Indigenous Identity in South Asia: Making Claims in the Colonial Chittagong Hill Tracts

In the immediate aftermath of the creation of Bangladesh in 1971, an armed struggle ensued in its remote south-eastern corner. The hill people in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, more commonly referred to as paharis, demanded official recognition, and autonomy, as the indigenous people of the Tracts. This demand for autonomy was primarily based on the claim that they were ethnically distinct from the majority ‘Bengali’ population of Bangladesh, and thereby needed to protect their unique identity...