Ensure indigenous people's right to land

They also identified several factors -- low rate of education, poverty, indifferent attitude of the government and inadequate representation from ethnic communities in parliament -- as major causes of the miseries of the indigenous people.

Society for Environment and Human Development (SEHD) organised the roundtable on 'Development actions and actors: The case of Adivasis of Bangladesh' at Begum Sufia Kamal Auditorium of the National Museum in the city, with Promod Mankin MP in the chair.

SEHD Director Philip Gain said indigenous people in Sylhet are being evicted from their lands for mere political interests. As a result, the indigenous population is declining gradually, he added.

According to census 2001, the ethnic population in Rangamati and Khagrachhari has declined by 25 percent in the last one decade, he said, adding that the indigenous people are still deprived of justice and their rights.

The ethnic people will not see their development unless their right to land is established, said Prof Amina Mohshin, a researcher.

There should be enough representation of ethnic community in parliament who would place the problems before the nation, she said.

Eminent writer and columnist Farhad Mazhar said indigenous people are being evicted from their lands, but the government appears to be indifferent to such problem.

Sudatta Bikash Tanchangya, secretary of the Movement for Protection of Land Rights of Indigenous People in CHT, said whatever development is taking place in the CHT are designed to render indigenous people landless.

Prof Dr Imtiaz Ahmad stressed the need for an indigenous library and one FM radio station for every indigenous community. "It would help ensure their development," he said.

Bijoy Onargy, a representative from Sylhet, said the miseries of tea labourers never get attention from the national level, neither from the government nor from the non-government sector.

"We are deprived of land right, our kids are growing up without education and we do not have job security," he said and called on all to come forward to help them.

Komol Kiska from Oraon community in northern region and Zeron Hazong from Modhupur also spoke of their suffering due to grabbing of their lands by outsiders.