Word: bengalis
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...independent Bangladesh, though was alive long before the outbreak of the civil war. Dating back to the 1940s and the creation of a Moslem state from the eastern and western wings of British India, the dream had grown under the systematic exploitation of the eastern region by the West. Bengali chauvinism and pride in a distinct cultural heritage sharpened the hostility, especially when the West Pakistani declared Urdu--a Western dialect--the country's official language. East Bengal saw its natural resources, jute and burlap, siphoned off to the factories of West Pakistan, and its educated population largely blocked from...
...from the state of West Bengal as well as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The ongoing strife has paralyzed the state's oil industry, which supplies 12% of India's needs The student protest in Assam has been restrained by comparison with a savage outbreak of hatred against Bengalis in the neighboring state of Tripura; last June native tribespeople massacred more than 1,000 Bengali settlers...
...press its first real fright. The proposal was shelved at the last minute. Instead, the MacBride Commission was appointed to study ways of "achieving a freer and more balanced flow of information." The commission's report is now out; eventually it will be published in 13 languages, including Bengali and Swahili. It contains 82 recommendations, embedded in 160,000 words of glutinous UNESCOese. (MacBride himself was appalled by the draft-some pages were given to the commission only 15 minutes before its mandate expired-and confessed a "desire to rewrite it from beginning to end." Unfortunately, time...
Originally, the indigenous tribes had welcomed the Bengali Hindus when they fled across the border from predominantly Muslim Bangladesh in 1971. But they soon clashed. The tribals traditionally farm the land for a few seasons, then move on. The Bengalis stake out an area and work it continuously. Thus with 1.3 million Bengalis in Tripura, there was simply no longer enough land to go around. Moreover, while the Bengalis acquired increasing political and economic power, the tribesmen, outnumbered 2 to 1, seethed with frustration at becoming a minority in their own state...
Even before the Tripura massacre, similar troubles had erupted in the neighboring state of Assam. The native Assamese, afraid they might be outvoted by Bengali immigrants, forced the cancellation of elections in January. By April, agitation for the expulsion of all "foreigners" intensified. The movement spread to Tripura, where Bengali settlers opposed a measure aimed at returning disputed farm lands to the tribes...