Daughters of the Hills
Legacies of colonialism, nationalism and religious communalism in the Chakma Raj family, Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bengal c. 1900–1972
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12985568 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Angma Dey Jhala (0000-0002-1662-1691, Bentley University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 107-125 |
| Publication date | 2012-12-21 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | South Asian History and Culture (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1947-2498 • E-ISSN: 1947-2501 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/19472498.2012.750460 |
| OpenAlex | W2090318343 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 8 |
This article examines the turbulent twentieth-century history of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of East Bengal through the cosmopolitan life stories of Rani Benita Roy of the Buddhist Chakma Raj and her daughters, c. 1900–1972. These accounts address questions of women's education, religious conversion, marriage, migration and subsequent immigration against the broader canvas of colonialism, post-colonial nation-state building and tribal identity in South Asia. Originally, a remote hinterland of the colonial province of Bengal inhabited by 13 indigenous tribal communities (Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and animist); the CHT shares a geographic border with contemporary Myanmar (earlier Burma) and eastern India as well as linguistic, racial and ethnic ties with Southeast Asia. The peoples of the region have historically lived a relatively semi-autonomous existence under first Mughal and then later British imperialism. After India's Independence from Great Britain in 1947 and subsequent Partition on religious lines, the CHT became part of Muslim-majority East Pakistan and in 1971 fell into the new state of Bangladesh. In the aftermath, the peoples of the CHT suffered escalating violence and human rights violations, including forced conversion to Islam, destruction of Buddhist and Hindu temples, inundation of arable land with the building of dams, rape and massacre. This is an account of a political family caught between national borders, religious identities and imperial subjectivities in a post-colonial world of constantly shifting national borders. Through personal narratives, it reveals a history of interreligious, transregional and transnational exchange in contrast to the narrow and often divisive language of nationalism and nation-state building
Ancient history · Archaeology · BENGAL · Buddhism · Colonialism · Communalism · Ethnology · Geography · Hinduism · Independence (probability theory · Indigenous · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Gender Studies · History · Law · Religious studies · South Asian Studies and Conflicts · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.3 |
| Citation span | 2016 - 2020 (5) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |