Vernacularisation of Democracy and Exclusion of Minorities in the Chittagong Hills of Bangladesh

Author(s): Ellen Bal and Nasrin Siraj
Source: Asian Journal of Social Science , 2017, Vol. 45, No. 6, Special Focus: Spaces o
Violence in South Asian Democracies (2017), pp. 666-692
Published by: Brill
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26567210

Abstract

Democracy has generally been understood the best remedy to prevent societal vio lence, as it gives different groups a channel to voice their interests and grievances. However, in this article, that focuses on the Chittagong Hills, which for many decades has formed one of the most violent spaces in Bangladesh, we argue that, in reality, democracy and violence can be two sides of the same coin. This is not to say that in Bangladesh, where full liberal democracy is not in place, ordinary citizens have no values andidea(l)s of democracyandcitizenship. Onthecontrary, in order tomakesense of theintricate connectionbetweendemocraticidea(l)s,andviolentimaginationsand practices, we focus in particular on the process of what we call the vernacularisa tion of democratic politics. We connect this process to the appropriation of citizen ship and nationalism, by ordinary but radically differently-positioned people, in their dailyrealities.Wedemonstratethatwidelysharedimaginationsof Bangladeshi-ness,as Bengali-ness or Muslim-ness, and of Bengalis/Muslims as the true nation and citizens of Bangladesh, are intimately connected with popular understandings and practices of democracy, which are based on the exclusion of the not-genuine-Bengalis, with the legitimisation and continuation of violence, and the exclusion of ethnic minorities in the Chittagong Hills.
Keywords: democracy–citizenship–nationalism–violence–theChittagongHills–Bangladesh