on my mind during my student days at Brandeis, and later at Berkeley, where I went on to pursue graduate studies in anthropology.  (This ‘science of humans’ was the major that I shifted to halfway through my undergraduate studies at Brandeis, where my intended major had been computer science initially.) 

As I indicated in a related Bangla blog post of mine, published earlier in the morning of the same day as this post (i.e., on 14 October 2024), during my eight years of studies in the USA (1982-1990) I did not really have an opportunity to interact with Native Americans or visit their territories anywhere in the USA.  However, as a student of anthropology, I did read up on, and think about, the Native Americans quite a bit.  In fact, at the introductory cultural anthropology course that I took at Brandeis, I was deeply moved by the story of a Native American chief who reportedly said (in the context of vanishing culture that he represented) that in the beginning, God had given each people a cup of its own to drink life from the river of life.  Unfortunately, their own cup was broken, a reference to the sad reality of the end that their way of life was going through due to cultural extinction and/or irreversible depopulation.  This account, as presented by Ruth Benedict in Patterns of Culture, a classic of anthropological literature (first published in 1934), went as follows:

A chief of the Digger Indians, as the Californians call them, talked to me a great deal about the ways of his people in the old days. One day, without transition, he broke in upon his descriptions of grinding mesquite and preparing corn soup. “In the beginning,” he said, “God gave to every people a cup, a cup of clay, and from this cup they drank their life. They all dipped in the water”, he continued, “but their cups were different. Our cup is broken now. It has passed away.” Our Cup is Broken. Those things that had given significance to the life of his people, the domestic rituals of eating, the obligations of the economic system, the succession of ceremonials in the villages, possession in the bear dance, their standards of right and wrong – these were gone, and with them, the shape and meaning of their life.    

My thoughts on “Native America” as I graduated from Brandeis University

Just as “Native America” was on my mind as I started studying anthropology at Brandeis, I was thinking of it on the day of my graduation from the same college as well.  Thus, in May of 1986, while speaking as a designated speaker at a departmental commencement ceremony at Brandeis University, I talked about how I felt the “sighs” of the Native Americans as I was thinking of the struggles for survival that the indigenous peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh were going through.  The following are extended excerpts from my commencement day remarks of that day:

While I am here [attending an important rite of passage for us graduating seniors], I cannot help thinking that in today’s rapidly changing world, every moment of our lives is a rite of passage.

Throughout the world, whole societies are the initiates of a kind of transitional ritual that is often painful and violent.

Here I am thinking of the struggles for cultural as well as physical survival that many societies around the world are facing today.

In particular, I am thinking of the painful transition that the people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh are undergoing currently.

Before I came to Brandeis, I had spent most of my life in the CHT. Throughout that part of my life, I had seen and [heard of] killings, riots and fear of persecution from a very close distance. When I visited home last summer, all I saw around me were military troops, and I felt totally alienated in a place where I was born and spent [most of the first] eighteen years of my life.

This feeling of alienation has pervaded the entire region. The various small ethnic groups feel and fear that the government of Bangladesh is deliberately trying to annihilate them culturally. This fear of extinction has led many people to take to armed resistance.

…

As recently as two weeks ago, ethnic violence … broke out even in my hometown, where two villages adjacent to my own were burned down.

One of the reasons for such violence is that the government has been [relocating] many landless peasants from the plains … to the Hill Tracts. The [indigenous] people fear and are already experiencing cultural engulfment in the face of such development.

What is saddening, in my view, is that the government does not truly represent the interests of the landless peasants, while at the same time it disregards the legitimate concerns of the [indigenous people of the CHT].

Cultural and demographic extinction, [however,] is in no way unique to the CHT. While I was watching a movie by Woody Allen [Hanna and Her Sisters] last night, I was struck by the way [a character in the movie] put the question: “People wonder how the extermination of millions of people [i.e. the Holocaust] could have taken place. The real wonder is that this does not happen more often.”

In a way genocide is taking place all over the world … all the time, as it has throughout history. At this very moment at this very place, I can hear the sighs of those souls to whom this land, I mean the [so-called] New World, once belonged.

My interest in anthropology grew out of my close encounter with this dark facet of humanity. I became interested in anthropology because it promises to give me a common perspective from which I can look both at myself and the world.

Disillusionment with studying anthropology

I ended my commencement day remarks at Brandeis by indicating that I was hopeful of gaining more insights about the human condition in general, and about the situation of the people of the CHT in particular, by pursing graduate studies in anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.  However, for various reasons, which included a “postmodern turn” in anthropology that was making waves during the period of my graduate studies, I would very soon become somewhat disillusioned with studying anthropology.  Though this disillusionment was not the only reason why I left the PhD program at Berkeley eventually, it was certainly an important factor behind my loss of enthusiasm about the path that I had embarked on upon graduation from Brandeis. 

One of the directions that the “postmodern turn” in anthropology took was a close examination of the relationship between anthropology and colonialism, a topic that I can hardly go into in the short space of this post.  However, to give a very rough indication of the kind of intellectual paralysis that I faced, let us imagine that someone representing an ethnic group like the one that Ishi, the last survivor of a Native American people of California, came from, started studying anthropology.  Then they learn that Kroeber, a pioneering anthropologist based at Berkeley, was keen on capturing the vanishing “cup of life” that Ishi was still holding onto as he was put on display at a museum making bows and arrows!  Upon death, his brains would be preserved and sent to the Smithsonian Institution for ‘scientific study’.  Could such a discipline be held in high regard by someone who had looked up to anthropology as the discipline that would give them the knowledge and insight to overcome colonial subjugation.  Was the discipline not part of the very historical current that led to the destruction of the indigenous peoples around the world?

     

A photo of Ishi, as found on the internet.

My encounter with the notion of ‘indigenous peoples’

Despite the preceding discussion, the concept of ‘indigenous peoples’ per se was not something that I had thought much about while I studied anthropology in the USA.  It was only after returning to Bangladesh, where I taught anthropology at Jahangirnagar University for some time, that I had to deal with this matter, albeit in a context that had nuances and peculiarities relating to matters of translation and specific historical circumstances prevailing in the country.  Later, I would go on to taking a small part in the debates over indigeneity in Bangladesh.   In this regard, the interested reader may have a look at the following compilation of excerpts from some selected writings of mine, as can be found on this blog: Debates over Indigeneity in Bangladesh: A personal retrospective

A Pow Wow Night that I will always remember

I would like to end this piece by sharing some reflections that are very personal in nature.  They relate to a belated realization on my part that apart from the reasons for studying anthropology as I stated in my commencement day remarks in 1986, it is quite possible that at a ‘subconscious’ level, I may have been motivated to study anthropology for a far deeper personal reason.  At least it so happens that I switched to anthropology as my major field of study around the same time when my mother passed away prematurely, after struggling with cancer that she had been diagnosed with after I came to the USA to study at Brandeis.   I have dealt with this matter in a Bangla article of mine more fully to suggest that perhaps, in my mind, a desire to hold onto the memories of my mother became intertwined with an urge to understand other forms of ‘maternal’ lineages that I could identify with – ranging from a notion of the Tripura people (my ethnic group) being the children of a ‘mother river’ to that of ‘mother earth’.  In that article, part of how I remembered my mother included a more detailed version of the following account, which is a slightly edited version of an old Facebook post of mine from 2012:

[My mother] had to put up with many of my pranks. Once [when I was in my early teens], after being reprimanded [by her] for losing a pair of sandals (I had a knack for breaking and losing things), I decided to get even with her by leaving a note at home saying that I was going away for an indefinite period to an undisclosed destination for reasons I did not wish to share; they were not to look for me, etc. I hid myself in a place from which I could monitor what was happening at home, waiting for the moment when my note would be discovered (strategically placed on top of a radio that I knew would be turned on in the evening for news). I got such a kick out of seeing the reaction of my mother and everyone else after the note had been discovered! Recently, almost three decades after she passed away, it occurred to me that I had been looking for her all these years without being aware of it. Thinking about this, the thought that just crossed my mind is this: is it possible that she has been watching me form a secret hideout of her own, perhaps with the complicity of some master prankster?

Regardless of whether or not my late mother has been really watching me from the sky or somewhere else, what I became more conscious of over time is that in some ways, I did continue to look for my mother in various ways.  One such moment came during a rare Native American event – a Pow Wow – that I attended in California, towards the end of my eight years’ stay in the USA as a student.  I attended this event with two friends, one of whom was a Native American woman from the East Coast.  While the three of us shared a tent, instead of sleeping there, I found myself quietly leaving the tent late at night to watch proceedings at the all-night Pow Wow dance.  There, among the Native Americans gathered and dancing in circles, I saw someone who reminded me very much of my late mother!   The following is my attempt at a poetic rendering of that experience as jotted down at some point in time later:   

The Pow Wow Night

As I slipped out of the tent

Before the break of dawn

It felt like I had just walked straight into a dream –

You were right there,

Among those moving in circles

In slow rhythmic dance moves

At the pow wow.

I cannot remember how long my gaze was fixed on you.

The drum beats went on,

And so did the singing,

Till the twilight hours….

As I looked up at the starry sky

I felt at home, and

My soul was at peace.

I am thinking of the pow wow night.

I am thinking of you.

~~~

Note: This post was originally published under a longer title, “The Native America of My Thoughts and A Pow Wow Night Etched in My Memory”, which has been shortened to the present short version (i.e. “The Native America of My Thoughts”) on 13 October 2025. In the earlier version of this post, it was erroneously mentioned that Columbus Day had been observed as a federal holiday on the 2nd Sunday of October since 1971. In reality, the holiday is observed on the 2nd Monday of October.

Letter to Bangladesh from a ‘Non-Existent’ Bangladeshi

(Edited version of an ‘open letter’ first pubished in the Daily Star on 27 August 2014, with a couple of sentences omitted from the DS version added herewith.)[*]

~ Prashanta Tripura ~

Dear Bangladesh,

I don’t know if you remember me, but I am writing to you in the hope that you do.  Having witnessed and celebrated your birth when I was little, and having grown up with you, I have always cared deeply about you, as I will always do.  But I am not sure that you feel the same way about me.   In fact, I am not even sure that you know or acknowledge that I exist.  I am saying this as a member of one of the many ‘small’ ethnic groups that have been consigned to the margins and darkest corners of your geography and history.  People who speak and write on your behalf have rarely made any serious effort to change this order of things.  On the contrary, many of them have been busy pushing these marginalized groups out of tracts that have nourished them for generations.  As if that were not enough, the same powers have lately sought to erase them from various government documents and public discourse as well. The latest instance of such efforts came recently when, two days before the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, a government press handout urged academics, newspaper editors and others to refrain from using the word ‘Adibashi’ (Bangla for ‘Indigenous People’).  The handout made use of an extraordinary logic:  The constitution does not talk about the Adibashis, so they don’t exist! I think we have had enough of such nonsense.  So I am compelled to write this letter to you and I sincerely hope that you will hear me out.

Let me start by reminding you of when and how we first met.  Do you remember a time when you began to take shape in the imagination of many, including those who would shout the slogan ‘Joy Bangla’?  The small rural town where I grew up, Khagrachari, was somewhat distant from big events sweeping the whole of East Pakistan at that time.  But sure enough, ‘Joy Bangla’ reached our town too, and sometime around March 1971, when I was just a 9-year old, I too took part in a procession that went around the whole town. I distinctly remember that we started chanting the slogan differently than how it is commonly done.  In our case, someone would say the first word “Joy”, and then, after a hesitant pause, the rest would say, “Bangla.”  Anyway, I wish to skip the traumatic and eventful period of nine months of the War of Independence that I witnessed as a small boy.  Instead, let us zoom to the time of your liberation in December 1971.  I suppose you cannot remember the face or voice of every single individual out of the millions that greeted your liberation, but I wonder if you happen to remember seeing a group of jubilant young Tripura boys aged 8-12 returning to their village in the outskirts of Khagrachari town, singing ‘Amar sonar Bangla’, just a day or two after your liberation.  If you remember such a group, know that I was one of those boys!  Anyway, on the road that day we were happy to see some of our heroes, freedom fighters, many of whom were fellow Tripuras, including a first cousin.  With ‘our side’ victorious, we came out of hiding, and made a happy return to our village, secure in the knowledge that there would no longer be any reason for us to run around in fear.  But we were so wrong!

I am not here to chronicle all that went wrong in the newly independent state that bears your name.  I know that you have lived through many upheavals, turmoil, and senseless losses of huge magnitudes that continued to sweep through the entire country.  But I wonder whether you realized that what was happening in the Chittagong Hill Tracts was by far the worst in many ways.  How did you deal with the immense suffering that many of the indigenous CHT communities endured for decades?  Since they barely accounted for half of 1% of the total population that are tied to you, is it possible that you chose to close your eyes and bear the pain quietly when so many of CHT people lost their lives, livelihoods, lands, homes and honour?  Would you believe if I told you that even I – who lived a relatively sheltered life – was once beaten up by an armed security man aboard a launch boat on Kaptai lake, on my way home from my college in Dhaka, for no justifiable reason?  The man even threatened to kill me, and might have done so if my father were not among the passengers of the boat.  Apart from actual violence, the people in the CHT had to put up with various rituals of humiliation and display of brute force as well, e.g. at security check points, soldiers would board buses and announce, “All tribal passengers, get down and get checked.”   

But I digress.  Let us return to the question of whether there are ‘Indigenous Peoples’ in Bangladesh.  Personally, the first time I had to deal with this question seriously was in 1993, when, as a lecturer of anthropology at Jahangirnagar University, I was tasked by a committee – jointly headed by two Awami League MPs of that time – to write a keynote paper to celebrate the International Year of the World’s Indigenous People.  The BNP-led government of that time had stated that the event did not merit official observance since the ‘tribes’ and ‘nomads’ who lived in Bangladesh were not really ‘indigenous’.  The then leader of the opposition, who happens to be the present Prime Minister of Bangladesh, however, expressed solidarity with the Adibashis of the country.  In that context, much of my paper dwelt on the question of whether the so-called tribal people of Bangladesh could be called ‘indigenous’, and what a Bangla equivalent for the term could be.  Our conclusion was that the ‘tribal’ people certainly qualified as ‘indigenous people’, in the sense the term was being deployed by the UN, and that ‘Adibashi’ could be used as a Bangla equivalent for the same.

Since 1993, governments have come and gone, promises have been made and broken, and various new issues have emerged to keep the nation bitterly divided on many counts. But over the years a rare level of national unity has emerged in the form of a widely shared view that the ‘tribal’ people are not the ‘true sons of the soil’ (somehow no one ever speaks of the ‘daughters of the soil’).  This is a refrain that has been repeated by countless people, including some of the best-known intellectuals of the country, who have come up with various [outlandish] arguments and faulty interpretations.  I have personally […] written a lot about all this and do not wish to rehash my past arguments here.  Instead, I would like to pose a few questions to which I must get some answers from you.  First, do you know that the terms that were introduced through Article 23A in the constitution – ‘tribes’, ‘minor races’ and ‘ethnic sects’ – are regarded globally as outmoded, and have been rejected by vocal segments of the very people for whom they are intended?   Secondly, please have another look at the constitution’s Article 9, which says: “The unity and solidarity of the Bangalee nation, which, deriving its identity from its language and culture, attained sovereign and independent Bangladesh through a united and determined struggle in the war of independence, shall be the basis of Bangalee nationalism.”  May I ask if this makes sense to you?  Why is ‘unity’ conceived of so singularly here, without any acknowledgement of languages and cultures other than that of the ‘Bangalee nation’?  What were the Adibashi freedom fighters doing in 1971? What made us sing ‘I love you, my Sonar Bangla’ in 1971? Does it make sense for us to sing it today?  Do we the Tripuras, the Santals, the Garos, the Mros and so on in fact exist in any meaningful sense?  This is a question that will remain even if the government were to declare tomorrow that there are indigenous peoples in this country.

I was also going to ask you if you buy the argument that since the constitution does not have the word ‘Adibashi’, there are no Adibashis in this country.  We all know how silly all this sounds.  But I do wonder about one thing.  We know that both Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia have signed on messages of felicitation to the Adibashis on several occasions in the past.  We also have numerous photos of other leaders who have taken part, as a gesture of solidarity, in various programmes organized by people who call themselves ‘indigenous’ and would like the state to accord this recognition unambiguously.  Surely these leaders cannot be so forgetful or mindless as to look absurd in front of the whole world by endorsing the kind of faulty arguments that have been heard all over again [during the second week of August 2014].  But that is precisely what most of them – one big name after another – have been doing while in power.  So my real question to you is this: Who or what are the forces that compel all these leaders to act like the way they are acting?  I think we must find answers to this question.  [Here I am least concerned about my own existence or that of the Adibashis.  Rather, I am concerned about you, my dear Bangladesh.  Do YOU exist?]

---

[*]The version originally published in the Daily Star is here. A few edits in the present version are indicated by square brackets. They include the last two sentences at the very end above that were in the original version that I had submitted to the Daily Star, though the editor opted to leave them out from the published version. The photo accompanying this post is the same as used by the Daily Star (without any credit mentioned) in its version of my letter.   

Being and Timeline

(An account of my Facebook life as of 2013, with an update a decade later)

~ Prashanta Tripura ~

When and how did Facebook become such an important part of our everyday existence?  I thought of posing this question to myself upon approaching the fifth anniversary of my Facebook life in 2013.[1]  What follows is a short answer that I gleaned from my timeline, presented in a light-hearted vein as indicated by the insertion of the word ‘Facebook’ in the following quote that originally had the word ‘read’ within the brackets shown:

‘Tell me how you [Facebook], and I will tell you who you are.’

– Martin Heidegger

2008: Quiet beginning with four Facebook friends

I Joined Facebook on November 14, 2008. But I turned out to be a very slow starter. At the end of 2008, I had only four Facebook friends: two of whom were my nephews living in Canada, and one was a long lost graduate school (Berkeley) friend whom I found on Facebook. Apart from adding these friends, I have no record of any other Facebook activities from this period.  In fact, as described below, my Facebook account would remain largely idle for the next three years.

2009: Two statuses, one birthday wish, and befriending my wife

I posted my first Facebook status on April 15, 2009. It was about an official trip to Rangamati, where I visited local dignitaries and indulged in special delicacies and drinks – as part of my official duty – on the occasion of Boi-Sa-Bi (festivities surrounding traditional New Year).  The post elicited no ‘like’, but got one comment, which was from a homesick relative living in South Korea.  My next status, posted during an official trip to Bangkok in June, went like this:  “Looking out the window of my hotel, had a striking view of a beautiful rainbow….Can’t remember the last time I saw such a thing.”  This post did not get any ‘like’ either, but led to a few comments. 

This was the year when I received my first ever birthday wish on Facebook. Left as a message on my ‘wall’ by one of my nephews, it was the only Facebook birthday greeting of that year, when I also received my first ever Facebook message in my ‘inbox’:  a thank you note from someone who had just become a Facebook friend.  

In 2009, I made a total of 130 new Facebook friends. Among them was my wife with whom I ‘became friends’ nearly a decade and a half after our marriage!  (By the way, she was also my first Facebook instructor in that she helped me with some tips on how to use some of the functions of this platform.)

2010: A year of zero posting, one-way tagging and unattended inbox

This year, apart from handling friend requests – I made over 500 new Facebook friends – I had no other activity on Facebook.  I did not post any status updates or photos of my own.  However, I started being tagged by others on their posts.

I was tagged in a Facebook note for the first time in June, by a friend who was the grandchild of a cousin of mine.  Another Facebook friend, who was senior to me, also started tagging me similarly. I was yet not in the habit of reading such material though, and was still about two years away from posting Facebook notes of my own.  (By the time I got into posting my own notes, none of these two Facebook friends seemed as active as before.  I wonder if this was just a coincidence, or part of a common trend, like how babies start running before they learn to walk at normal pace.)

In July 2010, I was tagged in two photos: one was a shot of me with former students; another was that of a street demonstration for constitutional recognition of Adivasis. In the following month, I was tagged in a note about a Chittagong Hill Tracts-related anthology that had a few articles of mine. I did not give any ‘like’ or comment in return to these tags.  Similarly, in October, I did not acknowledge a Puja greeting card on which I was tagged.  I even discovered a number of unread messages from this period.  I was either too irregular on Facebook, or was still unaware of Facebook etiquettes, or both.  Belated apologies to all concerned!

2011: Another year of quiet Facebook presence ends with a ‘journey down memory lane’

The third year of my Facebook presence also passed rather quietly, with hardly any activities on my part, except for making about 500 new Facebook friends.  Professionally, however, I spent a very busy year when I had to deal with a series of new challenges, including backstage management of a major public event that attracted considerable opposition, much of which found expression on Facebook.  However, I was not in a position to address the matter on Facebook.  Firstly, I did not have the skills or time to sift through all the stuff on Facebook. Secondly, my office had no clear guidelines on how to engage with the social media, though an expert had once advised us on how to handle bad press: “Do not be reactive. Do not get into rebuttals or rejoinders.  Just keep talking about what you do, and what your objectives and achievements are.”

Anyway, by around mid-December, after the stressful period of work was behind me, I found myself becoming a little active on Facebook, probably as part of an attempt to unwind my mind.  Initially, I was mainly into posting of photos, through which I became used (or hooked) to getting and giving ‘likes’ and comments.  The first ever Facebook photo that I posted – showing me and my wife on her birthday – elicited 183 likes and 56 comments, including some of my own that involved liberal use of emoticons.  I also posted a specially designed New Year’s card and added my first photo album titled ‘Down Memory Lane’, featuring family members.

2012: Facebook at life’s crossroads

During the first quarter of 2012, I turned 50. This special occasion prompted me to post my third Facebook status update in over three years. I wrote:

Thanks to all Facebook friends who sent messages wishing HBD. It is a special one in that if I were playing cricket, I would be raising my bat on reaching a special milestone ….But right now I am not in the middle of any stadium, nor even at work. I have chosen to spend a quiet day at home instead. In a short while … I may open my special notebook with life’s ‘things to do’ list. Sorry, the list is too private to share with you…. But let me end with one thought: I have never played cricket, but have come to like watching it on TV when I have time. T20 or 50-over matches provide a lot of excitement, but life is more like test matches. You have to pay attention to every ball, every over, and play it session by session….Right now, I am not thinking about any milestone, but just want to enjoy every moment, every first day of the rest of my life. Have a good day.

Soon after the above post, I made my marital status public on Facebook.  But the notification that followed this update led to all kinds of responses that my wife and I really enjoyed. Some who did not know us very well thought that our virtual (re)marriage had just taken place!  Anyway, on that auspicious day, I also posted part of an old poem – my first post of this kind – that dwelt on time spent with school friends,  some of whom I had just been reunited with on the occasion of a birthday party that a colleague (who also turned 50) and I jointly hosted. We called it 50/50 party!

Now – for reasons that I need not get into here – soon after my 50^th birthday, I decided to resign from my lucrative job, giving four months’ advance notice at my office.  Later, during a farewell party that my colleagues organized, I offered an explanation for my decision half-jokingly: “One is supposed to have mid-life crisis at the age of fifty.  People change spouses or jobs.  I opted for the latter, so that I could spend more time on Facebook!” By then, I had indeed started spending a lot of time on Facebook, which provided me with a ready audience for my posts.

In mid-April, at the start of the Bangla New Year, I posted my first ever Facebook note – in Bangla – under a title that could be translated as “The first page of the open halkhata of my life” [‘halkhata’ refers to new books of accounts traditionally opened by business people at the start of the Bangla New Year].  Later, I would go on to post or draft many more Facebook notes, some of which led to articles eventually published in newspapers and magazines. 

In terms of making new Facebook friends, 2012 was a record year, when the annual tally stood at 1200.

2013: Thinking about the road taken, and the bumps and turns ahead

At present I have a total of nearly three thousand Facebook friends.  They include both people that I know from before, and those that I don’t. Among the latter category, I have already met some by chance, in places like bus terminals, airports, or the park.  It is usually a pleasant surprise to be approached by someone with a familiar looking face who says, “Hello, are you Prashanta da?  I am so and so. We are Facebook friends!”

I understand that I could have another two thousand Facebook friends if I want.  But lately I have become a little unsure of what to do with requests from people whom I barely know, or who may conceal their real identities.  There are ontological or sociological questions that I have not sorted out yet: Is it possible or necessary to look for ‘real’ faces behind masks, either on Facebook or in ‘real’ life?  I have to also ask myself, how exactly should I keep presenting myself on Facebook?  Whether I go for having many more Facebook friends or not may depend on how I answer such questions.  However, there may also be unnoticed requests from people I know well.  To any such person who may be reading this note, I offer my apology.

These days, one has to also keep in mind that ‘Facebook’ has become a domain or name associated with various dangers (e.g., use of fake Facebook posts as excuses to terrorize minority communities in Ramu and Santhia).  There is also new legislation (Section 57 of the amended ICT act) that seems to be designed to curb freedom of expression (e.g. a university teacher just got arrested for writing a Facebook post deemed offensive by those in power).  Such developments make one worry over imaginary bumps and turns that may lie ahead on one’s timeline. Is this the year of living cautiously?

Cautions aside, all things considered, I have really enjoyed my Facebook experience so far.  Apart from reuniting with old friends and getting to meet new ones, Facebook has also helped me get back into writing the kind of stuff that I find very meaningful.  Thus far, I have posted some forty-five Facebook notes and many more statuses that I have not counted. Lately, I have also turned to blogging, a move that was in part prompted by suggestions that I received on Facebook, which I still depend on for reaching out to potential readers of my blog posts.  I should also add that I have also learned a lot, and had countless laughs, by going through countless posts of my Facebook friends.

I know that Facebook or blogging will not help me make a living, but they do make me feel very alive.  For this, it is you, my Facebook friends (including “followers”), to whom I owe the most.  So, dear friends, THANK YOU for all you have done to give shape to my present being and timeline on (and off) Facebook.

Update (2023)

After posting ‘Being and Timeline’, I went on to publish around 44 more Facebook notes during the period from February 2014 to September 2019.  However, Facebook would soon close down this feature, which became ‘read only’ by October 2020 and disappeared completely without any notice.  It is still possible to view old Facebook notes if one has the links, but it is no longer possible to find them easily.  Hence, I have tried to re-publish many of my old Facebook notes – mostly ones written in Bangla – on my personal WordPress blogs (in particular, my Bangla blog[2]).  

It may be mentioned that presently I have nearly 5,000 Facebook friends, but I am no longer as active or regular as I once used to be.  Nonetheless, I do still post status updates whenever I feel like, and I also try to post new or old articles of mine on my personal blogs and in such cases I always try to share the links to my blog posts on Facebook.  Thus it is from among my Facebook friends and followers that a significant proportion of the readers of my writings continue to come from.

---

Notes

[1] This blog post is an edited and updated version of a Facebook note of mine, ‘Being and Timeline: An Account of My Facebook Life’, which was published on 13 November 2013.  The title of my note was fashioned after the German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s magnum opus Being and Time, which I had read about, but did not necessarily ever develop clear understanding of.  The cartoons accompanying this post – taken from different sources through the internet – were used in the original Facebook note as well.

[2]Interested readers may see the list of my main articles in the Bangla blog at its ‘index’ page:  https://ptripura1.wordpress.com/index/.

A Note on Boi-Sa-Bi

Prashanta Tripura

Around mid-April every year, the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh go through days of festivities as the indigenous peoples of the region – collectively known as ‘Jumma’, ‘Pahari’, Hill People etc. – observe similar festivals for which there are different names used by different ethnic groups.[1]  Out of these various names, a new acronym – Boi-Sa-Bi – was coined sometime in the [late] 1980s or early 1990s[2] and was meant to represent the ‘unity in diversity’ of the cultures involved.

In specific terms, the acronym Boi-Sa-Bi was based on the initial parts of names like Boishu/Boishuk (as used by Tripuras), Sangrai/Sangrain (Marma) and Bizu/Bishu (Chakma/Tanchangya).  This name was meant to represent a family of festivities, as observed in the CHT, marking an astronomical/astrological passage when people give farewell to the old year, and usher in the New Year as per traditional calendars. The festivities go on for at least three days for most ethnic groups, with the penultimate day of the passing year being reserved for making all sorts of preparations in case of groups like the Chakmas and Tripuras, while the last day of the passing year is observed through rituals and festivities, and then the first day of the new year is also celebrated following customary practices.

Historically, these festivities were associated with vernal equinox, which is known as Vishuva Sankranti in Sanskrit, out of which the names used by most ethnic groups in the CHT, or in other parts of South and Southeast Asia for that matter, have derived.  Thus the Tripura,  Chakma or and Tanchangya words Boishu, Bizu, and Bishu respectively derive from ‘Vishuva’, denoting the time and space when the sun lies exactly above the equator, whereas the Marma word Sangrai(n) – just like many other names ranging from Mro ‘Chankran’ to Thai ‘Songkran’ – comes from ‘Sankranti’,  which means ‘passage’ or ‘transition’.  It may be mentioned that the first month of a system of agricultural/astrological calendar widely followed throughout South and Southeast Asia – called ‘Baishakh’ in several languages including Bangla – comes after the vernal equinox that falls on March 21.[3]

What is significant about Boi-Sa-Bi is that the ritual focus is more on the last day of the passing year than on the first day of the New Year. Actually, like most rural communities in the CHT, many Bengalis too traditionally observed ‘Choitro’ Sankranti, or the last day of the Bangla calendar, although celebration of Pohela Boishakh (or the first day of the ‘Bangla’ year) has become more pronounced among urban middle classes. Bengali traders and shopkeepers used to close their old books of accounts, and open new ones around this time.

From growing up in a rural setting in a Tripura community in Khagrachari, I remember that as the old year came to an end, villagers would start cleaning their houses, take special care of domestic animals, and visit the elderly, who were given baths by people seeking their blessing. Many people also visited sacred sites such as Matai Pukhiri or the Sacred Pond (known as Debata Pukur to non-Tripuras). On the last day of Choitro, people would start the day by sprinkling themselves with holy water. They (mostly children and men) would then visit neighbors and relatives, and be served with vegetarian delicacies and rice-based drinks.  On this day, no meat was normally served or any animals slaughtered, and people (i.e. Tripura villagers) even refrained from plucking flowers! Devotees of the lord Goriya and of lord Krishna would go around from village to village performing dances and songs.

An elderly man is being bathed by young relatives on the occasion of “Bizu”, as depicted in a painting by a child in Rangamati (The painting is from a Children’s Art Competition held in connection to a Cultural Diversity Festival organized by the Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Facility (CHTDF) of UNDP in 2011. The child artist’s name was not recorded at the time a photo of this painting was archived by this author who worked for CHTDF as of 2011.)

Much has, however, changed over time, especially among the emerging urban middle classes. Many of the traditions have become quite divorced from their original cultural contexts, or have taken on new dimensions. Of course, traditions are never static. They change with the times, and are even invented or re-invented.  For example, many activists nowadays use Boi-Sa-Bi as an occasion for political expression. In fact the acronym Boi-Sa-Bi itself was invented by young activists who wanted to come up with a common name for the same types of festivities that different ‘Jumma’ communities in the CHT call by different names.  Regardless of how one views such matter, for many ordinary Jummas, whether they are still lviing in the CHT or away from it – including overseas – Bo-Sa-Bi, or Bizu, Sangrain, etc, is certainly an occasion that they look forward to spending together with their family and friends, amidst festivities that both help them feel reconnected with their ‘roots’ and be ready to start yet another annual cycle in the passage of time.

Notes

---

[1]This blog post is an annotated version of an article that I authored, based on an older write-up of mine, for a “Boi-Sa-Bi” 2023 publication as planned by members of a Jumma community based in a North American city. The original version of that write-up was circulated through an email message that I sent to my colleagues at UNDP’s Chittagong Hill Tracts Facility in April 2011, and an edited version of the same was posted on Facebook in April 2015. I have written a more elaborate article in Bangla, which describes some of the matters presented in this piece along with discussion of other related issues.  

[2]In the version of this article prepared for the “Boi-Sa-Bi” 2023 publication as mentioned in the above note, “1980s” was mentioned as the time when the acronym “Bo-Sa-Bi” was coined.  However, later I realized that the actual time was probably around 1990 or 1991, when the name reported first appeared in a publication brought out by “PCP”.  I will add exact reference to the publication under consideration once I find out and can verify the details.  

[3]Strictly speaking, “Boi-Sa-Bi” festivities are not directly related to vernal equinox, but to another “Sankranti” or astrological/astronomical transition related to the Zodiac system.  In Bangla, this is known as Chaitra Sankranti, which may be known as Maha Vishuva Sankranti elsewhere. 

The Colonial Foundation of Pahari Ethnicity

~ Prashanta Tripura ~

This post consists of excerpts of an article of mine first published in 1992. A scanned copy of the full original article may be downloaded by following the link provided below.*

Introduction

In 1869, Captain T. H. Lewin, the first Deputy Commissioner of the Chittagong Hill Tracts and also one of the first ethnographers of the area, wrote: [1]

Among a simple people like our hill men there is no…desire [for excessive wealth]; their nomadic life precludes any great accumulation of wealth, and they enjoy perfect social equality.

Lewin may have overstated the simple, egalitarian nature of pre-colonial social life in the Hill Tracts, but he was certainly right in speaking of ‘our hill men’.   As an idealized type of humans, the ‘hill men’ were an invention; they existed not so much in any real time and place as in the imagination of the British. Of course, the ‘hill men’ of the British corresponds to the people of the Hill Tracts who identify themselves, and are identified by others, as ‘Pahari’ (i.e. hill people) or ‘tribal’.  Their existence is real enough.  But this does not mean that these Paharis always constituted a single category of people in the past.  My argument in this paper is that Pahari ethnicity was constructed during the British colonial period.

In British India, the term ‘hill men’ referred to all the ‘tribal’ peoples living in the hill tracts bordering Assam and Bengal. …

British views of the ‘hill men’ were also influenced by nineteenth century evolutionist thinking…. Accordingly, compared to the people of the plains—the ‘Hindus’, the ‘Bengalis’ etc.—the ‘hill men’ were seen to be at a lower stage of cultural evolution.  As such, the ‘hill men’ marked the boundary of the Indian civilization, of the Hindu caste system, of the pre-British empire of the Mughals, and so on.  Again, no truly historical perspective was adopted towards the ‘hill men’, who simply served as a prop for the British in their ethnocentric attitudes towards the colonized majority of the plains.  When the Indians (or the Hindus or the Muslims or the Bengalis) came to articulate their nationalist aspirations, they largely accepted British categories of ethnic differentiation.  That the Paharis or the ‘tribal’ people of the Hill Tracts cannot identify with the Bengalis today, or vice versa, is usually attributed to British ‘divide and rule’ policies.  In order to divide, however, what the British had to do was, first of all, to classify.  The real legacy of colonialism is that colonialist classificatory schemes continue to be meaningful to date, and perhaps more so than before.  At least, that is the case with the Pahari/Bengali (or tribal/non-tribal) dichotomy that we confront in the Hill Tracts today.

In what follows, I discuss more fully some of the basic issues that relate to the colonial foundation of Pahari ethnicity.  First, ‘Pahari’ and ‘tribal’ are synonymous terms; in this context, the implications that the notion of tribe has had for the societies so designated need to be examined.  Secondly, as already indicated, categories such as ‘hill men’ or ‘hill tribe’ were meaningful not only in terms of a general Western discourse on the nature of human society, but also in terms of how Indian society and history in particular were viewed in this discourse; this latter aspect of the discourse will be dealt with more fully in this paper.  Thirdly, I will discuss how the British ignored certain theoretical as well as empirical inconsistencies in their construction of the category ‘hill men’/‘hill tribe’.   Finally, I will show how British discourse has altered the boundaries of ethnic differentiation for the ‘hill men’ of the Hill Tracts, and for the Bengalis as well.

Evolutionism, Colonialism, and the Notion of Tribe

In common usage the word ‘tribe’ has various meanings and connotations. …  Nonetheless, the concept of tribal society, whether clearly formulated or not, is applied by almost every anthropologist and by scholars in other disciplines. A tribal society is generally understood to be one in which social, political and economic relations are organized around kinship. By definition, tribal societies do not live under state organization, and this is the primary feature that distinguishes them from ‘peasants’.  This conceptualization forms part of the accepted view of human social evolution. It is the view that before the emergence of the earliest states—or civilizations as they are more popularly called—in a few isolated areas of the world, human beings everywhere were organized into small bands of hunter- gatherers or into larger tribal units of shifting cultivators and pastoralists. With the emergence and expansion of state-organized societies, tribal people everywhere began to be incorporated into, or displaced/exterminated by this new type of society, unless, of course, they themselves were to make a transition to the advanced evolutionary stage.

…

[While] Marx and his followers … saw European colonial expansion as bringing about a global system of exploitation, [in their view] in order to bring this system down, all societies needed to go through capitalism.  ‘Tribal’ societies thus came to be seen as pre-capitalist societies, or at best, as incipient forms of feudalism.  Their subjugation by states, whether capitalist or not, was mandated by history.

Thus the incorporation of ‘tribal’ peoples in colonial empires took place without any serious practical or ideological difficulties, except for the weak resistance the ‘tribal’ peoples themselves offered.  It was inevitable that the various ‘hill tribes’ living near Assam and Bengal would in time become subjects of British India, and thus citizens of the post-colonial states of Pakistan (Bangladesh) and India.

The Tribal/Non-Tribal Dichotomy in British Discourse

In British India, the category ‘hill tribe’ did not simply entail applying the notion of tribal society to people living in the hills.  It was part of a larger constellation of colonialist ideas, images and categories that formed the British ‘Orientalist’ discourse on Indian society and history.  In this discourse the category ‘hill tribe’ (or more generally ‘tribal’) was contrasted with various ‘non-tribal’ categories, e.g. ‘caste’, ‘Hindu’, ‘Indian’, ‘Bengali’ and so on.

…

Anomalies:  Peasants and Slaves

Although the hill men were generally seen to be simple, honest and egalitarian people—thus distinct from the people of the plains whose moral worth was more dubious—not all of them fit this ideal picture.  [Many facts pointing towards all kinds of anomalises] were known to Lewin, but he tried to stick to a homogeneous ‘Children of Nature’ representation of the ‘hill men.’ In a highly instructive manner, after a year of the publication of The Hill Tracts of Chittagong and the Dwellers Therein (published in 1869 from Calcutta), Lewin changed the title of his book to Wild Races of South-Eastern India (published in 1870 from London).  The idea of the wild races was no doubt a colonial fantasy.  Such a category of people ought to have existed, so they might as well be invented.  Thus the Chakmas, the Marmas, the Tripuras and others turned into ‘wild races’, though they were hardly worthy of such a romantic designation.

…

The Shift of Ethnic Boundaries

However problematic the categories ‘tribal’ or ‘hill men’ may be from a historical or anthropological perspective, it is obvious that they are no longer simply a matter of British imagination.  In the Hill Tracts today, two terms, Pahari (‘hill people’) and ‘tribal,’ are used to designate the collective ethnic identity of Chakmas, Marmas, Tripuras etc. vis-à-vis the Bengalis.  That ‘Pahari’ denotes an ethnic category is obvious enough.  But it is not difficult to see that ‘tribal’ also functions more as an ethnic/racial label than as an anthropological concept. 

…

The significant thing about the tribal/non-tribal or Pahari/Bengali differentiation is that it had not existed, at least not in the same form, before the British introduced the categories ‘hill men’ or ‘tribal’. … When Lewin presented ‘his’ hill men as a single category of people, he was well aware that “none of them appear to have any general term for all the hill dwellers.” The British categories ‘hill men’ and ‘tribal’ more than fulfilled this ‘inadequacy.’ But one wonders whether the tribal/non-tribal (i.e. Pahari/Bengali) boundary would have carried any meaning today had the British not altered the ways in which different groups articulated their identities in relation to one another.

Conclusion

In 1906, Hutchinson, one of Lewin’s successors as an administrator of the Hill Tracts, expressed his concern about the future of the hill men in the following terms:[2]

The dark and silent forests, at present the home of the elephant and tiger, will be succeeded by fields of smiling corn.  But with this change the Hillman, with his simple ways and curious customs, will also disappear, and the charm and innocence of his present life will be a dream of the past.  That this fate will finally overtake the Hill Tracts I have not the slightest doubt, for the changes and progress of the last few years are in themselves an indication of what is to come.  It seems well, therefore, to collect while we may all available data as to the manners and customs of these interesting people ere, with the resistless march of evolution, they merge forth and become identified with the people of the plains.

Despite the simplistic colonialist notions, Hutchinson did correctly forecast many of the changes that would take place in the Hill Tracts since he ruled it.  But he was completely mistaken in thinking that the hill men would “merge forth and become identified with the people of the plains.”  If anything, the Paharis have diverged greatly from the Bengalis since the British, having drawn the Pahari/Bengali line of division, left the scene.  Of course, objectively speaking, cultural interaction between the Paharis and the Bengalis must have increased manifold, but the politically unequal nature of this interaction has only reinforced the gulf of social and psychological distance that separates the two categories of people.

The problem facing us is primarily a political one.  But it seems to me that it is no less important a task for the Paharis and Bengalis to seriously examine many colonialist categories and notions by which they think about their identities and about the differences between them.  That the categories ‘Pahari’ (hill men) and ‘tribal’ are products of British colonialist discourse may by now seem clear enough, but a corollary of this is that the categories ‘Bengali’ or ‘Bangladeshi’ may also be bound by the same historical forces.  In order for us to free ourselves from such restrictive power of history, we must examine even our ‘scientific’ categories of classification.

…

All these issues [as raised above] are important because they influence how we imagine who we are, who we were, and who we want to be.  If we want to imagine the ‘imagined community’ of the nation-state of Bangladesh in such a way that the Paharis feel at home, and that the Pahari/Bengali differences do not translate into bloody conflicts, then we must begin to decolonize our received notions of who we are, our sociologies, and our histories.  This is a task both the Paharis and the Bengalis need to take up in earnest. 

~~~

A scanned copy of the full original article can be downloaded as a PDF file from the link below.

pahari-ethnicityDownload

---

Notes and References

*The article was originally published in The Journal of Social Studies (Journal of the Centre for Social Studies, Dhaka), No. 58, 1992.  It was later reprinted in Between Ashes and Hope: Chittagong Hill Tracts in the Blind Spot of Bangladeshi Nationalism, ed. Naeem Moyaiemen, Dhaka: Drishtipat Writers’ Collective, 2010. A Bangla version of the same article is also available at the following link: পাহাড়ি পরিচয়ের ঔপনিবেশিক ভিত্তি।

[1] Lewin, Thomas H., The Hill Tracts of Chittagong and the Dwellers Therein.  Calcutta:  Bengal Printing Co. Ltd., 1869

[2] Hutchinson, R. H. S.  An Account of the Chittagong Hill Tracts.  Calcutta:  The Bengal Secretariat Book Depot, 1906