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The painting was removed from the online version of the book after members of the “Students of Sovereignty” surrounded the NCTB premises on Jan 12
Published : 14 Jan 2025, 01:53 PM
The walls and streets in the Dhaka University campus area have been painted with murals to protest the removal of the term “adivasi” – a collective term for a number of ethnic minority groups in the country - from imagery used in ninth and tenth grade school textbooks.
Colourful murals were painted from Monday midnight into the wee hours of Tuesday on walls and streets near the Central Shaheed Minar, Dhaka’s University’s Jagannath Hall, and Rokeya Hall, voicing opposition to the omission of the term from the textbooks.
Rupaiya Shreshtha Tanchangya, a member of the executive committee of the Anti-discrimination Student Movement, said: “Students for Sovereignty - an extremist communal group - is spreading false propaganda to obscure how adivasi land is being encroached upon across Bangladesh.”
“By distorting the meaning of the word ‘adivasi,’ they are misleading the people of Bangladesh, without even knowing the original meaning of the word and its history.”
A picture that used the term “adivasi” was on the back cover of the Bengali grammar and composition textbook for ninth and tenth graders. The artwork depicted a tree with five leaves, each inscribed with a term for a religious or ethnic community in Bangladesh - Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, and “adivasi”. “Tearing leaves is prohibited” was written next to the picture.
The picture was removed from the online version of the book after members of the “Students of Sovereignty”, organisation of Bengalis living in the hills, surrounded the National Curriculum and Textbook Board, or NCTB, premises on Jan 12.
Rupaiya said, “We are protesting to denounce the extremism displayed by this radical group in their attempt to remove a graffiti image depicting the July uprising from the back of a textbook—a depiction that includes the word ‘adivasi’.”
“Bangladesh is not a country with a single community, a single religion, or a single ethnicity. By removing the word ‘adivasi', this extremist communal group is trying to deny the existence of people of different ethnicities from all over Bangladesh. But we will not compromise on our ethnic existence in any way.”
One of the protesters, Shantimoy Chakma, said: “We are creating these murals as an act of protest against the recent removal of the word ‘adivasi’ from textbooks by the NCTB, a move influenced by the demands of a radical communal group called ‘Students for Sovereignty.”
He added, “These 'adivasi' murals have been a symbol of resistance during the movement to topple the fascist Hasina regime. Moreover, interim government Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus referred to the people as ‘adivasi’ in his address to the nation.”
“Five months after the July uprising, isn’t the demand made by this extremist group contradictory to the vision of building a discrimination-free Bangladesh? Doesn’t their baseless demand undermine and insult the chief advisor’s recognition of tribal communities in his address?”
Calling for the preservation and recognition of ethnic minority heritage in textbooks, Shantimoy announced the next steps in their protest.
“Our next programme will be to surround the NCTB building on Jan 15,” he declared.
“We will persist in this movement until our demands are met and the heritage of indigenous communities is duly acknowledged.”
Another protester, Liton Tripura, said: “Through tonight’s murals, we are making a strong demand to the current government to end the cycle of recurring state conspiracies against ‘adivasi’ peoples and work toward building an inclusive, democratic state focused on public welfare.”
“Our singular demand is the reinstatement of the word ‘adivasi’ in textbooks, which was unjustly removed. By doing so, and through constitutional recognition, the government must prove that this country belongs to all people, all communities, all religions, and all castes.”
