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Kaptai Dam and Indigenous Jumma people in CHT, Bangladesh
Mangal Kumar Chakma
The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), south-eastern part of Bangladesh, comprises a total area of 5,093 sq. miles with over 1.325 million populations (0.700 million indigenous people and 0.625 million Bengali Muslim settlers). From time immemorial the CHT had been the home to eleven indigenous ethnic peoples who speak in different languages. They collectively identify themselves as the Jumma people (High Landers), the first people of the CHT.
In 1960, the Pakistan government built the Kaptai hydroelectric project on the Karnafuli river in the heartland of the indigenous Jumma people in order to materialise its evil design and breaking down the economic backbone of the people of Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) and in the name of so-called industrial development. It flooded 1,036 square kilometres of lands and submerged 54% (54,000 acre) of the best arable land and also displaced about 100,000 Jumma people from their ancestral hearth and homes for good. Rehabilitation Program was a cruel farce.
About 666 metres long and about 43 metres high, the dam was completed in six years. It resulted in a colossal artificial lake over an area of about 655 square kilometres. It swallowed 125 mouzas including the major portion of Rangamati town. The former residents of the area claim they watched helplessly as their land and houses engulfed by surging water.
By Kapati dam, indigenous Jumma people became panicky and because of insecurity, finding no alternative among these some 40,000 Chakma were forced to migrate into India and about 20,000 other Jumma people had to take refuge in Myanmar. The people who are living in Indian State of Arunachal are yet to be given citizenship. The area affected by the Karnafuli project is the nucleus of CHT.
American master plan allotted $ 60 millions for full comprehensive economic rehabilitation of evictees of the Kaptai Dam. In a publication of the Far Eastern Economic Review in 1980, it was amply stated that the government set $ 31 millions aside for rehabilitation. Only $ 2.6 millions had actually been spent.
The Kaptai dam damaged the agro-based main economy of the CHT and brought about a permanent disintegration of the Jumma people on one hand and led to the inroads on Bengali Muslim population in the region in large number on the other. It created jobs and business opportunities for Bengali Muslim. The uprooted Jumma people were neither compensated properly for their lands and homesteads nor provided land for their rehabilitation. It destroyed the economical backbone of the indigenous Jumma people completely. A vast reservoir of some 550 square miles came into being which inundated most of the fertile Karnafuli valley and large parts of Chengi, Kassalong and Maini valleys containing lush paddy fields and vegetable gardens.
Manabendra Narayan Larma, the champion of national awakening of indigenous Jumma people in CHT, a student leader in the early sixties and President and founder of the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti (PCJSS) (The United Peoples' Party) had undergo detention for a protest against the unjustified and improper compensation and rehabilitation to the affected people of Kaptai dam by the government of Pakistan on 10 February 1963. He was release from detention on 8 March 1965.
A large number of frustrated Jumma farmers migrated to India where they still remain as stateless refugees. Of those who remained, which included both plough cultivators and Jum (shifting cultivation) cultivators the majority were forced to initially take up Jum cultivation, although a significant number of them later took up horticulture. For the plough cultivators, this forced change from sedentary-plough cultivation to the traditional Jum cultivation was quite ironical because the government had been trying for many years to discourse the Jumma people from continuing with Jum cultivation in lieu of other modes of livelihood, or at least, that was the stated policy, and now it was the government itself which was compelling the Jumma people to become Jumias again! Until today a large number of the displaced people have neither obtained adequate compensation nor been properly rehabilitated.
In 1964 the government of Pakistan engaged a Canadian company called Forestal Forestry and Engineering International Limited (Forestal in short) to survey the soil and topography of the land surface of the CHT. According to Forestal recommendation, the government of Pakistan started the Chittagong Hill Tracts Horticulture Development Project in the late 1960s to encourage fruit gardening. Bereft of their paddy fields, thousands of Jumma people enthusiastically took up horticulture. As far as the gardens were concerned, the growers were initially successful, but due to bad communications, marketing problems and the lack of credit and storage facilities (including canning), fruit gardening has been in decline since the seventies and only since the late eighties has there been a slight slowing of this decline.
Aside from the immediate ecological damages such as inundating croplands, villages and forest the Kaptai hydroelectricity dam and the large lake that it created had far-reaching ecological effects. Because the reservoir inundated many of the best forested valleys, most of the wildlife once comprised of bison, sambur, barking deer, leopard, Royal Bengal Tiger, panther, etc. are not seen anymore. In less than forty years after the construction of the Kaptai dam the tiger species have gone totally extinct from the CHT. Elephant population has drastically decreased. Although the CHT is still charming to the tourists, many now term it as a hilly park devoid of any significant wildlife. Water pollution in the Kaptai Lake has become seriously hazardous. Most of the people living around the Kaptai Lake depend on the lake water for bathing, washing, cooking and drinking. Human excreta and residue of pesticides and fertilizers, which make their way into way into the lake every day pose health risks. Water pollution has also severely affected the like in the water.
The affected indigenous Jumma people had no role in the planning process nor were they consulted about the relocation or rehabilitation programme. They only had one choice and that was to leave the areas to be submerged. The people had completed an option from without any knowledge as most of them were unlettered. For many, the advice of a traditional leader like the Headman (mouza head) or a Karbari (village head) was considered important and in some cases these leaders took opposing positions. Very few were lucky enough to get advice from government officials. But the concept of any group decisions was absent and the government can be absolved of some responsibility, as rehabilitation concepts of today were not available then.
The Kaptai hydroelectricity dam is one of hundreds of development projects across the globe where people have been victimised without any proper compensation. Water projects have created lots of problem throughout the world. The projects which were initiated in CHT in the sixties and were financed by the United States, have gone against the interest of the indigenous Jumma people. Over the past years, some people have taken hit even the headlines of the newspapers. But not enough corrective measures have been taken.
It is mentionable that an 18-member Karnafuli Lake Management Committee has been functioning for management of the Kaptai Lake in which divisional commissioner of Chittagong division was the chairman of the committee and only 4 public representatives were included in the committee as members. Other members were civil and military officials. The CHT Regional Council proposed to appoint CHTRC chairman as chairman and more public representatives as members of Karnafuli Lake Management Committee. But the ministry did not accept the proposal of the CHTRC. It is mentionable that the management of lakes is actively involved the interest of the Jumma people who living lake area. They have been cultivating fringe land of Kaptai Lake.
On the other, though the government officials promised to the Jumma during the construction of the dam that Jumma people would be provided job in the project and supplied free electricity. But it is unfortunate that neither jobs nor free electricity have been provided to the Jumma people. Though the 45 years passed after the construction of Kaptai hydroelectricity dam, but the villages of Jumma people are still far away from electrification. Even the fishing in the lake area is under control of Bengali outsiders.
It is not therefore difficult to believe that dissatisfaction with the Kaptai Dam and its aftermath was one of the major causes behind the present unrest in the CHT.
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