SAMARI Chakma has chronicled the devastating impact of the Kaptai hydroelectric dam on the indigenous people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in the early 1960s. A commendable work of unveiling a phase of murky history — seemingly lost to the collective amnesia of the majoritarian nationhood — the book Kaptai Bandh: Boro Porong: Duburider Atmakathan (Kaptai Dam: The Great Exodus: Tales of the Drowned) is a compilation of the oral testimonies of 26 victims of the Kaptai deluge who suffered untold miseries being forcibly displaced from their ancestral homes, a number of whom had to migrate to neighbouring countries. These stories of sorrow, grief and anger are poignantly captured in Samari Chakma’s narrative. To date, this remains the only elaborately documented account of the dam’s aftermath.
Tracing a bit of the background may help delve into the scenario that prevailed sixty-plus years ago. The Kaptai hydroelectric project was originally conceived in the British period, though with no visible progress. Construction work of the project — the dam — started with the US government’s aid in 1958 and was completed around 1962. Built on the Karnafuli river in the heartland of the indigenous jumma people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, it flooded 1,036 square kilometres of land and submerged around 54,000 acres of the best arable land and also displaced more than 100,000 jumma people, mostly Chakmas, from their ancestral hearths and homes for good. The displacement was twofold. Initially, it was the remote and harsh hilly regions in the northern part of the Chittagong Hill Tracts where the majority of the victims went to start a new life, but soon things proved too difficult for many to survive the hardship in those places. Worried for life, a good number of them, reportedly 40,000, moved to the neighbouring Indian states of Mizoram, Tripura and Arunachal (then called the Northeast Frontier Agency), and another 15,000–20,000 to Myanmar. The rehabilitation programme was a cruel farce, and so was the compensation. The dam totally destroyed the agro-based economy of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, brought about a permanent disintegration of the jumma people and led to the inroads of the Bengali Muslim population in the region.
In narrating the grief-stricken tales, Samari also shares her own personal misfortune. Her family endured the distressing experience of displacement like many others, and years later, as she emerged as a rights activist, she became a victim of state-orchestrated terrorism, forcing her to leave the country. Writing the book from oral accounts was no easy task. She had to travel to Arunachal and Tripura, seeking out the porongis (victims who sought refuge in those places during the Boro Porong), while also reaching out to those living in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
While telling the plight of the indigenous people, the book, by extension, serves as an example of majoritarian influence over minorities. It may be recalled that around the time of the construction of the Kaptai dam, another significant dam, the Aswan High Dam, was being built in Egypt. Both projects aimed to generate electricity at the expense of indigenous communities. In Egypt, the victims were the Nubians, who had lived in the border regions of western Egypt and northern Sudan for centuries, and in this part of the world, needless to mention, it was mainly the Chakmas. However, the scale of damage in the Chittagong Hill Tracts was far greater than that caused by the Aswan dam. Both cases illustrate a common narrative: majoritarian authority imposing its will with little or no regard for rehabilitation or adequate compensation.
Although the nature of displacement, including migration to foreign lands, was broadly similar, the stories from the mouths of the sufferers are largely different. Each of them narrated stories that were unique to their lifestyles prior to the flooding, revealing unknown facts about the socio-economic nuances, values and structure of hill life. There are stories and memoirs of wealthy landowners like Karunamoy Chakma, who endured unthinkable misery as he moved from place to place, stripped of all he once owned. There is the story of Arun Kumar Dewan, who recalls the opulence of his joint family and the spacious, sturdy clay houses they lived in. Despite suffering from displacement, Arun Dewan might have found some solace if he had remained with his immediate family members — his siblings. His two brothers and a sister moved to Arunachal, while he stayed behind. He met his elder brother only once, and that too after many years when his brother came to visit him. All 26 stories from the mouths of the Kaptai dam victims reflect the unthinkable manner in which they carried themselves. Some of them are still alive to tell their tales.
In her preface, Samari aptly notes that while the Kaptai deluge took away everything the hill people possessed, it could not erase their memories. These memories, which she has vividly captured, serve as the only means to revisit the past. Some might view these memoirs as marking a starting point, tracing the developments in the hills over the ensuing decades up to the present day.
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Wasi Ahmed is a novelist and short story writer.