Chowdhury Indigineous Identity in South Asia

Making Claims in the Colonial Chittagong Hill Tracts
Erscheinungsjahr 2016
ISBN: 978-1-317-20292-9
Verlag: CRC Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 216 Seiten

Reihe: Routledge Advances in South Asian Studies

In the immediate aftermath of the creation of Bangladesh in 1971, an armed struggle ensued in its remote southeastern corner. The hill people in the Tracts, more commonly referred to as paharis, demanded official recognition, and autonomy, as the indigenous people of the Tracts. The demand for autonomy was primarily based on the claim that they were ethnically distinct from the majority ‘Bengali’ population of Bangladesh.

This book analyses the question of making claims to indigeneity in the region, which posited a binary relationship, between ‘Mongoloid’ paharis and ‘Indic’ Bengalis on one hand, and between swidden and plough cultivators on the other.

Based on hitherto unexplored archival sources, this book challenges the seemingly common notion of indigeneity and indigenous claims in the Tracts. It shows a deeper historical lineage of claims-making in the Tracts and presents a new interpretation of how, why, and when indigeneity, as a concept of distinct ethnic identity, emerged from the region. The issues presented concerning tribal relations are of relevance to contemporary India, as parallels to other regions are discovered and lessons to be learnt. The book will be of interest to scholars on South Asian history, colonial history and contemporary South Asian politics.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Chowdhury, Tamina Mahmud

Chowdhury, Tamina

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction 2. Raids, territorialisation, and agricultural penetration: The Tracts before and after annexation, 1760-1861 3. Police, post-raids polities and creation of an economy, 1865-1885 4. The case of the disparaged chiefs, 1891-1930 5. Final attempts to reclaim authority by the Hill elites and the making of indigeneity, 1920s-1930s 6. Political exclusion: The Tracts in the run up to partition, 1933-47 7. Conclusion

Über Autor(innen)

Tamina Mahmud Chowdhury received her PhD from University of Cambridge, UK. Until September 2015, she was a Research Fellow/Associate Professor at the Brac Institute of Governance and Development, Brac University, Bangladesh.