Chukti

This chapter explores the relationality of char dwellers with the governmental state through the usage of the term “chukti” or “contract.” Chars can be described as sandbars or river islands that make and break, appear and disappear, and differ in size, shape and temporality. The lives of char dwellers largely depend on the flow of the river, which subjects them to a life of relocating from one char to another. These dislocations and frequent floods are often cited as the source of abject poverty for char dwellers, especially in the Chilmari area. Char dwellers describe their relationship with the river as chukti-bound as they move along with the river. Such usage of the term “chukti,” I contend, derives from the act of agreeing to a char chukti. Char dwellers seek a char chukti with landowners when they seek residence in plots of land on particular chars on the basis that they can stay as long as the char remains grounded to the surface. While char dwellers emphasize the importance of the paper contract, landowners expropriate labor to guard and cultivate their land. The hierarchy of power and the politics of land, endemic to the chars, specifically to Bangladesh, become apparent from the application of the char chukti, which enables a patron–client relationship with the landowners as allowed by the state. Yet the emphasis put on the document by char dwellers emphasizes the affiliation to the formal attributes of the nation-state. A chukti with the river serves as a metaphor bound to certain conditions, but it stems from the politics of land present within Bangladesh. Third, twisting the word “chukti” to social contract yields a reflection on the development paradox of Bangladesh. Recent literature touts Bangladesh’s success story to an altered social contract, weaving into the social fabric of Bangladesh after the 1974 famine, which has helped the country to graduate onto a donor darling. Contending this literature, I present the marginalization of char dwellers as part of the renewed social contract, which disenfranchises them from access to land and hence compels them to see themselves as constantly bound by a chukti.