Introduction

In the immediate aftermath of the creation of Bangladesh in 1971, an armed struggle began in its remote south-eastern corner. Hill people in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, who by this time called themselves the ‘jumma’ people (i.e. practitioners of ‘jhum’ or shifting cultivation), demanded official recognition, and autonomy, as the indigenous people of the Tracts. Their demand was based on the claim that the hill people of the Tracts were ethnically distinct from the majority ‘Bengali’ population of Bangladesh, and therefore needed special protection to preserve their traditions and customs. Their claim to indigeneity posited a binary relationship, between ‘Mongoloid’ paharis and ‘Indic’ Bengalis on one hand, and between swidden and plough cultivators on the other.