TDS Desk:

At least 10 people sustained injuries in a clash in the capital on Wednesday noon, as two groups made contesting demands for and against including the word “indigenous (Adivashi)” in a school textbook graffiti.

Both groups – Student for Sovereignty and Aggrieved Indigenous Student-People – blamed each other for starting the clash, and claimed 12-15 individuals from their sides sustained injuries.

On Wednesday morning, student for Sovereignty first took position around the office of National Curriculum and Textbook (NCTB) board, demanding removal of a controversial graffiti from textbooks. Later, students from ethnic minorities also went to the spot leading to a tense standoff.

Police first stopped scuffles by forming a human shield between both groups, but later was forced to charge to disperse the unruly protesters. The ethnic minority group has called countrywide protest movement Thursday.

The new Bangla Paper 2 textbook for grades nine-ten had on its back cover the graffiti of a tree with five leaves each denoting the communities of Bangladesh: Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Buddhists and Indigenous.

However, the word “indigenous” sparked anger among some Dhaka University students as they viewed the word “seditious.” Terming a minority group as indigenous recognises them as the only natural inhabitants of a region – in this case the Chattogram hill tracts – and denies the historical existence of majority Bangladeshis in the same lands.

Use of the indigenous term for a specific group in the hill tracts is an Indian sabotage campaign to disintegrate the country, the DU students think.

On 12 January, the students under the banner of “Student for Sovereignty” demanded the National Curriculum and Textbook (NCTB) board erase the graffiti and republish Bangla Paper 2 textbooks. Otherwise, they would blockade NCTB headquarters in Motijheel, the students threatened.

NCTB removed the graffiti from the online version of the textbook, prompting a group of non-Bangalee students to demand a restoration.