Raja Devasish Roy to UNPFII: It’s not a jargon, rather a revelation for the Bangladesh government

“Bangladesh did not have any indigenous population, as is meant in UN jargon” - this was reiterated by Foreign Minister Dr. Dipu Moni, when Renata Lok-Dessallien, the outgoing UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative to Bangladesh called on her at her office on 11 April (the Daily Star, 12 April 2010). In three weeks after this reiteration by the Foreign Minister, the president of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) appointed Raja Devasish Roy as one of the indigenous expert members to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) for the term of 2011 – 2013, starting from next January. It is not a jargon rather a revelation for the Bangladesh government that Raja Devasish Roy has got appointed in this UN forum, because he is an indigenous person from Bangladesh. To his capacity as an indigenous member to UNPFII, he will sit with other government representatives on an equal footing at the UN level. It is indeed a resounding joy for the adivasis of Bangladesh. We, the adivasis of Bangladesh warmly congratulate him on this occasion. Simultaneously, we also expect the same gesture from our government.

Dr. Dipu Moni (4th from the right), now foreign minister of Bangladesh at an adivasi rally on 9 August. Now she denies the adivasis in Bangladesh, Photo: Bidhayak Chakma

By the way, it is necessary to briefly touch on Bangladesh’s ‘cold, but sometimes desperate’ attitudes towards indigenous peoples. Since a long time, Bangladesh has been denying the existence of indigenous peoples in Bangladesh, although it has never put up well-founded explanation about its position. As a proof of its desperate attitudes, we can mention the recent executive order issued by the Ministry of Chittagong Hill Tracts Affairs (MoCHTA), which puts a sanction on using the term adivasi. Whilst at the international level, Bangladesh sometimes has remained ‘too cold’, and sometimes intervened opposing the concept of ‘indigenous peoples’. For instance, in 1996 at the fourteenth session of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations (WGIP), a precursor to UNPFII, the Bangladesh UN representative made a statement that Bangladesh did not have indigenous people. He further stated, “Bangladesh's population of 120 million were all indigenous”. The Foreign Minister harped on the same string too, while talking to Renata Lok-Dessalien. To our utter surprise, she also termed the concept of indigenous peoples as a “jargon” and reaffirmed that Bangladesh situation could not be compared with those in western countries.

Ostensibly, Bangladesh could not be compared with other western countries, but the government must ‘de-jargonise’ the concept of ‘indigenous’ or ‘adivasi’. So far, we did not have a detailed explanation about Bangladesh’s position on the indigenous question. However, from the ‘indigenous’ discourse as stated by the Foreign Minister and the Bangladesh representative to the UN mission, it appears that they stick only to the lexical or semantic meaning of ‘indigenous’ or ‘advivasi’ as the ‘first occupants’ in a place. We cannot agree with this kind of naïve explanation for defining ‘indigenousness’. Yet for the sake of argument, we agree that the ‘first occupants’ concept, as it is applicable for Australia, the US or other European countries, might not be the same for Bangladesh or the Indian sub-continent due to various reasons. For instance, first, difficulty in determining the ‘first settlers’ as influxes of different groups of people or rulers occurred in different times and in different places; and second, the boundaries of the states and territories changed over time. However, we strongly assert that the attempt to define ‘indigenousness’ solely based on the ‘first occupants’ criterion is an ahistorical approach for Bangladesh.

In contrast, the roots of constructing adivasi in this sub-continent could be traced back to its colonial administration and legal history. The legal history suggests that currency of ‘indigenous’ or ‘aboriginal’ (its Bangla synonym adivasi) has emerged from applying some special laws for protecting the rights of the ‘original inhabitants’ in certain places during the British rule. In applying these special laws, the driving principle was ‘exclusion’, for instance, the CHT was declared as an ‘excluded area’ (EA), and Garo Hills as ‘partially excluded area’ (PEA). It meant that the general laws, which were in force in other districts of the British India, would not be applicable for the ‘original’ inhabitants (adivasis) of the CHT and Garo Hills. For administration and protecting the special rights of the adivasis in EAs and PEAs, separate laws would be enacted, for example, the CHT Regulation 1900, which recognised the CHT adivasis as ‘indigenous hillmen’; while the State Acquisition and Tenancy Act 1950 provided a legal protection to the aboriginals’ land rights in plain districts (the section 97 (1)). This clearly indicates that the concept of ‘indigenous’ was applied for the adivasis, who were the original inhabitants in their territories such as the CHT and Garo Hills in Bangladesh. Thus the Bangladesh government’s claim of its “120 million populations were indigenous” is baseless and distortion of the historical truth.

Alongside the aforementioned historical continuum of adivasi construction in Bangladesh, the government should also bear in mind that already ‘indigenous peoples’ has become an internationally accepted legal term. Other than the international laws e.g. the ILO Convention 169, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) 1992, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), many other intergovernmental and international development agencies like the World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) to name a few, have recognised indigenous peoples. To the best of my knowledge, the Bangladesh government already received funds from ADB under the indigenous people’s development plan (IPDP) for many projects.

No civilised and democratic states including Bangladesh could deny the fact that indigenous peoples all over the world were subjected to genocide, slavery and discriminations during colonisation and ‘nation state’ building processes. In such backdrop, out of collective aspiration of being free from all kinds of discriminations and oppressions, and to assert indigenous human rights including the collective rights over lands and territories, indigenous leaders marched to the United Nations and demanded a ‘place for indigenous voice’ within the UN system. Initially, in 1970s and 80s, a ‘permanent forum’ for indigenous peoples within the UN structure was a utopian concept.

However, to turn this ‘utopian concept’ into a reality, indigenous leaders continued struggles and held decade-long negotiations and lobby with the state parties and relevant actors at the UN level and beyond. Finally in July 2000, the UN General Assembly endorsed the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) under ECOSOC. Raja Devasish Roy as an adivasi leader from Bangladesh was one of the pioneers in framing this vision for the world’s indigenous peoples.

UNPFII is an advisory body to ECOSOC, consisting of sixteen members, of them eight are government nominated and the rest are indigenous experts appointed by the president of ECOSOC. Within the scope of ECOSOC works, UNPFII is given a mandate to discuss indigenous issues related to economic and social development, culture, the environment, education, health and human rights. UNPFII holds its annual session in April-May in New York or Geneva, where indigenous leaders and other actors have an opportunity to participate and speak on those issues. As per the mandate, UNPFII members in a body provide expert advice and recommendations on indigenous issues to ECOSOC.

This year during the UNPFII’s annual session on 28 April, the president of ECOSOC formally declared the names of indigenous members to UNPFII for the next three-year term. Raja Devasish Roy from Bangladesh was one of them. As per the Foreign Minister’s speech, if there were no indigenous peoples in Bangladesh, how Raja Devasish Roy could be selected to UNPFII? Nonetheless, it is our immense pleasure that he is representing Bangladesh as an adivasi leader at the UN forum. We are confident that he will be able to provide expert advices to both ECOSOC and the government of Bangladesh. At the same time, we expect that by giving up the parochial view on indigenous question, the government will come ahead with a positive attitude towards the adivasis to make Bangladesh a truly inclusive democratic state.