Dynamics of Strategies for Survival of the Indigenous People in Southeastern Bangladesh

The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), located in the southeastern part of Bangladesh, hosts 11 heterogeneous indigenous groups. Over time, the region has routinely been affected by successive intruders (i.e. Mughal, British, Pakistani, and Bengali). Since the mid-1970s, it has witnessed ethnic conflict between the indigenous people and Bengali migrants. The situation intensified in the wake of a state-sponsored transmigration program (1979 onwards), which not only changed the demographic profile of the CHT, but also forcibly displaced many indigenous people—who less than two decades earlier had already been displaced by a hydroelectric dam. Consequently, the indigenous people, already under duress, faced further survival problems in competition with the settler Bengalis, leading to an ongoing conflict situation. However, in 1997 a treaty was signed to end the two-decades-long bloody conflict. Even though 17 years have passed since the treaty was signed, the CHT remains neither peaceful nor secure for the indigenous people. Accordingly, the indigenous people have employed diverse strategies to manage survival in their own land. This paper is an effort to offer an insight into the survival strategies of the indigenous people living in the hills.