| Description |
This book deals with the forcible takeover of the lands of the indigenous peoples of the CHittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). Based on fieldwork research among both Pahari and Bengali groups, the book documents the bewildering variety of mechanisms used to grab Pahari lands in the CHT, inclusive of illegal violence and intimidation. It also puts forward a wide range of policy measures to reduce land grabbing and ethnic tension. These policies are addressed to Pahari organizations as well as progressive sections of the government, mainstream Bengali society, donor agencies, the media, public interest organizations, the NGO sector, advocacy groups and others at home and abroad.
The book has four chapters, concerned with different aspects of the study:
Chapter 1 introduces the research and describes how it was undertaken.
Chapter 2 deals with the CHT Accord of 1997 and the failure to implement most of its important clauses in a substantive manner. It also takes account of parallel social and demographic changes in the CHT occurring outside the framework of the Accord, the results of which may be very difficult, if not impossible, to reverse. Some of these trends bypass the provisions of the Accord and could potentially make it irrelevant.
Chapter 3 provides detailed analysis of the numerous mechanisms of land alienation in the CHT. The roles of different government and private agencies are analysed with empirical evidence, including sixteen case studies. Various Bengali interest groups are also found to be grabbing the lands of poor Bengali settlers, reflecting intra-ethnic and classed-based dimensions of land alienation. The growing significance of commercial land grabbing for rubber, timber and horticulture plantations, driven by profit-oriented capitalist production, is highlighted. These constitute elements of global land grabbing, indicative of 'accumulation by dispossession' under contemporary globalization and neoliberal capitalism. - Source: Amazon
|
