Chakma people
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The Chakma, also known as the Changma, are a community inhabiting the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, and India.History says that people of chakma origin (called Doingnak) are living in Burma, where they are known as Thet or Thek. Its said that they were taken by the Arakan king after a war with the Chakma king. A tribal group called Tangchangya's are also cosidered to be a branch of the Chakma people.
HistoryEthnically, the Chakma are Tibeto-Burman, and are thus closely related to tribes in the mountains of North-East India and much of Myanmar. Their ancestors came from Magadha Kingdom now Bihar India to settle in Arakan and most of them later moved to Bangladesh known as Cox's Bazar and Korpos Mohol, the name which was used for the Chittagong Hill Tracts until 1860. The Chakma were historically the rulers of Arakan and later certain areas covering parts of present day Chittagong Hill Tracts under the control of a king. Today, however, the power of the Chakma king, Devasish Roy, is not even symbolic. Like in India, the Chakmas have lived in the modern state of Bangladesh much before it gained its independence. However, recent migrations of ethnic Bengalis into traditionally Chakma regions, then Chakma Kingdom have raised tensions in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Successive governments have dealt with brutal iron fist with the people uprising, interrupted by short-lived ceasefires, and finally ended the conflict with The 1996 Peace Treaty. Historical populationsIn 1951 there were slightly over 7,000 Chakma living in Tripura. By 1961 the number had inceased to 22,000 and by 1971 it was well over 28,000. The 1951-1961 change in figures may reflect the fact that fewer tribal people in isolated areas of Tripura were missed in the 1961 count more than it reflects immigration or natural population growth trends.[1] ReligionThe vast majority of the Chakma are followers of the Hinayana sect [2]of Theravada Buddhism, a religion that they have been practising for centuries. Of late, reports surfaced that several foreign and local missionaries have been trying to covert the Chakmas in to Christianity without success. This created resentment and upset among some Chakmas.[3][4] LanguageOriginally speaking a language belonging to the Tibeto-Burman family, some of the Chakmas have been influenced by neighboring Chittagonian, an Eastern Indo-Aryan language closely related to Bengali. Many linguists now consider the modern Chakma language (known as Changma Vaj or Changma Kodha) part of the Southeastern Bengali branch of Eastern Indo-Aryan language. Changma Vaj is written in its own script, known as Ojhopath. References
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