Nabila Tabassum Chowdhury > Recent Status Updates

"Kaptai Hydroelectric Project" was to produce the badly needed energy for the electrification of Ctg.Of the some 85,000 people whose land disappeared in I960 (...) among them approximately 70000 Chakma- 46,000 lived primarily from plow cultivation. To replace the lost 585km2,the govt allowed 40km2 of forest-reserve land to be taken over by farmers and turned into plow fields & relocated Bangalis received preference.

The Bangali government completely eliminated the discrimination against its own people, abrogated in I981 all special privileges of the Chiefs, andin I989 finally abolished the Regulations of 1900 altogether.

in I92I the Hill Tracts were declared a "backward
tract" & in I935, by receiving the status of a"totally excluded area", they were withdrawn from the central and provincial legislature. Besides laying down special functions for the Chiefs and headmen, these regulations, by means of special rules regarding land acquisition and residence rights, provided for an effective check on a further influx of Bangalis.

When a few Bangali policemen were finally disciplined for blackmail&rape,the inhabitants of Hill Tracts recognized Pakistani govt as their new friend;it is no wonder that Bangali endeavors to attain independence elicited Iittle positive response from them.The simple hill dwellers would have much preferred to have again been placed under the protection of the British,even if the British had demanded multiple taxes.

The British pursued completely different goals. When they began from 1789 onward to require the representatives of the Hill Tracts to pay their tribute in money rather than in cotton(...)displaced the harter economy.The forced use of money, however, resulted immediately in an increasing indebtedness to Bangali moneylenders, since money was obtainable only through trade with the plains dwellers.

If the Bangalis today want to force these ethnic groups back into their areas of origin, then it should be pointed out that when the Chittagong Hill Tracts were first consolidated as a political territory by the British, the one and only people who were positively not yet settled in the Tracts were the Bangalis themselves.

If there is anywhere on earth where one can find within an area of a few square miles several different ethnic groups exhibiting distinctly different cultures,then it is in certain regions of the southern Chittagong Hill Tracts.Here,within one&the same mouza,one may find four groups speaking completely different languages,building different types of houses,wearing different clothing, and following different religion.

1)the Chakma&2)the Tongcengya/Dengnak,both of whom speak a dialect of Bangla; 3) the Tippera&4)the Riang/Mrung,both speaking a Bodo language; 5)the Marma, who speak a Burmese dialect; 6) the Bawm,7)the Pangkhua &8)the Lushai,whose languages are classed as Central Chin;9) the Khumi&10) the Khyang,whose languages are classed with the Southern Chin;finally,11)the Mru &12) the Sak,with comparatively isolated languages...

After fifty years of what were partially painful experiences in guerrilla warfare, the British eventually dispatched large units of troops from the west, north, and east and burned down every village whose chief they considered untrustworthy.

This book offers a glimpse into the world of the Mru–a world which is unknown&inaccessible to us.It shows pictures which can be seen nowhere else&describe culture which has been described nowhere else..this book will be fr many years,if not forever,the only document of its kind about the Mru,since the culture of Mru documented here-a people residing in the southeast corner of Bangladesh-is threatened with extinction.

"I often think of those lines of old Goethe,—
Schade dass die Natur nur EINEN Mensch aus Dir schuf,
Denn zum wuerdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff."

[nature, alas, made only one being out of you although there was material for a good man & a rogue.]

'From every point on the compass there was nothing but torture and murder and outrage.'

A chapter full of imperialistic narrative! Hard to digest as an south asian reader. -_-

"Suddenly, without a note of warning, the great mutiny broke upon us. One month India lay as still and peaceful, to all appearance, as Surrey or Kent; the next there were two hundred thousand black devils let loose, and the country was a perfect hell."

Athelney Jones, the villain is an imperialist and racist. Hahaha...worse is, it didn't seem that the writer disown these imperialistic views at all.

'...a little black man—the smallest I have ever seen—with a great, misshapen head and a shock of tangled, dishevelled hair. Holmes had already drawn his revolver, and I whipped out mine at the sight of this savage, distorted creature. He was wrapped in some sort of dark ulster or blanket, which left only his face exposed; but that face was enough to give a man a sleepless night.'

WATSON (& the writer) IS RACIST!

"I would not tell them too much," said Holmes. "Women are never to be entirely trusted,—not the best of them."

Sorry to say but you are sexist, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.
You are sexist too, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

He makes one curious but profound remark. It is that the chief proof of man's real greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness. It argues, you see, a power of comparison and of appreciation which is in itself a proof of nobility. There is much food for thought in Richter.

“Wir sind gewohnt das die Menschen verhoehnen was sie nicht verstehen.”

[We are used to see that Man despises what he never comprehends.]

"Il n'y a pas des sots si incommodes que ceux qui ont de l'esprit!"

[There are no fools so troublesome as those that have some wit.]

"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"

A pair of scratchless glasses significantly increase concentration level, even if those are not for reading. B-)

"Le mauvais goût mène au crime."
[Bad taste leads to crime.]

'মাঠ চলে গেল বলের বাইরে' খ্যাত চৌধুরী জাফরুল্লাহ শরাফত এর মেলায় হারিয়ে যাওয়া ভাইকে খুঁজে পেয়েছি :D -

"To this day she declares that I told her one moving anecdote as to how a musket looked into my tent at the dead of night, and how I fired a double barrelled tiger cub at it."
- Dr. John Watson

Crime is commonplace, existence is commonplace, and no qualities save those which are commonplace have any function upon earth.

'What is the use of having powers, doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them ?'

'No, no : I never guess. It is a shocking habit —destructive to the logical faculty.'

Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.

' "Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo
Ipse domi simul ac nummos contemplar in arca." '

what is out of the common is usually a guide rather than a hindrance.

'What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence,' returned my companion, bitterly. 'The question is, what can you make people believe that you have done. Never mind,'

"The victims of persecution had now turned persecutors on their own account and persecutors of the most terrible description."