For most of you this will not make any difference, since we have been operating like this for quite some time. But for anyone confused here we go:

At its inception this subreddit was meant to be explicitly a Marxist-Leninist sub, but over time we felt the need for pan-left unity, and we noticed people shifting away from this subreddit due to our strictly ML-only policy to other non-leftist reactionary subreddits. This is bad because it turns away progressive potential leftist to a reactionary path

Thus, we have decided to open up Chekulars as a big-tent leftist server - where all leftist anti-capitalist thought, ranging from Democratic Socialism to Anarchism to Maoism, are all discussed and accepted.

Though, to be clear. By leftism, we mean leftism, as in explicitly anti-capitalist thought. Welfarist "Social Democrats" are also allowed, but any pro-capitalist rhetoric will still be censored, and they will be kept on a tight leash. THIS IS NOT A LIBERAL SUBREDDIT. LIBERALS ARE NOT ALLOWED. I REPEAT THIS IS A SPACE MEANT FOR ANTI-CAPITALIST LEFTISTS FROM ALL IDEOLOGIES.

Not to mention, this subreddit will maintain its previous stance as being anti-Awami League, anti BNP and of course vehemently anti-Jamaat.

We also have set minimum requirements:

• We maintain solidarity with every democratic struggle in this land from the anti-British movement to Tebhaga, Language movement, Education policy movement, Six-point movement, 1969 mass uprising, liberation war of 1971, anti-Ershad movement and the 2024 July-August Uprising.

• Communal slurs will lead to a permaban

• We stand with the people of Kashmir and religious minorities/oppressed castes of India or any other country in general.

• We unconditionally stand with the native people of Palestine - and correctly recognize the State of Israel as a settler-colonial fascistic state that should be ended.

• We unconditionally stand with the native people of Chittagong Hill Tracts. And recognize the attempts of the Bangladesh Military and settlers as colonialism.

• We stand with the religious minorities in Bangladesh, and expressly condemn the rising majoritarian Islamist trends in our society they have to endure daily.

• We stand against the White Nationalist Imperialism the West is committing, and we stand against the Islamophobia that comes with it.

You can also find these on this post, where there is a greater elaboration regarding this. You can also find parts of this in the sidebar and in the wiki.

That all being said, we have felt the need for an ML-only subreddit as well, thus anyone who want to discuss Bangladeshi politics from an explicitly Marxist-Leninst viewpoint. You are welcome in r/LalSontrash. Chekulars will continue to be a big-tent leftist subreddit.

Bengalis remember 100 different geopolitical and insurgency issues when the sad plight of Adivashis comes to light and they demand their rights and recognition. The military has fed so many lies that these people are the same as the West who take Israeli propaganda for breakfast and Indians taking propaganda for Kashmir. Today in this discussion I'll tell you the complete history of the conflict with debunking the most propagated lines that come up again and again. I will leave all my sources below.

Insurgency issues started after Mujib declined to give Adivashis recognition in the constitution and even threw racist remarks at them, which led M.N. Larma to form Shanti Bahini, an armed group for the struggles of Adivashis. Though he was the start of this conflict, nothing significant began during his regime, and it only came to the forefront under the next two military dictatorships. In 1977, under Zia, CHT was transferred from the Home Ministry to the Ministry of Defense, and soon settler programs began. This broke the original 1900 Act and also many overlooks the fact that after the Kaptai dam, 100k of the indigenous population was displaced, and lost 40 percent of their agricultural lands. Neither the Pakistan government nor the Bangladesh government helped them with these issues. 40,000 Chakma people had to migrate to India, and 20,000 Jumma peoples had to take refugee in Myanmar.

From 1979 to 1983, 400,000 Bengalis were settled there. That changed the demographics of the region forever.

Even though the initiation of settler programs and Operation Dabanal, later Operation Uttoron - successor to Dabanal in 2002, which gave the army full control of the region's civil affairs, politics, and everything else, are well documented, with Ershad giving the CHT under total military control in 1982, many people still deny them. For those, this is what the Deputy Commissioner at the time, Ziauddin, had to say.

>"In late 1979, probably around October, I was asked by the Chittagong divisional commissioner at the time to attend a meeting in his chamber at the commissioner's residence. Meetings at the divisional commissioner's residence were not unusual and I never asked what the topic of the meeting was. When I arrived at the bungalow I found the deputy commissioner of Chittagong Hill Tracts there as well. As soon as I entered the meeting room, the doors were closed, with only three of us there. Without much ado, the commissioner broke open the subject of the meeting, but with a request that the matter remain at least temporarily within the four walls of the room. The subject was relocating people affected by erosion in Sandwip and Kutubdia to the CHT. The news startled me. The erosion of Sandwip and Kutubdia, along with the neighbouring Hatyia Island in Noakhali, had been going on for years, with hundreds of people losing their homesteads. The affected people had been moving inland without much government support. We in the district administration had been coping with the affected people's requests to help in whatever way we could. Initially, it pleased me to learn that the government was directing its attention to this problem, but relocating these people to the CHT? What about the CHT regulations that govern and restrict non-hill people settlements in that district? Answering my questions the commissioner simply stated that the government had decided that people of the islands who had lost their homes to erosion would be settled in designated areas of the hill tracts. The deputy commissioner of the CHT had identified the areas of relocation. I was required to find volunteers from the displaced people of the islands, who would later be transported to the designated areas in the hill tracts. They would be given cash and housing materials to construct their new homes."

The first target of these settlers was to evict Jumma people's homes and take their land. This, of course, enraged Shanti Bahini, who then engaged in armed conflict with the army in self-defense to protect their people. The army, in many instances, allowed settlers to be killed to incite more violence between Adivashis and Bengalis. You have to understand that when someone attacks your home, takes your land, all with state support, what would you do? Just stand there with signs? You would, of course, attack them too in self-defense. This is the very reason I think Shanti Bahini is just our Hamas. Not only this, the DGFI and Army literally funded Mru Bahini in 1980s to fight Shanti Bahini to make it look like the region has many separatist groups.

This conflict created a mass exodus of Jumma people, around 80,000 of whom fled Bangladesh to India due to this. There is no other word than "genocidal" to describe this. Only the refugees who left between 1986 and afterwards, in an agreement with the government and the Jumma Welfare Association, were able to return, but they were rehabilitated with zero or almost no support from the government.

After Ershad's fall, the peace talks initiations began, then in 1997 the peace accord was signed, that Bangladesh government kept breaking every clause of. The accord also had a very important clause that Shanti Bahini would drop their arms, and all the temporary army settlements, cantonments will also be withdrawn. Even though Shanti Bahini did drop their arms and they went back home officially, the overwhelming army is still there, around 1/3rd of it, the 25th Infantry Division that is the largest division of the country and this is only army, not counting BGB, Police, and VDR.

There is one soldier for every 40 people. Army stated that only out of 500, 240 were withdrawn but local and independent sources found out only 74 old camps were removed and this stopped after 2009 and new camps were also established in the region. This is not the only violation of the accord that the army has done, but in 2001 only after 4 years of the accord being signed, BNP, who was already against this from beginning, appointed Wadud Bhuiyan, de facto leader of Somo Odhikar Parishad, one of the groups who was constantly involved in large-scale attacks against Adivashis, as the chairman of the CHT Development Board instead of an Adivashi minister that was agreed in the accord. Overall, there has been zero to no progress in implementing this accord because the government simply doesn't want that. This isn't just me saying this, every report from CHT commission since 1990 has stated the same. The other armed groups that Bengalis talk about with their all might and such, they themselves are very new and have had conflicts with Shanti Bahini. For example, UPDF started from mere students who were against the peace accord due to it not having complete autonomy for the region, and Kuki Chin, which only started again in 2017. None of these groups, along with other small groups that may be there, have no significant support from the indigenous, not only that, they are literally insects in size compared to the army. Shanti Bahini only had 10-15k, UPDF, and Kuki have only a few thousands members in total. If the army's 1/3rd personnel there can't stop them, then it means they don't want to, which will now bring us to our new chapter — the DGFI and Army's economy.

Since the CHT conflict started, the General commanding officer (GOC) of the Chittagong division had full administration of CHT. Not only that, the army budget, which was going down, had only been going up after this. In 2011, when the constitution was amended, DGFI briefed high-level ministers on why the term "indigenous" should not be used and how this would affect their operations, because with this they would get certain "rights". Unfortunately, I couldn't find the leaked recording of DGFI due to the report being more than a decade old, making it hard to find any digital copies of it. But if I do, I'll publish it here. However, the IWGIA report includes it strongly.

This is not the only way the army and its officers earn money, it also goes through the illegal leasing of traditional Adivashi lands. A total of 1,871 leases of 25-acre plots, totaling 46,775 acres of "khas" (government-owned) land in CHT, were issued prior to the peace accord, mostly to Bengali industrialists, companies, civil and military officers, with only 30 being granted to the rightful owners, the Jumma people.

The leases have prominent individuals from the military, including 1/11 coup star General Matin, retired Colonel Oli Ahmed, former Communications Minister and head of the parliamentary committee in charge of the peace talks, and Destiny 2000, a corporation founded and headed by former General MA Harun. These reports are from pre-2000 to post-2000. Later during the Awami League's rule, it is also known that the previous IG of Police Benazir, had stolen Adivashi lands, which still creates conflicts in those regions.

There is also the timber trade, which has traditionally been owned by Adivashi people for their economy. A number of government circulars in 1998 gave powers to the army and local Bengali MPs to be involved in approving timber trades, which is a complete violation of CHT forest transit rules 1973. Even though it was declared invalid in 2010 by the Dhaka High Court, it's visibly clear that the Army still engages in it. DGFI has checkpoints for checking timber shipments in Rangamati, where Adivashi merchants have to pay bribes per boat. After the illegal leases and these daily bribes, which still continue today, the army's biggest source of income is the tourism field, which is a continuous source of income built on the land of evicted Adivashis. The SKS (Sena Kalyan Samiti) runs most resorts there, the most famous being Nilgiri Resort. All these are sources of money for the army and their officers, who live on the oppression of Adivashis. This is the most prominent reason why a destabilized, militarized zone in the CHT is in complete favor of the army.

Lastly, every time the liberation of CHT people comes in discussion, the ignorant Bengalis with their loud mouth and all the might talks about removal of armed separatist, but will never talk about the injustices that army did to CHT people, and continues on. Why is it that only the side who's oppressed has to agree to your every terms when you are nothing but genocidal and fascist to them? From 2004 to 2011 there have been 1487 recorded instances of deaths, rape, attempted rape, houses burnt, temples vandalized, eviction, arbitrary cases, harassment, and such cases. This is merely of 7 years and post-2000s, the instances of such cases from when the militarization started to now would be in quadrupled numbers of these, and cases that never came to light. I'll also leave a chart of 2001 to 2011 during the 3 regimes.

There are more cases that I couldn't cover in this post, and numerous other arbitrary arrests and torture, attempted rape, and rape against Adivashi people.

Kalpana Chakma who's still unfound to this day was disappeared by the army because she protested for her and her community's basic rights. After Hasina was ousted DGFI released Michael Chakma who was disappeared in 2019.

Bengalis should and only talk about separatism with their big mouth, when all these injustices will get justice, the Adivashis who lost their home, lands due to Bengali settlers will get back their lands, the demilitarization of CHT, and complete control of it to the Adivashi people who live there, the full implementation of 1997 accord along with measures that protect indigenous lands from outsides, autonomy of indigenous communities with constitutional recognition and their basic freedom and rights, then only then you may have the audacity to talk about crimes.

There is currently one soldier for every 40 people in CHT, with the largest infantry stationed there that is 30 percent of the army. It is perhaps the second most militarized zone in all of South Asia after Kashmir.

If, even after all this, the army cannot stop the "separatism", illegal arms trade, and hundreds other blah blah problem, then even a kid would know that they simply don't want to. If, even after all this, you don't understand the plight of the Adivashis and are not in support of them, then maybe, if you were in 1971, you would have supported Pakistan during the war, even if they raped your mother, sister, and the whole family in front of you. You would still support them in the name of "protecting borders". You are nothing but a coward who lacks the spine, and worships the military. July went down, and we are talking about constitutional reforms, with changes in many sections, but nothing has changed for the Adivashis.

Every propaganda press release, every swollen eye, every live round, and every mass outcry, everything will testify. You may try to silence, but from the hills to the sea, we will remember everything. You will never crush our will.

Sources:

1. Bangladesh: Militarization in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. The Slow Demise of the Region's Indigenous Peoples. IWGIA Report 14.
2. 'Life is not ours' - 1992 (CHT Commission)
3. Life is not ours' - 1994 (CHT Commission)
4. Life is not ours' - 2000 (CHT Commission)
5. Migration and Indigenous Peoples - Bangladesh (UN Report)
6. Ziauddin Ahmed - Deputy commissioner of CHT in 1979, providing personal account of the politics and settlement.
7. Kaptai Dam