Author(s): Samad, Saleem
Serial No: soc032
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Dams Caused Environmental Refugees of Ethnic Minorities

Hill Tracts in Bangladesh

Possibly the first ever "environmental refugees" in this part of the world were caused by a huge hydroelectric project in Chittagong Hill Tracts, south east of Bangladesh (Samad, 12 November 1994, Environmental refugees of CHT,Page-2). The socio-economic condition of a large section of the hill people was effected by the construction of the hydro project.

The Kaptai Dam (popularly known) inundated 253 square miles, including 10square miles of reserved forest. Nearly 54,000 acres of plough land that was about 40 per cent of the district's total cultivable area submerged under the biggest human-made reservoir named Kaptai Lake. Homesteads of 18,000families; approximately 100,000 people were displaced from their hearths and homes of which 70 per cent were Chakma's (Bangladesh District Gazetteers: Chittagong Hill Tracts, 1975, Dhaka, Chapter VI, Economic Condition, Page-1 26).

Built in early 1960's, the Karnaphuli Multi-Purpose Project submerged 40% of the rice bowl of the Hill Tracts and displaced one-sixth of the indigenous population. Thousands of hill people migrated into sparsely populated regions of Mizoram, Tripura, Assam and Arunachal. Perhaps 40,000 "environmental refugees" migrated to India and another 20,000 migrated to Burma. Where today, they live in the Arunachal Pradesh in northeast India. Citizens neither of India, nor of Bangladesh and without citizenship rights in either country.

In the aid-game of "Green Revolution" to produce more food and industrialisation, the United States government built a hydro project damming the Karnaphuli river crisscrossing from northeast India.

The rehabilitation programme was inadequate and half-hearted. A government publication (ibid, Page-126) however claims rehabilitation, resettlement and adequate compensation to the displaced hill people. The District Gazetteers writes, "in consideration of the backwardness of the tribal people of this district as for the sacrifice that they made for good of the rest of the country, government took up the responsibility to compensate and rehabilitate the displaced persons. A majority of the displaced families have been rehabilitated on the upper reaches of rivers Kassalong and Chengi and also a certain percentage has been rehabilitated in other non-submerged areas of Bandarban and Ramgarh subdivision (now district). The rehabilitation scheme envisages the economic rehabilitation of the people on a sound basis."

The government publication (ibid, Page-88) however admits that the hydroproject caused negative impact on the agriculture and economy. It says the average jhum (slash and burns agriculture practice) cycle before inundation by Karnaphuli valley was 7 to 10 years or even 20 to 25 years, this did not cause serious deterioration to the fertility of the land. But submergence of jhum lands, natural increase of population and acute shortage of plough land as a consequence of inundation by Kaptai Dam which damaged 40% of the best cultivable land, has been mainly responsible for the shortening of the cycle that is generally three to five years. This has resulted in declining soil fertility, low yields from jhum land, and quick erosion and consequent soil degradation. In the process the timber and bamboo resources were destroyed.

The ethnic minorities were not consulted before the hydroelectric project was built, nor their resettlement and compensation were adequately met. Instead of being a pride of the Jumma population, the project angered them. In the subsequent years their anger turned violent, demanding an autonomous state of Chittagong Hill Tracts, a size one-tenth of Bangladesh.

Compensations were paid for the loss of their land, trees and structures under the government resettlement plan. Constraints of budget allocation discouraged rehabilitation of majority of the displaced population. The largest concentration of the rehabilitated persons was at Kassalong where the reserved forest has been deforested and the plain land made available to them (ibid, Page-88).

"The tribal sacrifice for the project was not duly compensated," retold Ali Haider Khan. Then a young relief officer responsible for rehabilitation and resettlement of the displaced hill people, said in an interview to this writer in 1980. Mr. Khan who retired as Divisional Commissioner of Chittagong (Bangladesh is divided in six administrative divisions). The government of Pakistan with poor budget resettled the displaced hill people at a certain height, determined by the dam project engineers. But when the hydroelectric project came into effect in 1962, the water level submerged most of the resettled hill people. The Pakistan government is understood to have given up attempts to rehabilitate them again or compensate.

The US consultants and government officials recorded in the document that the ethnic minorities are of nomads and practice slash and burn agriculture. They migrate from one hill to another after each five to seven years. It will be difficult task to rehabilitate or resettle the "nomadic" hill people to permanent place. Therefore the question of resettlement or rehabilitation does not arise. The foreign consultants assumed that the hill people would just go and need not be resettled. The truth is, there was not enough lands fit for agriculture, horticulture and homesteads.

1. Bangladesh District Gazetteers: Chittagong Hill Tracts, 1971, Dhaka.

2. Samad, Saleem, 12 November 1994. Environmental refugees of CHT, weekly Holiday, Dhaka.