Kalpana Chakma's Warriors

"The eye should learn to listen before it looks." 

(Robert Frank) 

In memory of Kalpana Chakma.Disappeared on 12 June 1996. Bangladesh 

On July 1961 Amnesty International was founded in UK. As the human rights organization celebrate its 59th anniversary this month, let us remember one of the case they fight for in Bangladesh. 

The battle for human rights is one of the most important in the world, and every country has its own struggle. 

Shahidul Alam, one of my favorite photographers, has always been committed to civil rights in his country and to Bangladeshi as migrant workers, as shown in his beautiful book "My Journey as a Witness". 

During my visit in Dhaka, in February, I had two opportunities, which then crossed paths: First, meeting with Shahidul Alam in his Pathshala School of Photography and having his latest photographic book, "The Tide will Turn". And, second, meeting some girls of the Marma and Chakma ethnic group, listening to their stories. 

Back in Italy, I read his book and discovered the sad story of Kalpana Chakma. It is not the first nor the last political activist to disappear, neither the only tribal populations suffer from ethnic and religious persecutions; the Lumads in the Philippines come up to my mind as an example. 

Indeed, it was quite disturbing for me to move within a few days, in Bangladesh, from the Rohingya refugee camp, persecuted by Burmese Buddhists in their land, to the Burmese descendants of Marma and Chakma, persecuted also for their religion and as a minority. Like in a dark mirror. 

The fact is that I read about young Kalpana Chakma, and how – after so many years – no one has ever known what happened to her. 

After 24 years Kalpana Chakma not yet rescued. Photo (c)Daily Sun

Shahidul has reconstructed her life, her last days, and the collected evidence of her disappearance in the work and photographic exhibition "Searching for Kalpana Chakma. A Photo-Forensic Study". 

It hurts to see her shoe, only one. 

Too much time has passed, but it's a matter of knowing the truth. That's why all Kalpana's Warriors fight, waiting for her to return. 

Photography is a way not to forget, and not to make others forget. 

From the works of Shahidul Alam: 

Shahidul Alam. "Newspaper clipping from 1996 of a report on Kalpana's disappearance. June 2013" 

Shahidul Alam. "Kalpana's mud-caked shoe found close to where she was last seen. 2014" 

"Hope is a childish emotion that drives adults to believe that this ugly world can be transformed. In Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts, communities long disparaged in the country fight to retain hope that their world can be a batter place. The name Kalpana shines amongst them. Kalpana Chakma was a leader of the Hill Women's Federation. She disappeared at the hands of the state in 1996. She has never been seen since. 

Kalpana – which means 'imagination' – is a synonym for hope." 

From "The Tide Will Turn", Shahidul Alam, (Steidl, 2019).

In Memory of Kalpana Chakma... 

The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), an area of 5,093 mi², is an official administrative district in Bangladesh, bordering Burma and northeastern India. It is inhabited by several indigenous groups such as the Marma, Baums and Chakmas, numbering approximately 600,000. They are culturally, racially, ethnically and linguistically distinct from the majority Bengali population of Bangladesh. They form 0.7 percent of the total population of the country. 

The CHT were independent before the British annexed them to form the British-Indian Dominion in 1860. Even under the British they were granted special status as "tribal areas". In 1900 they were permitted limited self-government and non-indigenous people were prohibited from buying, owning or residing on land within the CHT without permission from the Deputy Commissioner of the CHT. 

With the creation of the two states of India and Pakistan in 1947, the CHT became part of East Pakistan, against the will of its indigenous people. Partition had been based on religious lines, but the indigenous people of the CHT were primarily Buddhist. 

Since 1976, successive Bangladesh governments have practiced genocide and ethnocide in order to change the demographic character of the district; they have relocated the Muslim Bengali population from other parts of Bangladesh and evicted the indigenous people from their traditional lands. The objective of the relocation policy is blatantly described by a military officer who said, "We want the land, not the people." 

From: "Cultural Survival Quarterly Magazine" (1987) 

The Chakma people, are a native group from the eastern-most regions of the Indian subcontinent, they are the largest ethnic group in the Chittagong Hill Tracts region in southeastern Bangladesh, and in Mizoram, India (Chakma Autonomous District Council), they are the second largest ethnic group, and in Tripura, India, they are the fourth largest ethnic group, and having sizable population in other parts of Northeast India, such as, 40-50 thousand Chakmas in Arunachal Pradesh, India, who migrated there in 1964 after the Kaptai dam tragedy, and 20-30 thousand Chakmas are in Assam, India. Their ethnicity is closely linked with the peoples of East Asia. However, the Chakma language (written in the Chakma script) is part of the Indo-Aryan language family of the Indian subcontinent. Most Chakma people are adherents of Therevada Buddhism. The Chakmas are divided into 46 clans or Gozas. The community is headed by the Chakma Raja, whose status as a tribal head has been historically recognized by the Government of British India and the Government of Bangladesh. 

The name Chakma derives from the Sanskrit word Sakthimaha, which means powerful and great. This name was given to Chakmas by one of the Burmese kings during the Bagan era. Burmese kings hired Chakmas as ministers, advisers, and translators of Buddhist Pali texts. As employees of the king, the Chakmas wielded power in the Burmese court disproportionate to their number. The Burmese people still refer to Chakmas as Sak or Thit, which are shortened and corrupted forms of Sakthimaha. At one stage, the commonly accepted name of the tribe was Sakma. Later, when they came into contact with outsiders it was further corrupted to Chakma. 

Chakma young students 

Chakma and Marma young students. DHAKA – February 2020 

"Photographers are storytellers. We are witnesses of our time, pallbearers of history. I am touched by many lives, hoping to touch the lives of others and make a difference. We stumble from one disaster to another, from one story to another. But some stories grip us. I am gripped by Kalpana. She gives me bearing, makes me bend away from the addiction of the next best story, the next disaster. 

I return to her, and to other stories that never seem to end." 

(Shahidul Alam) 

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Attacks Continue on Indigenous Pople in the Chittagong Hill Tracts

Shahidul Alam: "My journey as a witness" (SKIRA Photography, 2011) 

Shahidul Alam: "The Tide Will Turn" (Steidl, 2019)