Abstract
This chapter reflects on the Ph.D. journey within the Santals of Bangladesh, followed by an ethnographic method at Birganj in Dinajpur, Bangladesh. The Government of Bangladesh formulated diverse forest policies, acts, and rules and either ratified or approved international treaties/documents to preserve, guide, and nurture the forests. However, when the author entered the remote Santals hamlet, they talked about their grief regarding the Sal Forest. Before starting the academic journey, the first author was born and developed in a village where the Indigenous research methodology was embedded informally in his mind as a consciousness part; moreover, as a student spent with Santals neighbours in the agri-field, school, colleges, and even the common playground in the countryside. As a result, it is decorated with field experiences and deals with the “capability approach” while the PhD candidate stayed in the research field for a long time and observed an intricate relationship between Santals and the international legal frameworks to ratify in Bangladesh.
TopGlancing Back
Scholars and thinkers argue that the East India Company and the Permanent Settlement Act of 1793 are to blame for the Santal people's presence in today's Bangladesh (Mamun, eds, 2021; Doshi, 1990). This law led to a lack of agricultural labourers in Bengal and a concentration of land in the hands of zamindars. Thus, they were brought in as labourers for agriculture. They were then compelled to seek safety in the north by the Santals Rebellion and the Sepoy Mutiny. As a result, we may assume that the claims made by people living in the modern-day Indian regions of Rajshahi and Dinajpur are reliable. Therefore, it is believed that political motivations played a role in the Santals people's migration to this nation-state. As such, they were compelled to reside close to woodlands or forest regions. The forest or the region around it still serves as the Santals community's place of habitation. With this Forest, the vita-soil relationship of their ancestors, gods and goddesses, and devotion rituals. They consider their right of residency and forest clearance to be proof of ownership.
Nevertheless, why does the contemporary state accept it? The state is modern, but they got there slowly. As a result, the state and the Santal community are at odds over ownership concerns because they believe they are customary landowners, known as Adivasi.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Santals: The Santal is one of the officially declared 50 ethnic groups in Bangladesh. They live mainly northern part of Bangladesh—either greater Rajshahi or Dinajpur.
ILO 169: Convention 169 recognizes Indigenous peoples' right to self-determination within a nation-state while setting standards for national governments regarding Indigenous peoples' economic, socio-cultural and political rights, including the right to a land base. It is based on recognising indigenous and tribal peoples' aspirations to exercise control over their own institutions, ways of life and economic development and to maintain and develop their identities, languages and religions within the framework of the States in which they live.
Adivasi: A popular discursive that out-of-mainstream people think of themselves as the person of Adivasi, i.e. indicating it means they are inhabitants from the beginning of the earth. In this term, all fifty ethnic groups are Adivasi, but the government of Bangladesh denied this term. Adivasi is similar to Indigenous, Primitive or Tribal, but GoB formulated a Policy as “Small Ethnic Groups Cultural Institute Acts 2010.” So, they are a small ethnic group according to law and policy.
UNDRIP: The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) was adopted by the General Assembly on Thursday, 13 September 2007. The Declaration is the most comprehensive international instrument on the rights of Indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples have the collective right to live in freedom, peace and security as distinct peoples and shall not be subjected to any act of genocide or any other act of violence, including forcibly removing children of the group from another group.