1 Sarajjoti Chakma, interview, 9 Aug. 2015, Chittagong.

2 Ghosh, Kaushik, ‘Between global flows and local dams: Indigenousness, locality and the transnational sphere in Jharkhand, India’, Cultural Anthropology 21, 4 (2006): 501–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Merlan, Francesca, ‘Indigeneity: Global and local’, Current Anthropology 50, 3 (2009): 303–33CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

4 Fox, Karen, ‘Globalising indigeneity: Writing Indigenous histories in a transnational world’, History Compass 10, 6 (2012): 423–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Ghosh, ‘Between global flows and local dams’.

6 Scott, James C., The art of not being governed: An anarchist history of upland Southeast Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009)Google ScholarPubMed. See also Micah F. Morton and Ian Baird, ‘From Hill tribes to Indigenous Peoples: The localisation of a global movement in Thailand’, this vol.

7 Multi-sited ethnography follows a topic or social problem through different field sites geographically and/or socially; see Falzon, Mark-Anthony, ed., Multi-sited ethnography: Theory, praxis and locality in contemporary research (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009)Google Scholar. Fieldwork in CHT was conducted between 2005 and 2007; followed by 15 months of fieldwork between 2008 and 2015. Apart from intensive fieldwork in a Khumi village, I have visited many Kheyang, Lushai, Pankhua, Mru and Chak villages and talked to many Indigenous activists in the CHT. I have researched CHT issues since 1997; this includes archival research in the United Kingdom and India. I was born in Cox's Bazar, a neighbouring district of the CHT and hence have been closely attached to the evolving history of the relations between CHT and the state.

8 See http://www.ilo.org/indigenous/Activitiesbyregion/Asia/SouthAsia/Bangladesh/lang--en/index.htm (accessed 13 Dec. 2015), although the figures are debatable. Some scholars and activists claim that there are 48 groups. See Kamal, Mizbah, ‘Introduction’, in Indigenous Peoples in Bangladesh, ed. Kamal, Mizbah et al. (Dhaka: Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 2007): xiii–xlviiGoogle Scholar.

9 Academics use the 1992 statistics because there are no official statistics on the CHT in the Bangladesh census. Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), Statistical pocket book of Bangladesh (Dhaka: BBS, 1992)Google Scholar.

10 See van Schendel, Willem, ed., Francis Buchanan in southeast Bengal (1798): His journey to Chittagong, the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Noakhali and Comilla (Dhaka: University Press, 1992)Google Scholar; Bessaignet, Pierre, Tribesmen of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (Dacca: Asiatic Society of Pakistan, 1958)Google Scholar; Brauns, Claus-Dieter and Löffler, Lorenz, The Mru: Hill people on the border of Bangladesh (Berlin: Birkhäuser, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Serajuddin, Alamgir M., ‘The Chakma tribes of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in the eighteenth century’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1 (1984): 90–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ahsan, Selina, The Marmas of Bangladesh (Dhaka: Ahsan, 1995)Google Scholar; Mohsin, Amena, The politics of nationalism: A case of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (Dhaka: University Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Nasir Uddin, ‘Homeless at home: An ethnographic study on marginality and leadership among the Khumi in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh’ (PhD diss., Kyoto University, 2008).

11 Grierson, George Abraham, Linguistic survey of India, vols. 1–6 (Calcutta: Bengal Government Press, 1927)Google Scholar; Hutchinson, Robert Henry Sneyd, An account of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Book Depot, 1906)Google Scholar; Lewin, Thomas Herbert, The Chittagong Hill Tracts and the people dwelling therein (Calcutta: Bengal Printing Co., 1869)Google Scholar; Lewin, T.H., Wild races of the eastern frontier of India (London: Allen, 2004[1870])Google Scholar; van Schendel, Francis Buchanan; Mackenzie, Alexander, History of the relations of the government with the Hill Tribes of the north-east frontier of Bengal (Calcutta: Home Department Press, 1884)Google Scholar; Hunter, William Wilson, A statistical account of Bengal, vol. 6: Chittagong Hill Tracts, Chittagong, Noákhálí, Tipperah, Hill Tipperah (London: Trubner, 1876)Google Scholar; Riebeck, Emil, Keane, A.H., Grünwedel, Albert, Kühn, Julius and Virchow, Rudolf, The Chittagong Hill Tracts: Results of a journey made in the year 1882 (London: Asher, 1885)Google Scholar; Risely, Herbert H., The tribes and castes of Bengal: Ethnographic glossary (Calcutta: Firma Mukhopadhyay, 1891)Google Scholar.

12 Uddin, Nasir, ‘Politics of cultural difference: Identity and marginality in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh’, South Asian Survey 17, 2 (2010): 283–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Uddin, Nasir, ‘History is the story for existence: A case study of the Chittagong Hill Tracts’, Asian Profile 33, 4 (2005): 391–412Google Scholar; Uddin, ‘Politics of cultural difference’.

14 See Verma, Anand K., Reassessing Pakistan: Role of two-nation theory (New Delhi: Lancer, 2001)Google Scholar.

15 Ali, S. Mahmud, The fearful state: Power, people and internal war in South Asia (London: Zed, 1993)Google Scholar; Adnan, Shapan, Migration, land alienation and ethnic conflict: Causes of poverty in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh (Dhaka: Research and Advisory Services, 2004)Google Scholar; Barua, Benu Prasad, Ethnicity and national integration in Bangladesh: A study of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (New Delhi: Har-Anand, 2001)Google Scholar; Aditya Kumer Dewan, ‘Class and ethnicity in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh’ (PhD diss., McGill University, 1990); Mohsin, The politics of nationalism; Roy, Raja Devasish, ‘The discordant accord: Challenges towards the implementation of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord of 1997’, Journal of Social Studies 100 (2003): 4–57Google Scholar; Uddin, ‘History is the story for existence’.

16 The Chittagong Hill Tracts Regulation, 1900 (Act 1 of 1900), popularly known as ‘the CHT Manual 1900’, was a administrative manual for the CHT enacted by the British colonial government; http://mochta.portal.gov.bd/sites/default/files/files/mochta.portal.gov.bd/page/c5700903_fd1e_4de2_985e_065ba9e2971c/CHT_Regulation_1900-Eng.pdf (accessed 25 July 2017).

17 The dam was built over the Karnaphuli River at Kaptai in 1962. The dam drastically changed the CHT's topography, ecology and demography, causing extensive damage to Indigenous livelihoods in the area. The Kaptai Hydroelectric Dam is often regarded as the CHT's ‘death hole’.

18 Uddin, ‘Politics of cultural difference’.

19 Ibid.

20 Amnesty International, Kapeeng Foundation, the Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission, and others have documented and published many reports of the violence against the adivasi.

21 Uddin, Nasir, ‘Between people and paper: Understand peace and conflict in the Chittagong Hill Tracts’, Asian Profile 41, 6 (2013): 391–412Google Scholar.

22 For example, Mohsin, Amena, The Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh: On the difficult road to peace (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003)Google Scholar; Chakma, Bhumitra, ‘Assessing the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord’, Asian Profile 36, 1 (2008): 93–106Google Scholar; Chowdhury, Bushra Hasina, Building lasting peace: Issues of the implementation of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord (Urbana: ACDIS, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2002)Google Scholar; Meghna Guhothakurta, ‘Ethnic conflict in a post-accord situation: The case of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh’, paper presented at the University of Mumbai, 2004.

23 Brubaker, Rogers, ‘Ethnicity without groups’, in Ethnicity, nationalism and minority rights, ed. May, Stephen, Modood, Tariq and Squires, Judith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 50–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 In Bangladesh, indigenous people are still popularly sketched with savage notions. Academics have also contributed to this image. See, for example, Sattar, Abdus, In the sylvan shadows (Dhaka: Bangla Academy, 1983)Google Scholar; Brauns and Loffler, The Mru; Ahsan, The Marmas of Bangladesh; Ali, Ahsan, Santals of Bangladesh (Mindnapore: Institute of Social Research and Applied Anthropology [ISRAA], 1998)Google Scholar; Sattar, Abdus, Research on tribal people in Bangladesh [in Bengali] (Dhaka: Nasas, 2000)Google Scholar; Mohsin, The politics of nationalism; Biswas, Abdul Awwal, Rakkhains of Bangladesh: An ethnographic study (Mindnapore: ISRAA, BIDISA, 2010)Google Scholar.

25 See, Gerharz, Eva, ‘Indigenous activism in Bangladesh: Translocal spaces and shifting constellations of belonging’, Asian Ethnicity 15, 4 (2014): 552–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 So, in Bangladesh, Bengalis are believed to be jatee and all other people upajatee. See Uddin, ‘Politics of cultural difference’.

27 See Morton and Baird, ‘From Hill tribes to Indigenous Peoples’, this vol.

28 Uddin, Nasir, Gerharz, Eva and Chakkarath, Pradeep, ‘Exploring Indigeneity: Introductory remarks on a transnational discourse’, in Indigeneity on the move: Varying manifestations of a contested concept, ed. Gerharz, E., Uddin, N. and Chakkarath, P. (Oxford: Berghahn, 2017), p. 1Google Scholar.

29 Merlan, ‘Indigeneity’, p. 303.

30 Ghosh, ‘Between global flows and local dams’, p. 504.

31 Karlsson, Bengt G., ‘Anthropology and the “indigenous slot”: Claims to and debates about Indigenous Peoples’ status in India’, Critique of Anthropology 23, 4 (2003): 406CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 See United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, ‘Indigenous Peoples at the UN’, https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/about-us.html (accessed 27 Sept. 2017).

33 Uddin, ‘Politics of cultural difference’.

34 See Burnham, Philip, The politics of cultural difference in northern Cameroon (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

35 See also Morton and Baird, ‘From Hill tribes to Indigenous Peoples’, this vol.

36 The countries that abstained were Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burundi, Colombia, Georgia, Kenya, Nigeria, Russian Federation, Samoa, and Ukraine.

37 See United Nations, ‘General Assembly adopts Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: “Major step forward” towards human rights for all says President’, http://www.un.org/press/en/2007/ga10612.doc.htm (accessed 28 Dec. 2015).

38 Caretaker governments were instituted in Bangladesh with the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in 1996 and are transitional governments intended to smoothen the transition of power from one elected government to another.

39 Shaktipada Tripura, interview, Aug. 2014, Rangamati.

40 Historically, the CHT was administered by a system of kingship which was officially recognised by the CHT Manual of 1900, under which CHT was divided into three circles, each headed by a ruler who was responsible for administrative, judicial and other functions.

41 The first adivasi political organisation, Jatio Adivasi Parisad (National Indigenous Council), was formed in 1993 to represent the Indigenous People of northern Bangladesh.

42 ‘Adivasi’ is also used in India, but with different connotations. See Béteille, André, ‘The idea of Indigenous People’, Current Anthropology 39, 2 (1998): 187–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 Gupta, Akhil, ‘Blurred boundaries: The discourse of corruption, the culture of politics and the imagined state’, American Ethnologist 22, 2 (1995): 375–402CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 Eva Gerharz, ‘Beyond and beneath the nation-state: Bangladeshi Indigenous Peoples’ activism at the crossroad’, Working Paper in Development Sociology and Social Anthropology No. 372 (University of Bielefeld, 2013), p. 13.

45 Mongal Kumar Chakma, interview, 9 Aug. 2016, Chittagong.

46 Morton and Baird, ‘From Hill tribes to Indigenous Peoples’, this vol.

47 See Mohsin, The politics of nationalism.

48 Nasir Uddin, ‘Colonial (re)presentation of colonised people: A case study of the Chittagong Hill Tracts’ (n.p., 2009).

49 See further Nasir Uddin, ‘In search of self: Indigeneity, identity and cultural politics in Bangladesh’, in Gerharz et al., Indigeneity on the move.

50 Samiran Dewan, interview, 2 Dec. 2016, Chittagong.

51 Of 11 indigenous groups in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, the Chakma, Marma, Tripural, Bawm and Tanchangya are numerically dominant and relatively ‘developed’, whilst Khumi, Mru, Kheyang, Lushai, Pangkhua and Chak are minorities within the minority in terms of education, economic development and political empowerment.

52 Interview, July 2012, in a Lushai village in Rangamati. I was trying to understand how the villagers were connected with the JSS movement in the CHT and hardly found any direct connection.

53 Nasir Uddin, ‘Beyond political and cultural binary: Understanding Indigenous activism from below’, paper presented at a workshop on ‘Indigenous activism in Bangladesh: A critical perspective’, Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics and Political Sciences, 18 Mar. 2014.

54 Shah, Alpa, ‘The dark side of Indigeneity?’, History Compass 5, 6 (2007): 1806–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Sarajjoti Chakma, interview, 9 Aug. 2015, Chittagong.

56 See Uddin, Nasir, ‘Struggle for existence: Identity politics and Indigenous activism in the Chittagong Hill Tracts’, in Bangladesh: History, politics, economy, society and culture, ed. Huque, Mahmudul (Dhaka: University Press, 2016), pp. 319–40Google Scholar.

57 Uddin, ‘History is the story for existence’.

58 Scott, James C., Domination and the arts of resistance: Hidden transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

59 Uddin, ‘Politics of cultural difference’.

60 See Uddin, ‘Colonial (re)presentation of colonised people’; Bal, Ellen, They ask if we eat frog: Garo ethnicity in Bangladesh (Leiden: International Institute for Asian Studies, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schendel, Willem van, ‘The dangers of belonging: Tribes, Indigenous Peoples and homelands in South Asia’, in The politics of belonging in India: Becoming Adivasi, ed. Rycroft, Daniel and Dasgupta, Sangeeta (London: Routledge, 2011), pp. 19–43Google Scholar.

61 Kuper, Adam, ‘The return of the native’, Current Anthropology 44, 3 (2003): 389–402CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Béteille, ‘The idea of Indigenous People’.

62 Uddin, ‘Beyond political and cultural binary’.

63 Merlan, ‘Indigeneity’; Ghosh, ‘Between global flows and local dams’.

64 See Uddin, ‘History is the story for existence’; Uddin, ‘Politics of cultural difference’.

65 For a similar example in the Philippines, see Oona Paredes, ‘Revisiting “tradition”: The business of Indigeneity in the modern Philippine context’, this vol.

66 See Uddin, ‘Beyond political and cultural binary’; Uddin, Nasir, ‘Living on the margin: The positioning of the Khumi within the socioeconomic, political and ethnic history of the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh’, Asian Ethnicity 8, 3 (2008): 33–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 Baird, Ian G., ‘Translocal assemblages and the circulation of the concept of “Indigenous Peoples” in Laos’, Political Geography 46 (2015): 54–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 Burnham, The politics of cultural difference. See also Paredes, ‘Revisiting “tradition”’, this vol.

69 Uddin, ‘Struggle for existence’; Uddin, ‘In search of self’.