Pervasive militarisation and its impact on everyday lives of the Indigenous peoples in the Chittagong Hill tracts, Bangladesh

This article demonstrates from an Indigenous perspective how military authority has become embedded across political, social, legal, and economic life in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region of Bangladesh. It traces the historical formation of militarisation from British colonial administration through the Pakistani and Bangladesh periods, highlighting how counterinsurgency, demographic engineering, land dispossession, and exceptional security laws transformed the CHT into a militarised frontier. By situating the CHT within broader debates on Indigenous Peoples’ rights and security governance, this article demonstrates, drawing on interpretivist analysis, how militarisation extends beyond armed conflict into the routine administration of Indigenous Peoples’ land, territories and populations. Although the 1997 Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord formally promised demilitarisation, it argues that a sustainable peace in the CHT requires genuine demilitarisation through implementation of the 1997 Accord and the recognition of Indigenous ‘Jumma’ Peoples as rights-bearing political actors with legitimate claims to regional autonomy and internal self-determination.