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Who Are Chakma And Hajong Migrants? Why Goverment Doesn’t Grant Them Citizenship?

The Chakmas and Harjongs had entered India from Bangladesh in the mid-60s and have not returned.

Updated: September 19, 2017 1:56 PM IST

By India.com News Desk

Chakma People
Chakma People (Courtesy: PTI)

New Delhi, September 19: A problem like Rohingya Muslims has existed in the north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh for the last five decades– the fate of Bangladeshi migrants Chakma and Hajong people. The Chakmas and Harjongs had entered India from Bangladesh in the mid-60s and have not returned. The Supreme Court ordered the government to grant them citizenship, but the Modi dispensation is offering resistance.

Highlights

  • The Chakmas and Harjongs had entered India from Bangladesh in the mid-60s.
  • The Chakmas are Buddhists by religion, while Harjongs are Hindus.
  • Chakmas speak a language from the Bengali-Assamese family; Hajongs speak Tibeto-Burman language.

Who are Chakmas and Hajong Migrants? 

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Chakmas and Hajongs came to India from Bangladesh. The Chakmas are Buddhists by religion, while Harjongs are Hindus. They had lost their abodes when the Kaptai dam was built. But, the persecution by Islamic powers in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) forced them to migrate to India. Chakmas speak a language from the Bengali-Assamese family. Hajongs speak Tibeto-Burman language, whose script is Assamese.

Chakmas are the largest ethnic group in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. They are divided into 46 clans. The community is headed by a Chakma Raja while the Hajongs are rice farmers.

When and why did they migrate?

Fearing persecution, they arrived in India in 1964. According to TOI, there were 15,000 Chakmas and 2,000 Hajongs. Currently, over 1 lakh refugees stay in India.They had arrived in via Lushai hills and settled in refugee camps in NEFA, now Arunachal Pradesh. Now they are moving out of the camps.

In the 70s, the Chakmas didn’t favour the formation of Bangladesh. They launched an armed struggle for autonomy. A large number of Chakmas moved in Tripura after government forces launched an offensive. The Sheikh Hasina government tried to strike a truce with the Chakmas as it recognised them as Bangla tribe. But they didn’t return.

Legal intervention

The Supreme Court ordered the government to accord voting rights to Chakmas in 2005, and around 1,000 are registered as voters. The court in 2015 ordered the government to grant citizenship to Chakmas and Hajongs– but the government has resisted the order.

Union minister for state Kiren Rijiju said that the government has not decided about their fate yet.He said that the right of the indigenous people of the state should be protected first. He said that the government has not accepted the verdict of Supreme Court.

“We are trying to tell the court that giving Chakma and Hajong refugees the same rights as Arunachalees is not acceptable to us. So, people of the state should appreciate the fact that for the first time the Centre has not agreed to the court’s order,” he told TOI. 

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