"I see thousands of us wandering towards the Northeast hoping of some mystery land with each ongoing step. Months of restless Journey only for the sake of breathing with fulfillment for one more time. It's despair disguised as hope, but none of us dare to admit it. The sun is yanking over the horizon. We are running out of survival resources; we have to move faster."
That is the inner voice of more than 40,000 displaced Indigenous people of Bangladesh in 1962, making a journey towards the Northeast craving for new homes.
It's been close to 6 decades since the floods of Rangamati swapped away the lands of 100,000 Indigenous people for the sake of an Artificial Dam. But after all these years, was it worth it?
Rather than just acknowledging it from only one point of view, Let's go through some facts from some research papers and articles to get an overview of the matter.
"The Kaptai Dam, completed in 1962 with American financial and technical support, flooded over 250 square miles of the Chakma heartland in Rangamati, including roughly 40 percent of all arable land in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Over 100,000 people were displaced by the project, one-sixth of the country’s entire indigenous population at the time. Around half of the displaced fled to India or Myanmar while others stayed in hopes of receiving the compensation promised by the government, a promise that was never delivered upon. Nearly all the physical vestiges of Chakma culture, including Buddhist temples and, indeed, THE KING'S PALACE( 10 meters down), receded beneath the water.
With the partition of India in 1947 the Chakmas, together with the region’s other indigenous communities, strongly resisted their inclusion in what was then East Pakistan. In an attempt to assert control over this restive indigenous region once and for all, the government of the new polity settled on a dramatic plan; they would flood it. "- Georgetown University.
"Once, CHT was full of natural resources and wildlife. It had many rare animals. Because the reservoir inundated many of the best forested valleys, most of the wildlife once comprised of wild elephant, peacock, bison, barking deer, wild boar, leopard, Royal Bengal Tiger, panther, etc. are not seen anymore. Elephant population has drastically decreased and the tiger species have gone extinct from the CHT.
It was pledged that affected indigenous people will be rehabilitated and they will get land as compensation but reality was they were not compensated with land. As a result 30-35 thousand people were forced to leave the country.
Rehabilitation Program was a cruel farce. American master plan allotted $60 million for full comprehensive economic rehabilitation of evictees of the Kaptai Dam. In a publication of the Far Eastern Economic Review in 1980, it was amply stated that the government set $31 million aside for rehabilitation. Only $2.6 million had been spent."- Hubpages.com
"All over the world, there are more than 15,000 large and numerous other small dams that have displaced some 60 million people from their homeland. In India, about 40% of the people displaced by dams have been low castes or tribal people, even though they make up less than 6% of the Indian population. The story looks very similar in Bangladesh. It is about time that the government and the affected groups work on a peaceful and mutually agreeable solution in a democratic way and through a properly designed institutional framework. This would go a long way in ensuring the security and prosperity of the CHT region in the new millen-nium."-theasiadialogue.com
"In Parliament, an old debate has reared its head again. Last week, Jitendra Choudhury, member of Parliament from Tripura, said Arunachal Pradesh should grant citizenship rights to Chakma refugees. On Saturday, Arunachal MP Ninong Ering shot back that it was not possible. Refugees in Arunachal could not ask for citizenship rights."-scroll.in
" Kaptai dam is the only hydropower source in Bangladesh, with an installed capacity of 230 MW; about 5% of the electricity consumed in the country is produced there."-researchgate.net
"Kaptai Lake the largest man-made freshwater body in Bangladesh. Though created primarily for hydroelectric power generation, it contributes to produce significant quantity of freshwater fishes, navigation, flood control, and agriculture, etc."-banglapedia.org
"Dams carve up landscape like a jigsaw puzzle in the name of providing benefits to people," said Biksham Gujja, Head of WWF's Freshwater Programme. "But the pieces often never fit again and fragmented nature can result in greater losses for generations to come."
There are several takes on this matter and anyone is free to go with their own point of view. But a simple question arises, Was a hydroelectric power generator worth the risk of the original Rangamati and the homes of 100,000 Indigenous people who safeguard the bio-diversity of the country? The authority just ignored the value of biodiversity and implemented their other intentions?
Written by Sushmit Chakma
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