“I ain’t indigenous” – reflection of a Bengali

July 28, 2011

Once upon a time, the British called us ‘blacks’, and then later the Pakistani Army called us ‘inferior race.’ Time passes, it is 2011. As International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples approaches again this year, Bangladesh is stuck in a quicksand ditch trying to figure out ‘who’ the Adibashis or indigenous of our land really are in the first place! This goes back to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party era, when ministers were first heard saying “Bangladesh has no indigenous people”, but somehow that ideology has leaked into a few heads in the Awami League as well (we hope they are the minority within the party).

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