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Stunning landscape of Kaptai lake area of Bangladesh.

@mods , this forum is an apt place for disseminating knowledge and facts about those places in the world which many from other parts of the world have little knowledge of. If we all were to agree on everything this forum would be mundane and boring.

Kaptai reservoir and dam have had a great impact on Bangladesh's fortune over decades and as the shared video demonstrates it is quite scenic too( not that the Karnafuli river wasn't scenic before the commissioning of the dam), something that i agreed to in my post #3. But people need to be told about the other side of the story too, how these mega engineering works impact the livelihood of the locals and the environment.

It is not exclusive to Bangladesh, communities were displaced in India too while building the Hirakud and the Narmada projects.

How a mere mention of this universally accepted fact gets these BDeshis riled up and the baseless accusations of trolling that ensue is beyond my understanding.

Do these Bangladeshis just want us to like their posts and then make an one line comment that 'OMG it's so beautiful, well done BD'.

If it were upto the folks like Bilal who take objection to all my posts PDF would have gone to the dogs. @Dubious
Well it is common knowledge that large scale dams (3 gorges dam is a case study) does cause a lot of problems in the making!

@Dubious bhai please take note of post number three (hijacking troll post). This follows consistent pattern of thread hijacking and trolling in other threads by this same poster with specific agenda.
Presenting the other side of the story is by no means highjacking..considering the rest of BD members also agreed with the fact that Chakma were not compensated and the project was ill planned!

But I will say:

How low will you people stoop down to?
Language can be a little politer!
 
Language can be a little politer!
I agree, but he was being disrespectful to the Chakma tribals by falsely claiming that they were in the CHT only for the last 100 years when the fact is that they have been residing there for centuries as agreed to by other BD posters. On the top of it, he has been repeatedly reporting my genuine posts for supposed trolling. All this after Bilal had claimed in another post that i was in his ignore list.

Neither do i wish to engage with that hateful individual but if he indulges in false propaganda by tagging me, i have to reply back.

Well it is common knowledge that large scale dams (3 gorges dam is a case study) does cause a lot of problems in the making!
In Assam also we are opposing the building of big dams as we are situated in an earthquake prone zone, and the impact on the biodiversity and environment would be harsh.
 
I agree, but he was being disrespectful to the Chakma tribals by falsely claiming that they were in the CHT only for the last 100 years when the fact is that they have been residing there for centuries as agreed to by other BD posters. On the top of it, he has been repeatedly reporting my genuine posts for supposed trolling. All this after Bilal had claimed in another post that i was in his ignore list.

Neither do i wish to engage with that hateful individual but if he indulges in false propaganda by tagging me, i have to reply back.


In Assam also we are opposing the building of big dams as we are situated in an earthquake prone zone, and the impact on the biodiversity and environment would be harsh.

Please provide proof Chakmas have been in what is now Bangladesh for 400 years.

Absolute clap trap. Chackmas moved in to what is now BD as billal says very recently... a couple of hundreds years max.
 
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Most of the tribal population settled in CHT during Assam -Burma war. Many were living in the area even before, but they were small in number. This is well documented fact. Anyway this point is mute since BD Citizen Act doesn't segregate on basis of date of settlement like India or Burma.

To point it out, Bengal domain, for hundreds of years enjoyed sovereignty over CHT. During Bengal Sultanate, Bengal hold CHT lands as buffer between Burma, Arakan & Bengal. Mughals too captured this land to create buffer between Bengal & the savagedom in Burma.

Many tribal peoples used to flee Burma to save their lives & settled in the area, since it was under protection of Bengal Sultan's & then Mughals, so sending army here effectively meant declaration of war.

Sultans & Mughals used to station thousands of troops in Chittagong to offset any attack on this border. According to English East India Company Military commanders, Mughals stationed more than 8,000 soldiers & many naval ships in Chittagong to protect this area from Portuguese & Burmese pirates.

British Raj too raised special military units to maintain peace in the area. Ramgarh Battalion (EPR/BDR/BGB) was raised specifically to counter rebellion in the area.
 
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Please provide proof Chakmas have been in what is now Bangladesh for 400 years.

Absolute clap trap. Chackmas moved in to what is now BD as billal says very recently... a couple of hundreds years max.

From where did they move? Any anthropological evidence to back those myth up?
The last large scale migration took place in 1784 and it was the Rakhine community in Coxs Bazar and Putuakhali that is also more than 250 years ago.
 
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Now on the matter of Kaptai Dam, I personally believe it was an ill planned project. It actually submerged more lands than expected in the feasibility study.

While the number of displaced isn't high, it was still a blunder. Not to mention they were never compensated properly. Though many were repatriated in Independent Bangladesh, many stayed behind since they had no means of living left in here.

But may be the planners only considered population density factors in mind. Keep in mind any project of this calibre in any other corner in BD would have displaced hundreds of thousands.
 
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From where did they move? Any anthropological evidence to back those myth up?
The last large scale migration took place in 1784 and it was the Rakhine community in Coxs Bazar and Putuakhali that is also more than 250 years ago.

Dont know. Not my area of expertise. I am following standard history as i understand it. The first lot of chakmas moved into what is BD area following aggrement with the bengal sultanate. More of their compatriots followed during the British Raj.

They originate from the simian conglomerate.

They are recent arrivals.
 
Dont know. Not my area of expertise. I am following standard history as i understand it. The first lot of chakmas moved into what is BD area following aggrement with the bengal sultanate. More of their compatriots followed during the British Raj.

They originate from the simian conglomerate.

They are recent arrivals.
AND how old is bangali SULTANATE? Even though there were no major even documented between bangal SULTANATE and chakma
 
AND how old is bangali SULTANATE? Even though there were no major even documented between bangal SULTANATE and chakma
Shahi banglah or bengal sultanate came to being in the early to mid 14th century when it declared itself sovereign from the delhi sultanate. It was disolved and merged into the mogul empire following wars and intermarriage of the bengal royal houses with that of the moghuls towards the end of the 16 century.

To be perfectly frank chakmas are an irrelevance. Just some minor interlopers that no one cared about then or now.

The point is are they from our region.....no they are not. Are they adhibashis with the actual meaning of the term as the original people of the land...... hell no.
 
@mods , this forum is an apt place for disseminating knowledge and facts about those places in the world which many from other parts of the world have little knowledge of. If we all were to agree on everything this forum would be mundane and boring.

Kaptai reservoir and dam have had a great impact on Bangladesh's fortune over decades and as the shared video demonstrates it is quite scenic too( not that the Karnafuli river wasn't scenic before the commissioning of the dam), something that i agreed to in my post #3. But people need to be told about the other side of the story too, how these mega engineering works impact the livelihood of the locals and the environment.

It is not exclusive to Bangladesh, communities were displaced in India too while building the Hirakud and the Narmada projects.

How a mere mention of this universally accepted fact gets these BDeshis riled up and the baseless accusations of trolling that ensue is beyond my understanding.

Do these Bangladeshis just want us to like their posts and then make an one line comment that 'OMG it's so beautiful, well done BD'.

If it were upto the folks like Bilal who take objection to all my posts PDF would have gone to the dogs. @Dubious
The Last Chakma Raja/King remained Pro Pakistan and settled in Pakistan.

Raja Tridev Roy

https://tribune.com.pk/story/438375/the-raja-who-gave-away-his-kingdom/

47C3DA75-1191-4BC1-9758-AE211E383E92.jpeg


E2A0BE46-8171-4599-A955-29E3582799B9.jpeg


EA189B0C-1AD4-4DA8-9C62-5E5EBEFD4C2A.jpeg



His autobiography


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He passed away in 2012, in Islamabad.
 
Most of the tribal population settled in CHT during Assam -Burma war.
WHAT??? This is a classic case of historical revisionism, nah, blatant distortion and confabulation of historical facts. The Assam-Burma war had nothing to do with the Chakmas, it was us Ahoms and the Meiteis of Manipur that had to bear the brunt of Burmese invasions.
 
From where did they move? Any anthropological evidence to back those myth up?
The last large scale migration took place in 1784 and it was the Rakhine community in Coxs Bazar and Putuakhali that is also more than 250 years ago.

The Chakmas were refugees from Arakan.

They had conflicts with Rakhine people in Arakan about two hundred years ago - from more than one account I have read in the past few years. They were originally from Shan areas in China, and eventually moved to Arakan before this conflict to settle and conduct agriculture. It seems Rohingyas (who were more organized) could resist these issues violently with the Rakhine, but not the Chakmas who were a more pacified population.

The Rakhine completely drove out the Chakma (alongwith their royal family) and they moved to and settled around a few Hill Tract areas, such as Rangamati, Barakal and Chandraghona upstream on the banks of the Karnaphuli as these were safer areas for them. Please google it. Rest of the uninformed Bullsh*t merchants can just shut their trap.

This is logical - because if the Chakmas were settled for more than two hundred years, where is their 'civilization'?? There are zero civilized structures (signs of long period of settlement) in Rangamati and no sign of any land or infra improvements before Bengalis moved in.

These are just itinerant vagrants, migrants and assorted troublemakers. Unfortunately that is the legacy. read more here about how the British tamed these hill-dwellers,

https://books.google.com/books?id=GZtEAQAAMAAJ&pg=PR17&dq=bohmong+circle&hl=en#v=onepage&q=bohmong circle&f=false
 
Look at what level of sacrifice Bengali settlers had to go through to settle in the Chittagong Hill Tracts - their only crime, that of pursuing a living. The Shanti Bahini led a dastardly campaign of civilian kidnappings and killings in the eighties/nineties. But things are hopefully settled now, much to the chagrin of our non-well-wishers, and Thanks to our selfless brothers in the Army. One of the most interesting videos about Army operations in CTG Hill Tracts I've seen in a while.

 
read more here about how the British tamed these hill-dwellers

The British introduced several administrative changes to protect the political and economic interests of the indigenous people of the CHT.

Local ethnic chiefs were given autonomy to collect revenue and dispense justice according to their local customs and norms. The British saw to it that no interference from the Bengalis to their customary practices ever took place.

The CHT manual of 1900 give rights to the tribal chiefs to manage the internal affairs in their own circle. The regulations prohibited the Bengalis from settling in the CHT and transferring land to their possession.

The 1920 CHT regulation made the district an excluded area independent of general administration.

The 1935 GOI Act CHT was declared a totally excluded area, administrators and political leaders from Bengal were prevented from trying to influence or control the area.

So we can see that the British tried their best to preserve the unique culture of the tribes and protect them from the Bengali ingress.

@DESERT FIGHTER it is for this very reason that the Raja and a small segment of the Chakmas sided with Pakistan. They simply didn't trust these Bengalis and in hindsight were proven right as Bangladesh is yet to provide them with simple regional autonomy even after the CHT accord, something which they had historically enjoyed under the British.
 

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