Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in Bangladesh and the Unfinished Constitutional Promise of the Chittagong Hill Tracts

The question of Indigenous Peoples’ rights in Bangladesh is not a marginal constitutional issue. It is one of the clearest tests of whether the Republic is prepared to accommodate diversity, dignity, land security, and meaningful equality within its constitutional order. The Chittagong Hill Tracts, in particular, continue to expose a deep gap between legal promise and lived reality. The Constitution now contains Article 23A, which requires the State to take steps to protect and develop the unique local culture and tradition of the tribes, minor races, ethnic sects and communities. At the same time, Article 6(2)states that the people of Bangladesh shall be known as Bangladeshis as a nation. These provisions show partial recognition of cultural plurality, but they stop short of expressly recognizing Indigenous Peoples as a distinct constitutional category with corresponding collective rights. 

At Tahmidur Remura Wahid (TRW) Law Firm, we consider this unfinished constitutional position to be one of the most important unresolved public-law questions in Bangladesh. The difficulty is not merely semantic. When a legal system avoids naming a people clearly, it often also avoids recognizing the full range of rights that flow from that identity. In the case of the hill communities, that uncertainty affects land, representation, consultation, autonomy, development, security, and remedies.

The identity question remains unresolved

Bangladesh has long struggled with the terminology used for Indigenous communities. In constitutional and statutory language, the State has often preferred terms such as “tribes,” “minor races,” “ethnic sects,” “communities,” “aboriginals,” or “indigenous hillmen,” instead of a clear and consistent recognition of Indigenous Peoples. That drafting choice matters because in international law and comparative constitutional practice, identity is tied to a broader framework of participation, consultation, land protection, and cultural continuity.

Article 23A was a step, but a limited one. It acknowledges protection of unique culture and tradition, not Indigenous self-identification as such. That means the constitutional framework still does not fully settle the question of whether the State sees these communities as merely culturally distinct populations within a uniform national structure, or as peoples entitled to more meaningful protection of land, institutions, and self-governance. 

This ambiguity has practical consequences. It makes it easier for the State to speak the language of inclusion while avoiding the harder legal implications of recognition. It also leaves room for selective engagement: protecting festivals, dress, or heritage rhetorically, while leaving more difficult questions of land dispossession, militarization, displacement, and political voice only partially addressed.

The Chittagong Hill Tracts remain the constitutional pressure point

The Chittagong Hill Tracts are where these contradictions become most visible. For decades, the region has reflected overlapping tensions involving land, settlement, administration, demography, security, and political recognition. The Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord of 1997 was supposed to mark a historic transition toward peace and institutional accommodation. It led to follow-on legislation such as the Chittagong Hill Tracts Regional Council Act, 1998, intended to provide a structured framework for regional representation and governance. 

Yet the story since then has been one of partial implementation and recurring contestation. The Accord has never fully resolved the structural anxieties that surround land, administration, and authority in the hills. Much of the conflict remains rooted in a simple reality: land in the CHT is not merely property. It is identity, memory, livelihood, belonging, and continuity. When land insecurity persists, every other promise becomes fragile.

That is why the constitutional challenge of the CHT is ultimately larger than a regional political dispute. It is about whether Bangladesh can sustain a unitary constitutional system while still recognizing historical difference and collective vulnerability in a meaningful way.

Land is the center of the dispute

Any serious legal discussion of Indigenous rights in Bangladesh must start with land. The hill communities’ relationship with land is not fully captured by ordinary urban or lowland property concepts. Land is tied to community survival, customary use, traditional governance, social organization, and cultural inheritance. Where the law fails to protect that relationship, conflict becomes cyclical.

The historical wounds are deep. The construction of the Kaptai Dam displaced a very large number of people and submerged substantial areas of ancestral land, leaving a legacy of dispossession that still shapes the politics of the region. That episode remains a reminder that development decisions taken without meaningful consultation can produce generational constitutional injury, even where formal legality is claimed.

Today, land remains at the core of almost every major grievance in the CHT. Questions of settlement, occupation, administration, and restoration are inseparable from broader questions of justice. A constitutional order that cannot secure land rights in such a context will struggle to persuade affected communities that citizenship offers equal protection.

The Accord and the courts

The legal fate of the CHT institutional framework has also been uncertain. The Regional Council Act, 1998 was challenged in litigation, and in 2010 a High Court Division bench reportedly declared the Act unconstitutional on the ground that it affected the unitary character of the Constitution. The matter did not end there, however, because the Appellate Division stayed that judgment, which meant the framework was not finally extinguished. The result was preservation without resolution: formal survival, but continued uncertainty about constitutional compatibility and political commitment.

This episode is instructive. It reveals a recurring tension in Bangladeshi public law. The Constitution is often invoked in highly centralizing terms when institutional accommodation is proposed, but less effectively when substantive equality, historical disadvantage, or minority protection require bold implementation. The unitary structure of the Republic is important, but unitary does not have to mean blind to difference. A mature constitutional system should be able to preserve sovereignty and territorial integrity while still recognizing differentiated rights and institutions where history and justice demand them.

Article 6 and the politics of identity

The identity debate is often connected to Article 6(2) of the Constitution. The article now describes the people of Bangladesh as “Bangladeshis” as a nation. That is not the same as the earlier language that equated nationality more directly with Bengali identity, but it has not fully eliminated the historical concern. Indigenous voices have long argued that citizenship and ethnicity are not the same thing. A Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Mro, Bawm, or Santal may be fully Bangladeshi as a citizen while retaining a distinct ethnic and Indigenous identity. The constitutional vocabulary should be capable of holding both truths at once. 

This distinction matters because constitutional assimilation can occur not only through coercive policy, but also through the language of uniformity. If the law recognizes only one dominant narrative of peoplehood, then other identities survive in a tolerated but subordinate position. That is not constitutional pluralism. It is hierarchy in softer language.

Bangladesh’s international position is also limited

Bangladesh’s international legal record on Indigenous rights reflects a similar pattern of partial engagement. Bangladesh has ratified ILO Convention No. 107, which concerns Indigenous and tribal populations, and that remains one of the principal treaty instruments relevant to the issue in Bangladesh. But Bangladesh has not ratified ILO Convention No. 169, which is the more modern international instrument specifically focused on Indigenous and tribal peoples in independent countries and is generally seen as providing stronger standards on consultation, participation, and land rights. 

Bangladesh also abstained on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) when the General Assembly adopted it in 2007. While UNDRIP is not binding in the same way as a treaty, it has become a major normative reference point for Indigenous rights globally, especially regarding self-identification, consultation, participation, land, and dignity. Bangladesh explained its abstention at the time, but the abstention still reflects a cautious and limited approach to international recognition. 

This selective engagement has consequences. It narrows the range of international standards that Indigenous communities in Bangladesh can invoke as part of domestic advocacy. It also signals that the State prefers a controlled and culturally framed engagement over a fuller rights-based framework.

Security cannot substitute for justice

The State often approaches the hills through the lens of security, order, and administrative management. But security measures cannot resolve a constitutional problem rooted in recognition, land, and trust. When communities experience arbitrary arrest, fear, militarization, or recurring violence, the resulting harm is not simply local disorder. It is evidence that the constitutional compact remains weak in that region.

The rule of law in the CHT must therefore be measured not only by the presence of state institutions, but by whether those institutions act with legitimacy and fairness. Long-term peace cannot be sustained by force alone. It depends on whether communities feel that the law sees them, hears them, and protects them.

What constitutional maturity would actually require

Bangladesh does not need to abandon its constitutional structure to address this problem properly. But it does need to move beyond symbolic inclusion. A serious reform agenda would involve at least five legal and constitutional commitments.

First, the State should adopt clearer and more dignified recognition of Indigenous identity in law and policy.

Second, the implementation of the CHT Accord and related institutional arrangements should be revisited with genuine urgency rather than ceremonial repetition.

Third, land rights and land dispute mechanisms in the CHT must be treated as a constitutional priority, not a peripheral administrative matter.

Fourth, the principle of meaningful consultation must become real in development, security, and governance decisions affecting Indigenous communities.

Fifth, Bangladesh should reconsider its international positioning, especially in relation to the stronger global standards reflected in ILO Convention No. 169 and UNDRIP.

None of these steps would threaten the Republic. On the contrary, they would strengthen it by aligning constitutional practice with justice.

TRW Law Firm’s view

At Tahmidur Remura Wahid (TRW) Law Firm, our view is that the Chittagong Hill Tracts represent Bangladesh’s unfinished constitutional promise. The issue is not only whether the Constitution contains words that refer to cultural diversity. The issue is whether the legal order is willing to protect people whose identity, land relationship, and political experience do not fit neatly within majoritarian assumptions.

Bangladesh has already taken partial steps. Article 23A exists. The CHT Accord exists. The Regional Council framework exists. International obligations under ILO Convention No. 107 exist. But partial recognition without full implementation can become its own form of injustice. It raises hope, then normalizes delay.

The law now needs to move from tolerance to recognition, from symbolism to substance, and from administrative control to constitutional fairness. Until that happens, the hills will continue to remind Bangladesh that pluralism promised but not delivered remains a wound in the Republic.

Summary table

Issue	Present legal position	Why it matters
Constitutional recognition	Article 23A protects culture and tradition of tribes, minor races, ethnic sects and communities	Cultural acknowledgment exists, but Indigenous identity is not expressly recognized as a distinct constitutional category
National identity	Article 6(2) recognizes the people as Bangladeshis as a nation	Citizenship is recognized, but ethnic and Indigenous distinctiveness remains constitutionally underdeveloped
CHT institutional framework	1997 Accord and 1998 Regional Council framework remain only partially implemented	Formal structures exist, but incomplete implementation weakens trust and effectiveness
Land rights	Central source of conflict in the CHT	Without land security, peace and equality remain fragile
International obligations	Bangladesh ratified ILO Convention 107 but not ILO Convention 169	Bangladesh remains within an older and weaker international framework
UNDRIP	Bangladesh abstained on the 2007 UN Declaration vote	Signals a cautious approach to fuller international recognition of Indigenous rights
Constitutional challenge	Tension remains between unitary constitutionalism and meaningful pluralism	This is one of Bangladesh’s most important unresolved public-law questions