73choice. “On one hand it is the symbol of
power that belonged to the local people,
the symbol of their prosperity,” Ferdous
said. “On the other hand, if a king’s palace
can drown in this way, then what will
happen to the local people?”
Helal designed a red chair to represent
the Chakma throne, which he then placed
in the natural landscapes of the CHT that
he photographed. “I am attempting to
indicate to prior communities, prior so-
cieties, prior cultures—not only Chakma
culture but also that of the many other in-
digenous communities of the Chittagong
Hill Tracts—that are now lost,” he said. “I
show a chair that appears to be travelling
to different places, apparently in search of
the displaced, dispersed people for whom
it had originally been made.”
His photographs also reference other
incidents of violence that the ethnic com-
munities have faced. In the early 1970s,
as Bangladesh took its first steps as an
independent nation, leaders from the
indigenous communities campaigned for
the CHT to have administrative auton-
omy, but the military-ruled government
rejected their demand. The result was an
insurgency that continued until the late
1990s, leading to a militarised civil war
between the indigenous communities
and Bangladeshi armed forces. Reports of
killings and rapes abounded, as did those
of crackdown on indigenous activists. A
photograph in Helal’s project speaks to
a particularly grim incident—he depicts
drowning arms holding up a portrait of
the activist Kalpana Chakma. In the dead
of night in June 1996, just hours before
general elections began in Bangladesh,
army personnel abducted Chakma from
her home. She was never found or heard
from again.
As the conflict was ongoing, the gov-
ernment reportedly forcefully settled
Bengali people in the CHT, triggering
demographic change in the region. In
the years that followed, these changes
wrought another evil: gentrification, and
the slow death of the hill way of life. He-
lal repeatedly alludes to this gradual ero-
sion. In one image, plastic flowers intrude
upon the local flora; in others, a deer’s
antlers and a bird, both wooden, appear.
In yet another photograph, a caged bird
references the talking mynah—a species
indigenous to the CHT, which are taken
out of their habitats and sold for large
sums of money in urban centres. The
animal forms, Helal explained, “refer
both to the destruction of nature and
wildlife through the encroachment of
human settlements and economic ac-
tivity into natural areas and ... to [the]
erosion of a way of life that was deeply
connected to and defined by a cultural
and proximal connection to the hills.”
But even as the impact of historical
events continues, newer forms of vi-
olence affect the indigenous groups
of the CHT. A 2017 report submitted
to the United Nations Human Rights
Council described the CHT as the most
militarised region in Bangladesh. The
same report noted that between 2014
and mid 2017, nearly three hundred
incidents of violence against indige-
nous women were reported, including
physical attacks, sexual assault, rape
and gang rape. The uprooting of the
indigenous hill people continues even
“when we claim that democracy has
been instilled in Bangladesh,” Rani Yan
Yan, the present Chakma queen and an
indigenous-rights activist, said at the
opening of Helal’s show in March.
The 2017 paper further noted, “There
is a culture of impunity for perpetrators,
particularly because most perpetra-
tors are non-Indigenous and are often
Bengali settlers”—an observation that
is echoed in Helal’s deliberate use of an
unnatural material such as foil, to cover
the faces of the women he photographed.
He references the ongoing violence inother images as well. In one, a red cloth,
signifying the Buddhist faith practised
by many indigenous groups, is on fire—
an allusion to incidents where entire vil-
lages have been burnt. In June 2017, for
instance, in a pre-planned attack, Ben-
gali settlers vandalised four indigenous
localities, burning over three hundred
houses and killing several people.
Helal’s images subvert the dominant
visual representation of indigenous
communities. Unlike mainstream
aesthetics that often employ vibrant
colour, costuming and performance
in treating this kind of subject matter,
Helal uses a muted palette and compos-
es scenes devoid of dramatic incident.
He chooses to depict the violence of
gentrification and displacement in
landscapes that bear no signs of these
severe changes. His metaphors, too,
are not easy to decode, often relying on
localised cultural symbols. An image
of a man and woman tied together by
a gamcha—cloth towel—for instance,
alludes to families that were separat-
ed by displacement. To make sense of
the historical and political references
embedded in his work, the viewer
must strive to familiarise herself with
the manner in which such events con-
vulsed life in the CHT. As Priyabola—
who also suffered separation from her
siblings in the aftermath of the dam’s
construction—put it, “This Kaptai dam,
this Kaptai lake is the tears of thou-
sands of people.”