Too Little, Too Limited, Too Late

One cannot really be sure as to what would have happened if the demand for political autonomy in Bangladesh´s Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) had been taken up in the 1960s, at the time of the Bengalis´ struggle for "autonomy" within the state of Pakistan. What is certain, however, is that the construction of independent Bangladesh saw the almost simultaneous birth of the Hill people´s "nationalist aspirations" in the state of Bangladesh. Therein lies the paradox. But that was in the past. The demand for "political autonomy" in the CHT is now too little, too limited, too late. This is said neither to win the heart of a chauvinistic member of the so-called "sub-national" minority community, nor (as the case may be) to evoke the wrath of an equally chauvinistic representatives of the majority community. Rather, it springs from a conviction that the time has come to bury old struggles and begin new ones, rethought and reorganised to face the challenges posed by our ever-changing times.

Too Little
The demand for political autonomy is inadequate as it cultivates a demand that is primarily "political" in the narrowest sense of the term. A close reading of the Five-Point Demand of the PCJSS (Parbatya Chattogram Jono Sanghati Samity, the main political party of the Hill people) will show that the demand for political autonomy in the CHT is not only territorial in nature but is also informed by a precise governmentality.