With a pledge to motivate the young activists, students & filmmakers to have a better understanding of the cross-cutting issues across South Asia – a 3 day long festival with 12 outstanding documentaries titled Travelling Film South Asia (TFSA) 2010 was held in Dhaka last February (11th -13th). These films were selected from 35 documentaries screened in the competitive section of Film South Asia ’09, the seventh edition of the festival of Southasian documentaries held in Kathmandu from 17-20 October 2009.

Documentaries screened in the session are ‘The Last Rites’ by Yasmine Kabir, ‘The Promised Land’ by Tanvir Mokammel, ‘Afghan Girls Can Kick’ by Bahareh Hosseini & ‘The Battle for Pakistan’ by Maheen Zia, ‘Come to My Country: Journeys with Kabir and Friends’ by Shabnam Virmani, ‘Children of God’ by Yi Seung-jun, ‘In Search of the Riyal’ by Kesang Tseten, ‘Mayomi by Carol Salter, ‘Out of Thin Air’ by Samreen Farooqui & Shabani Hassanwalia, ‘Saamam’ by Ramachandran K, ‘The Salt Stories’ by Lalit Vachani and ‘The Way of the Road’ by Ben Campbell & Cosmo Campbell. Read more »

by Amit Bhaduri & Romila Thapar

Those that have governed in tribal areas must share the responsibility for the negligence of the adivasis. The proposals for a multi-lateral dialogue should be set in that context.

There has been a flurry of concern as also vituperation over the activities of the Maoists in the forests that are mostly home to tribal society. There is a confrontation between the state and this society through the intervention of the Maoists. One pauses while reading the speeches of those in authority and thinks back to the past. The texts of the past represent the people of the forest, the forest-dwellers, largely as “the Other” – the rakshasas, and those who moved like an ink-black cloud through the forest with their bloodshot eyes, who ate and drank all the wrong things, had the wrong rules of sexuality and, as strange creatures, were far removed from ‘us.’

Kautilya in the Arthashastra condemns them as troublemakers and Ashoka threatens the atavikas, the forest-dwellers, without telling us why. The interest of various kingdoms in extending control over forests has an obvious explanation. The forests supplied elephants for the army, mineral wealth including iron, timber for building, and by clearing forests the acreage of cultivable land increased and the consequent agriculture brought in revenue. In later times, even when there were situations of dependence on forest people, the conventional attitude towards them was that they were outside the social pale and had to be kept at a distance. Read more »

The Government of Bangladesh’s decision to conduct a land survey in the CHT region has raised concern amongst the indigenous people and human rights and minority rights groups in Bangladesh. This is because  land holdings belonging to the ethnic communities have been taken over by settlers from the plains or appropriated illegally, and if the ownership is decided on grounds of present possession, it would legalise illegal holdings and deprive the ethnic community of their communal right to land. The land survey would not therefore resolve the disputes in ownership and would violate the terms of the CHT Peace Accord. Several Human rights organizations and activists have urged the Government to with justice to restor the lands belonging to the original owners.

In a recent study Dr. Abul Barak has highlighted that about 38 percent of Adivasi households in the Chittagong Hill Tracts were forced to relocate at least once in the period from 1977 to 2007. About 22 percent of households were forcefully evicted from their homesteads at least once during this period. The research also shows that in 82 percent of cases, the land grabbers were Bangali. On average, every household in CHT lost at least 115 decimals of land during this period. Read more »

This is the key note speech delivered by Ms. Aruna Roy at the Presentation of the Meeto Award for Young South Asians held at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi on the 14th of October 2009.

The Fourteenth of October 09
The Stein Auditorium
Habitat Centre

Dearest Meeto,

I often talk to my loved ones in my mind. It is the pleasure of being able to engage on issues of common concern, allowing us the luxury of shaping a thought, a feeling, toning it down, sharpening it and above all seeing the contradictions and the anomalies! I am going to indulge myself today Meeto, with your permission to go over some of the issues that would have absorbed you today, and which possess me in my moments of privacy and silence, and in my public life.

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