Chakma

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A Chakma woman

The Chakma ( Bengali : চাকমা , cākmā ) are a 700,000 people who live in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh and India .

history

The Chakma settled the Chittagong Mountains centuries ago. In the 13th century Buddhism came into the settlement area of ​​the Chakma.

In addition to these religious tensions between the Chakma and the majority Muslim population of Bangladesh, serious conflicts arose between the state of Bangladesh and the Chakma from the 1960s onwards, because 18,000 Chakma had to be relocated in the course of the construction work on the Karnaphuli reservoir . In addition, large parts of the Chakma land have been occupied by illegal settlers. To the anger of the Chakma, the government of Bangladesh did nothing to enforce the law. As a result, there was guerrilla fighting between Chakma and Bangladeshi soldiers. Amnesty International reported torture and lawless killing of tribal members. Thousands of Chakma died and more fled across the border into India.

religion

Over 90% of the chakma are of Buddhist belief. There are also Hindu, Islamic and Christian minorities in the tribal population.

language

The Chakma originally spoke a Tibeto-Burmese language , but due to the influence of the surrounding Indo-Aryan languages ​​they themselves changed to an Indo-Aryan language, the Chakma . The language also has its own script, the Chakma script .

literature

  • Lorenz G. Löffler: Chakma and Sak . In: Wiener Völkerkundliche Mitteilungen , Vol. 11 (1963), pp. 37-63, ISSN  0084-0068 .
  • Deepak K. Singh: Stateless in South Asia. The Chakmas between Bangladesh and India . Sage Publ, Los Angeles 2010, ISBN 81-3210-236-3 .
  • Sakya P. Talukdar: The Chakmas. Life and struggle . Gian Publ., Delhi 1988, ISBN 81-2120-212-4 .
  • Sakya P. Talukdar: Genesis if indigenous Chakma Buddhists and their pulverization worldwide . Kalpaz Publ., Delhi 2010, ISBN 978-81-7835758-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Super User: Kaptai Dam. Retrieved May 9, 2017 (UK English).
  2. ↑ Stateless people: Chakmas of Arunachal Pradesh . In: RNW Media . ( rnw.org [accessed May 9, 2017]).