Land Grabbing: A Colonial Tool to Marginalize an Indigenous Rural Santal Community in Bangladesh

Mrinal Debnath, EdD

Abstract

Employing a descriptive qualitative case study methodology, this article postulates that land grabbing is a man-made situation of coercion and oppression for the indigenous Santals in Bangladesh. The violent nature of land grabbing in Palashpur, a remote village in Bangladesh, has dispersed and dislocated the once closely-knit Santal community, destroyed Indigenous social and economic institutions, traditional ways of life, pristine and serene milieu, and the community’s rhythm of life. The article analyses how land rights as essential components of human rights are being violated because of the colonial nature of the nation-state and its failure to protect the land of the indigenous peoples. By disregarding various international Indigenous land rights and the many state tenancy acts, the nation-state provides covert support to the land-grabbers. Thus, the state violates basic principles of human rights and acts as an accessory to the misery associated with territoriality. Moreover, the article explores a deep-seated nationalism engaged in insidious ethnic cleansing, resulting in an identity and existential crisis perpetrated through the dispossession of the Indigenous land in Bangladesh.