For generations, this land at Rajshahi's Chatrapukur village has been a graveyard for indigenous people. But not anymore. Some local Muslims have set their eyes on it, erecting makeshift toilets and cow barns on it. They even kept haystacks right on two graves. Photo: Anwar Ali Over 150 indigenous families in different villages of the district's Godagari upazila have migrated to India following pe
rsecution by Bangalee settlers and communal attacks during political turmoil in the last two years. Many more are prepared to go amid the ongoing flare-up of violence. Indigenous people had been the majority in at least a dozen villages since the British era. But things changed as hundreds of shoal (char) people, mostly victims of river erosion in Chapainawabganj, started settling in the villages a few years back. Threats from these settlers made the already-vulnerable Adivasi communities feel more insecure. Then there were BNP-Jamaat-led attacks on minorities in 2013 and early last year, especially after the war crimes verdict against Delawar Hossain Sayedee and the January 5 polls. Selling out land and properties, the indigenous families in the Godagari villages have left ancestral homes secretly at night for different places in India, particularly Murshidabad, Burdwan and Malda by crossing the border via brokers. “This is not a country for us to live in,” said a frustrated Proshanto Murari of Shialipara village. His father Anonto Murari already went to India seven months ago and he is likely to leave anytime along with his brother and two sisters. Fourteen Munda families out of 22 in Shialipara village, six out of eight in Notun Shialipara village and nine out of 32 in Bottoli have left while the rest are bidding for their time. Talking to this correspondent on Saturday, some Adivasi people of Bottoli and Shialipara said the Bangalee settlers do not allow them to play drums, intimidate them during their rituals and often threaten to grab their land. Advertisement Sudeb Shaw of Bottoli village took this correspondent to nearby Chhatrapukur where the Munda families have long been using a roadside abandoned land to burry their dead. The settlers recently set up a makeshift toilet on the graveyard and are using the land as a temporary cow barn, Sudeb said, adding they even kept haystacks right on the graves of his parents. Narayan Murari, a freedom fighter, said there are graves of three indigenous war heroes at the site. Anisur Rahman, a new settler, admitted that “it was wrong to set up the toilet” and said they would remove it soon. He claimed the land belonged to him and indigenous people were using it without his knowledge. The number of indigenous students in local schools has also drastically decreased as their families are sending the children first. Saidur Rahman, headmaster of Bottoli Adivasi Government Primary School, said about 75 percent of his students were from indigenous families in 2009. Last year, the number came down to only 41 out of 412 students. It is likely to decline further this year. A rough study shows around 250 Munda, Santal and Urao families from Birganj, Sadar and Ghoraghat upazilas of Dinajpur, Panchbibi of Joypurhat, Dhamurhat and Potnitola of Naogaon and Godagari of Rajshahi migrated to India in the last two years. Of them, over 150 are from villages of Godagari said Rabindranath Soren, president of Jatiya Adivasi Parishad. The villages are Bottoli, Shialipara, Notun Shialipara, Gopalpur, Kurbaria, Gogram, Adarpara, Chouduar, Basantopur, Gunigram, Agolpur, Sahanapara and Dighipara. “Adivasis are living in constant fear amid the ongoing political violence across the country. They feel insecure also for not getting justice following incidents of murder, rape and land grab. So they choose to leave the country,” he said. Chitto Ranjan Sardar, convener of Barind Human Rights Defenders Foundation, said the ethnic displacement began in the '80s. After a decade's interval, it started again in 2001 and rose after the political unrest intensified in 2013. The authorities, however, trash reports of Adivasi displacement from Godagari. Acting UNO of Godagari Alamgir Kabir said, “We have no reports of indigenous migration to India. Some of them might have left due personal reasons. No such situation has arisen in the country that indigenous people have to leave.” Echoing his view, SM Abu Forhad, officer-in-charge of Godagari Police Station, said, “We are highly sensitive to the rights of indigenous people. There is no threat to them, why would they leave country?”
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