“All of Us, We Are Relatives”: The Hudum Framework in Conducting Chakma Oral History and Indigenizing Colonial Narratives

This research explores the role of the Indigenous Chakma relationality and reciprocity in unearthing community oral history and challenging British colonial narratives in contemporary Bangladesh. Through framing and implementing the Hudum framework, a method rooted in the Chakma worldview and everyday practices, this article aims to emphasize the centrality of “relativeness” in navigating the narrator-listener relationship and transcending conventional research practices employed in Western institutions. I highlight my experience of conducting oral history interviews on Dr. Manik Lal Dewan—the first Indigenous Chakma academic from the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh—and contend that the Hudum practice provided an expansive methodological framework for foregrounding the remarkable legacy of an Indigenous figure within historically marginalized communities. In a hierarchical academic setting of Bangladesh that is dominated and surveilled by mainstream Bengali researchers, Indigenous peoples and history are not given space in the school curriculum and public discourses and therefore lack the insider perspective that dispels the colonial misrepresentation. Through the oral history of Dewan’s educational journey, my research aims to destabilize the biased narratives of colonial administrators and unveil the intracommunity support model that has not received scholarly attention.