Most people who come to visit the Asian University for Women (AUW) may not venture beyond the confines of the city of Chittagong. The incessant traffic seemingly saps up all the energy to consider adventures beyond. But, if one were to go southeastward, it would be as if another country rises phoenix-like. The low-lying plains of Bangladesh give rise to hills and mountains and valleys that at times rise to over 900 meters. Within these valleys and hill-tops are the homes of a majority of the “indigenous” people of Bangladesh. There is a plethora of distinct ethnic groups among the people who inhabit this region, they speak their own distinct languages (and not dialects) and practice their own cultures and religions. The Chakmas are mostly Budhists as are Taungchengya and the Marmas while Bawm, Pangkhua and Lushai are largely Christians; the Mro and Khumi follow their own “community religion”. Hinduism is practiced by some of the others. The land is lush and agriculture through “slash and burn” has been the age-old practice. As in many indigenous communities, these people and their culture and ways of life have been a feast to roving anthropologists and photographers over generations. They have been gazed at incessantly.
The indigenous people have been subjected to the whims and ambitions and images of those who have wielded power over them. Starting in 1957, funded by the US Government, a hydroelectric dam was constructed that captured the water of the Karnaphuli river. The resulting Kaptai Dam led to the creation of a massive reservoir whose serene beauty does not take away from the fact that 650 square kilometers of the valley land, representing 40 percent of the arable land in the area, was submerged. It is estimated that one hundred thousand people were displaced in the process, including, I believe, the family of AUW’s former Board Chair Amit Chakma (who is now the President of the University of Western Australia). Albert Hirshman in his Development Projects Observed explored the creative powers that were unleashed in overcoming an entirely unanticipated challenge in running the nearby Karnaphuli Paper Mill but was largely silent on what the demands of modernity extracted from the hapless people of the region. Like Gatsby’s green light..,”the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms farther…And then one fine morning…”
The “fine morning” never came to the indigenous people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Like the great Budha image in the main temple in Rangamati at the heart of Chittagong Hill Tracts, it was submerged in the Kaptai waters, only occasionally to bop up until it crumbled and, then, disappeared forever. The region remains heavily militarized; violence against the indigenous women is often the first point of attack while the indigenous hold of the land that has sustained them over generations is increasingly atrophied by the capture of their land by others; their already fragile livelihood further eroded.
It is in this context that we have decided to dedicate AUW to helping overcome the challenges being faced by people in our own backyard in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Led by Rani Ukhengching Marma of Khagrachhari Hill District, who graduated from AUW and then went on to earn a graduate degree at MIT and supported by 50+ indigenous students at AUW, we have embarked on our own resistance to the onslaught on the people of the Hill Tracts.
Accompanied by our students, I recently had the privilege of traveling through the region and hosted by the “rajas” of the different Circles that represent communities there. But, most significantly, we were able to visit the family of the late Kalpana Chakma. There it was in a simple thatched hut on the shore of the Kaptai waters that her brother described how on June 12, 1996, past midnight, a Bangladesh Army Lieutenant accompanied by two members of the Village Defense Party woke up Kalpana and her family. As Kalpana’s mother narrated elsewhere: “We were asleep when someone called from outside and wanted to know who was inside the house. Then they pulled the latch of the door from outside and entered the house. They kept a powerful torchlight on our face and took away my younger son Khudiram…A few minutes later they took away my elder son Kalicharan and my daughter Kalpana, leaving behind myself and Kalicharan’s wife.” The two brothers and Kalpana were lined up by the paddy field where the reservoir water was even more elevated by the monsoon rains. The brothers instinctively jumped into the paddy fields in the dark of the night and somehow managed to flee. But Kalpana…she was never seen again. In the decades since her disappearance, no investigation report that provided any conclusory evidence has been produced.
Kalpana who was barely the same age as some of our students at the time of her abduction was a human rights activist. Her criticism of the repressions against the indigenous women and men became too loud for the powers that be to tolerate her any further. She “disappeared”. Today AUW commits to strive to not allow her to be either forgotten or silenced. In our halls and in the voices of our students and graduates, her struggles will continue. The conscience of the indigenous people will fuel our moral courage. In consultation with our indigenous students and alumnae, we have decided to name the main undergraduate dorm at AUW Kalpana Chakma House; a portrait of hers has been commissioned; a special section of the library will be devoted to gather important documents and books about the indigenous people; the indigenous students have already organized an Association of Indigenous Students under the able leadership of our students Progga Shila Chakma and Mahlaching Marma. We are embarking on a history project where under the guidance of two of the most esteemed historians of the area, our students will attempt to write their collective history. No more shall others speak for them; they will write their own story in their own voice. We have committed, subject to funds being available, adding at least fifty more scholarships for indigeneous women to enter AUW each year.
Recently while in Hong Kong, I was talking with a longstanding and generous supporter about our work with the Afghans, Rohingyas, industrial workers, Dalits and so on. I told her that with 500 Afghan female students and over 300 Rohingya students, AUW is by far the largest host of students of such backgrounds anywhere. We ushered the pathway for industrial workers to earn a university education. The powerless Dalits have been welcomed at AUW from all over the Subcontinent. Reminiscent of James Agee’s sharecroppers in Alabama, AUW has searched and recruited the daughters of tea-leaf pickers from the hills of Assam in India as well as other “estates” in Bangladesh. This dear friend who has supported AUW’s work for years turned to me and replied: “AUW has become humanitarian”. If “humanitarian” means as the dictionary says “concerned with or seeking to protect human welfare,” yes, AUW is indeed humanitarian. It was prescribed to be so in our Charter as adopted by the Parliament of Bangladesh. If education is arrested from being concerned with or stops protecting human welfare, what would be its purpose?
So, I invite you to join us this season in celebrating the work of this unusual university where the weakest amongst us are most cherished and knowledge is marshalled to drive courage and leadership for creating a better world. With more graduates at Oxford and other luminary instititions around the world, the AUW ethos is already traveling far and wide. Let humanity thrive! Let education become even more humanitarian.