The Queen of Love: Saving a tribe

By Bangladesh’s standards, Nerola is a famous and wealthy woman, but it is her love for humanity and nature which makes her stand out of the crowd. It is common practice in Bangladesh, where the class system is still very much a live, for wealthy people to treat those in the lower rungs of the social ladder, as if they were sub human species.

Here, some people are considered to be untouchable, and they are treated like animals. Indigenous tribes continue to suffer from all kinds of racism. Employers have little or no regard for their employer’s rights, and they often force them to work for abnormally long hours, with hardly nay break. As a matter of fact, many employers command a near godly status, and they carry much pride in this.

Animals are generally mistreated, and there is no such thing as animal’s rights anywhere in Bangladesh, except in Nerola’s kingdom. Nerola’s love for humanity defines her entire existence. She spends much of her time trying to take care of her people’s needs, most of whom live in abject poverty. She has given much of her land to them, at a more or less give away price.

“What else can I do?” she asked me, with a sad look on her cute face “I can not just let my people starve to death when I still have land.” But as fate would have it, many opportunists are now grabbing her land.

Gina Dizon, in her book ‘Discourses on Policy Perspectives on Land Rights and Adibashis of the Plains of North West Bangladesh’, reveals that the lives of more that 10.000 Khasis are at stake because their land is being eaten away by the expanding Pyian river, as a result of heavy stone mining in the river.

“We lose at least 50 to 60 feet of our land to the river every year.” Said Nerola, sometimes referred to as a Montri (Village head woman). On a daily basis, one can see massive trucks mining rocks from the river bed, and hundreds of people digging the river bed with crude implements, in search of rocks, which are used for all kinds of construction activities in Dhaka and else where in Bangladesh. (Continued next post)