²Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1991).

³Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983).

⁴For the use of the term "fundementalist" see Robert Eric Frykenberg, "Accounting for Fundementalism in South Asia: Ideologies and Institutions in a Historical Perspective," in Scott Appleby and Martin Marty (eds.), Accounting for Fundementalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). For an explanation of "religious nationalist" see Peter van der Veer, Religious Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), and Mark Juergensmeyer, The New Cold War: Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). For a discussion of conservative nationalism see Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? (London: Zed Books, 1986).

⁵ Fredric Jameson, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham: Duke University Press, 1991), p. 3-4.

⁶van der Veer, 1994, p. 202.

⁷Juergensmeyer, 1994, p. 5.

⁸Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? (London: Zed Books, 1986).

⁹Ibid., p. 38.

¹⁰Ibid., 1986, p. 169.

¹¹Ibid., p. 81.

¹²Ibid.

¹³Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989). See especially chapters 1 and 17.

¹⁴Taylor, 1989, p. 376.

¹⁵For a similar argument see Ashis Nandy, "The Politics of Secularism and the Recovery of Religious Tolerance," in Veena Das (ed.), Mirrors of Violence (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990).

¹⁶For some evidence of this phenoomena see Anuradha Kapur, "Diety to Crusader: The Changing Iconography of Ram," in Gyendra Pandey (ed.), Hindus and Other: The Question of Identity in India Today (New Delhi: Viking, 1993).

¹⁷Walter K. Anderson and Shridhar Damle, The Brotherhood in Saffron: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu Revivalism (New Delhi: Vistaar Publications, 1987), Pp. 30-35.

¹⁸Peter van der Veer, "Hindu Nationalism and the Discourse of Modernity," in Scott Appleby and Martin Marty (eds.), Accounting for Fundamentalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).

¹⁹Girilal Jain, The Hindu Phenomenon (New Delhi: UBS Publishers' Distributors). p. 13.

²⁰K.R. Malkani, The Politics of Ayodhya and Hindu Muslim Relations (New Delhi: Har-Anand Publications, 1993).

²¹Jain, 1994, p. 4, 11, and 114.

²²Jain, 1994, p. 15.

²³Malkani, 1994, p. 92, 103, and 115.

²⁴Jain, 1994, p. 105.

²⁵Dattpant Thengadi, Third Way (New Delhi: Janaki Prakshan, 1995), p. 33.

²⁶Thengadi, 1995. p. 237.

²⁷Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Election Manifesto (New Delhi: The BJP Central Office, 1996), p. 60.

²⁸Thengadi, 1995, p. 241.

²⁹Jain, 1994, p. 104.

³⁰Thengadi, 1995, p. 16.

³¹BJP Manifesto, 1996, p. 69.

³²The Organizer, July 16, 1995.

³³BJP Manifesto 1996, p. 7.

³⁴BJP Manifesto 1996, p.59.

³⁵BJP press release, Feb. 4, 1996.

³⁶The Telegraph, December 11, 1995.

³⁷BJP Manifesto, 1996, p. 64.

³⁸Press release issued (January 29, 1995) by K.L. Sharma, BJP member of parliament and party General Secretary.

³⁹The Telegraph. December 11, 1995.

⁴⁰Press release issued (November 5, 1995) by K.L. Sharma, BJP member of parliament and party General Secretary.

⁴¹BJP Manifesto, 1996, p. 33.

⁴²BJP Manifesto 1996, p. 24.

⁴³Times of India, April 18, 1996.

⁴⁴R.M.W. Dixon "Ergativity," Language (55): p. 61.

⁴⁵ See the following texts: John Beames, A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1879); and Berthold Delbruck, Introduction to the Study of Language: A Critical Survey of the History and Methods of the Comparative Philology of Indo-European Languages (Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1897).

⁴⁶See the following texs: V. Miltner, "From OIA Passive to NIA Active," Asian and African Studies (1): Pp. 143-46; L.A. Pireyko, Osnovnye Voprosy Ergativnostina Materiale Indoiranskix Jazkow (Moscow: Nauka, 1968); and Bruce Pray, "From Passive to Ergative in Indo-Aryan," in M. Verma (ed.), The Notion of Subject in South Asian Languages (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1976).

⁴⁷See the following texts: H.H. Hock, Principles of Historical Linguistics (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyer, 1986); M.H. Klaiman, "Arguments Against the Passive Origin of the Ergative," in D. Frakas (ed.), Papers from the Fourteenth Regional Meeting (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1978); Colin Masica, The Indo-Aryan Languages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

⁴⁸ Bernard Comrie, "Some Remark on Ergativity," in M. Verma (ed.), South Asian Language Analysis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979).

⁴⁹For a further discussion see: Bernard Comrie, Langauge Universals and Lingustic Typology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).

⁵⁰Bruce Pray, "From Passive to Ergative in Indo-Aryan," in M. Verma (ed.), The Notion of the Subject in South Asian Languages (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1976).

⁵¹Interestingly the future gerundive in -tavya also exhibits ergativity.

⁵²According to scholars such as Stephen Anderson, "On Mechanisms by Which Languages Become Ergative," in C. Lin (ed.), Mechanisms of Syntactic Change (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1977), it has a perfective sense, but the close study of the Panini Grammar (III.ii.102) has shown that the use of the -ta participle was not governed by any specific conditions, which governed the use of the perfect tense (III.ii.115). The -ta participle was used unconditionally to express past time.

⁵³Jules Bloch, Indo-Aryan from the Vedas to Modern Times (Paris: Adrien-Maissonneuve, 1914).

⁵⁴Masica, 1991, Pp. 257-327.

⁵⁵H.H. Hock cited in Colin Masica, 1991, p. 341.

⁵⁶W.K. Mathews, "The Ergative Construction in Modern Indo-Aryan," Lingua (3): 391-399; V. Miltner, "From OIA Passive to NIA Active," Asian and African Studies (1): 143-46; L.A. Pirejko, Osnovnye Voprosy Ergativnostina Materiale Indoiranskix Jazykow (Moscow: Nauka, 1968); J.S. Speijers, Sanskrit Syntax (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 1973); William Whitney, Sanskrit Grammar (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 1973).

⁵⁷Anderson, 1977, Pp. 316-366.

⁵⁸Pray, 1976, Pp. 195-211.

⁵⁹W.K. Mathews, "The Ergative Construction in Modern Indo-Aryan," Lingua 3: 394.

⁶⁰For further examples see S.M. Katre, The Formation of Konkani (Poona: Deccan College, 1966), p. 156.

⁶¹Hock, 1986, p. 347; Klaiman, 1978, Pp. 204-216; Masica, 1991, p. 341.

⁶²Whitney, 1973, p. 998.

⁶³Klaiman, 1978, Pp. 204-216.

⁶⁴These three tenses were used according to whether the past action occurred prior to the time of speaking and/or whether it was witnessed by the speaker (Pannini's Grammar: III.ii.110, 111, 115)

⁶⁵Masica, 1991, p. 341.

⁶⁶Masica, 1991, p. 342.

⁶⁷Klaiman, 1978, p. 207.

⁶⁸Hock, p. 431.

⁶⁹Klaiman, 1978, Pp. 207-208.

⁷⁰David Ludden, "India's Development Regime," in Nicholas B. Dirks (ed.), Colonialism and Culture (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992), p. 251.

⁷¹Aturo Escobar, "Discourse and Power in Development: Micheal Foucault and the Relevance of his work to the Third World," Alternatives X: 385-338.

⁷²David Reid, Sustainable Development: An Introductory Guide (London: Earthscan, 1995); United Nations, Sustainable Development Finance: Opportunities and Obstacles (New York: UN Press, 1996). Development Alternatives and Palni Hills Conservation Council, Sustainable Development Program, Palni Hills, India: Planning for Interventions in the Palnis, Phase I (New Delhi: Development Alternatives and the Palni Hills Conservation Council, 1991); William C. Clark and R.E. Munn (eds.), Sustainable development of the Biosphere (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Sustainable Development: OECD Policy Approaches for the 21st Century (Paris: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1997).

⁷³Bishwapriya Sanyal, Cooperative Autonomy: The Dialectic of the State-NGOs Relationship in Developing Countries (Geneva: International Institute for Labour Studies, 1994). Thomas G. Weiss and Leon Gordenker (eds.), NGOs, theUnited Nations, and Global Governance (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1996). David Potter (ed.), NGOs and Environmental Policies: Asia and Africa (London: F. Cass, 1996); Richard W. Timm (ed.), Indonesia Asian Workshop : From Assistance to Partnership in Self-Reliance (Aachen, Germany: Misereor, 1993); R.B. Jain (ed.) NGOs in Development Perspective (Delhi: Vivek Prakashan, 1995); / John Farrington, Anthony Bebbington, Kate Wellard, David J. Lewis, Reluctant partners?: Non-Governmental Organizations, the State and Sustainable Agricultural Development (London: Routledge, 1993).

⁷⁴For a discussion of this phenomena see Jude Fernando's "Credit and Empowerment of Women: NGO Performances in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka," which was presented at The Silver Anniversary Conference, of the Association For Research on Non-profit Organizations and Voluntary Action on November 7-9, 1996.

⁷⁵By centralization I mean the increasing and over whelming control of state power in an ever increasing number of areas in society. Domestication refers to the legitimazation of state practices.

⁷⁶There is much confusion as to the actual exact of tribal populations in Bangladesh. C. Maloney in "Tribes of Bangladesh and Synthesis of Bangladesh Culture" documentes 36 tribes in Bangladesh. The government after 1947 never made any attempt to take a census of tribal people on the basis of language or religion. Generally, tribal groups belong six linguistic categories, Indo-Aryan; Dravidian; Austro-Asiatic or Mon-Khmer (this includes Khasi and Munda), Tibeto-Burmese (i.e., Kubi-Chin), and Bara languages.

⁷⁷The term nokma refers to land or the house, which are inseparable for the Garo.

⁷⁸For details on the Garo's social, cultural, and economic organization please refer to Robbins Burling, Rengsanggri: Family and Kinship in a Garo Village (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1963) and Kibriual Khaleque, Social Change Among the Garo: A Study of a Plain Village and the People, (Australian National University: Canberra (unpublished masters thesis in anthropology).

⁷⁹Apart from direct economic benefits, ownership of property has a significant impact on the ideologies and practices shaping relationships between groups (e.g. majority and minority groups) and within groups (e.g. class, gender and social status). For example, both propertied and propertiless households may espouse the ideology of female seclusion, but the former group may be in a better position to enforce its practice, and in doing so reinforce its emulation by unpropertied houses as a mark of social status. These may be enforced by external agencies such as the State and customary institutions within a given community. In some cases ownership of land may be merely a legal or customary matter which is not effectively enforced. The benefits associated with property for a social group or individual stems not from ownership alone, but also from effective control over it. Effective control is a result of ideologies that shape relations between social groups (e.g. nationalism, ethnicity, and religion) and between members within a given group (e.g. patriarchy, age, and marital status). What I am interested in this paper is the effective control of property, that is not just rights given by law or custom but in practices of everyday life which control of property as a basis for social and economic equality between different social groups. For more information on ownership and control of land and natural resources by women see, Bina Agrawal, "Rural Women, Poverty, and Struggle for Change," Economic and Political Weekly 28(10): 46-65, and Cold Hearths and Barren Slopes: The Wonderful Crisis in the Third World (London: Zed Books, 1986).

⁸⁰Access and ownership of property is not a sufficient condition for equal distribution of power relations between men and women. One needs to take into account the control of property. My study into the later aspect has shown that it has led to undermining of women's bargaining power vis-a-vis men and also led to social differentiation of the community along class lines. This complex interplay between gender and class in relation to dynamics of ownership and control of property is crucial for a sound inquiry of the Garo community. In this paper I have truncated my discussion of this very important aspect of Garo life because of limitations of space. I have examined this matter in some detail during my field research. For further information please refer to Bina Agarwal, "Gender and Command Over Property: A Critical Gap in Economic Analysis and Policy in South Asia," World Development 22: 145- 78, and "The Gender and Environmental Debate: Lessons from India," Feminist Studies 18(1): 119-58.

⁸¹Polygamy and divorce were institutionalized as "sins" and taboos, yet marriage remains exogamous and matrilocal. The ownership and secession of property also continues along the lines of the matrilineal tradition.

⁸²The priesthood continues be remains in the hands of men, despite the celebration of matrilineality by the missionaries and women's leadership in Church activities .

⁸³Biharis migrated to Bangladesh after Partition. After the creation of Bangladesh they were not accepted into Pakistan and the Bangladesh Government is yet to recognize them as citizens. Perhaps, Biharis are one of the most marginalized groups who do not receive much attention even by the NGOs.

⁸⁴More over, Bengali is the medium of education and the use of the vernacular is limited to the domestic and social spheres, and unless it is incorporated into the educational process the extinction of Garo language could happen within a short period of time.

⁸⁵This fact is noted in Willem Van Schendel, "The invention of the `Jummas:' State Formation and Ethnicity in Southeastern Bangladesh in Bengal," Sekhar Bandyopadhyay (ed.), Communities, Development, and States (Dhaka: University Press Limited, 1995), 135-173.

⁸⁶There are significant continuities of policies toward tribals between the Colonial State and the post-Colonial State. For a detailed discussion on this colonial predicament see, Jude Fernando's "A Story of Nationalism and a Tragedy of A Forest," a paper given at the 12th Annual Berkeley Conference of Asian Studies on February 16th, 1997.

⁸⁷The Study conducted by BRAC/The Net, found that in one Thana 75% of the "enemy property" was false or wrongfully declared.

⁸⁸For many years religious figures and journalists (i.e., Fr. R.W. Timm (of CARITAS), Fr. E. Homric (of Pirigachcha Parish, Madhupur), and Philip Gain and Shishir Moral (the editors of the Earth Watch) have documented the details of human rights violations in Garo areas.

⁸⁹I would argue that the Islamization of the Bangladeshi state and society is not so much due to the pressure of the Islamic fundmentalist political parties such as Jamaat-i-islami, but a result of mainstream political parties competing to use religion as a source of legitimizing their respective claims.

⁹⁰It should be noted that since independence Islamic "fundementalist" political parties performed poorly in the local government and national elections in Bangladesh.

⁹¹First under the British and Second under the Pakistani Government.

⁹²In 1975, President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in response in his address to tribals in Rangamati, "addressed the tribals as brethren and told them to become Bengalis, to forget the colonial past and join the main stream of Bengali Culture." This plea was rejected by tribals in the Chitagong Hill tracts. For more information please see Kazi Montu, "Tribal Insurgency in Chittagong Hill Tracts," Economic and Political Weekly 6 (September).

⁹³For details on Chakma rebellion see A.B. Chakma, "Looking back from exile: A Chakma Experience," in Wolfgang Mey (ed.), They are Now Burning (Amsterdam: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, 1984), and Willem Van Schendel, "The Invention of the `Jummas': State Formation and Ethnicity in South Eastern Bangladesh" in Sekhar Bandhyopadhyay (ed.), Communities, Development and States, (Dhaka: University Press Limited, 1995), 135-173.

⁹⁴Some possible reasons for the positive responses of the Garo are international pressures exerted by NGOs and the proximity of Bangladesh to the Indian State of Assam where a large percentage of Garo live. Garo still continue to maintain relations across the border. Those involved in 1975 rebellion were in exile in Assam.

⁹⁵Paradoxically, a substantial number of Bengali Muslims voted for a Garo candidate. This is because of a combination of three factors: the convergence of interests between Garos and landless Bengalis, alliance between elite groups within Bengali and Garo community, and the result of change of political power from one party to another. It is difficult to know which one of these factors play a dominant role in shaping Garo relationship with the State and the Bengalis.

⁹⁶The discourse on SD encompasses biological, economic and social systems, and it is aimed at the construction of alternative development styles based on economic decentralization, ecologically sustainable production, and political pluralism. Driven by the principles of participatory management, rights of marginalized groups, a reappraisal of "productivist" approaches to development, and aesthetic values of nature SD claims to defend the autonomy of diverse eco-social groups, differences in their economic cultural and political practices, and options against totalitarian and universal demands placed on them. Especially, SD promises to create the material and social conditions necessary to generate a potential political force to address concerns of marginalized groups. See the following texts: Andre Gorz, Ecology as Politics (London: Pluto Press, 1983) and Capitalism, Socialism and Ecology (London: Verso, 1994); Rudolph Bharo, Socialism and Survival (London: Heretic, 1982), Edward Barbier, "The Concept of Sustainable Economic," Environmental Conservation 14: 101-10; and Robert Goodland and George Ledec, "Neo-classical Economics and Principles of Sustainable Development," Ecological Modeling 38: 19-46.

⁹⁷The Forest Department, in 1981 implemented Community Forestry from an ADB loan and a grant from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

⁹⁸The annual deforestation in Bangladesh is 3.8%, 0.6% in South Asia. See Philip Gain, Shishir Moral, and Canton Rozario, Impact of Commercial Fuel Wood Plantation on Forest Communities and Environment in the Madhupur Forest (Dhaka: Society For Environment and Human Development, 1994), p. 6.

¹⁰⁰Jeremy Cooper, "The Garo of Bangladesh: A Forest people's Struggle to Survive," Ethnic and Racial Studies 15: 85- 101.

¹⁰¹Abdul Hannan, Final Report of the Policy Analyst Including a Draft Agro-forestry Policy, December 1994, p.12

¹⁰²Ministry of Agriculture, Participatory Forestry In Bangladesh: Concepts, Experiences And Recommendations (Dhaka: Ministry of Agriculture, 1987), 49-50.

¹⁰³Kibriaul Khaleque, Prospects of Social Policy in the Garo Villages of Madhupur (Dhaka: Department of Sociology at the University of Dhaka, 1984).

¹⁰⁴According to annual report for 1991 its loans to Bangladesh was $3.21 billion and the private sector industries got $13.36 million. Agriculture and Agricultural sector received 36 loans amounting to $1,468.54 million or 46% of the total. According to R.W. Timm in an unpublished paper, the ADB's strategy in Bangladesh focuses on three priority areas (1) economic growth by promoting the private sector, (2) improving people's to employment opportunities, (3) environmental protection through natural resource management, and (4)increasing the institutional capacity of the Forest department. Philip Gain, "An Interview with the Chief of the ADB office of Environment, Dr. Kazi F. Jalal," Earth Watch 1 (May 1995): 34.

¹⁰⁶Woodlot refers to growing of softwood for trees for fuel wood and agro-forestry refers to growing of hard wood for commercial purposes. In both projects (1) trees and crop species were chosen by the FD to meet their objectives, not the objectives of the local residents, (2) the agreement was drafted without consultation of the local residents, (3) in most cases the participant were given the opportunity to share profit, not security of land tenure. See Kibriaul Khaleque, Prospects of Social Policy in the Garo Villages of Madhupur (Dhaka: Department of Sociology at the University of Dhaka, 1984), p. 75.

¹⁰⁷"Forest, Forest People and Forest Culture," Earth Watch 1 (May 1995): 25.

¹⁰⁸"Madhupur Tract: Assurance and Denial," Earth Watch 1 (May 1995): 19.

¹⁰⁹It should also be noted that in areas where the Bengalis are settled, the land has been cleared leaving no trace of natural forest and is mostly used for paddy cultivation. In contrast, Garo houses, paddy, and pineapple plots are not in land entirely cleared of trees and their cultivation practices are an indigenous method of agro-forestry.

¹¹⁰For a further analysis of the politics of local government reforms see Florence McCarthy, "Upazila-Level Development in Bangladesh"(Cornell University unpublished paper, 1987), Pp. 7-10; Atiur Rhaman, "Rural Power Structure--A Study of Union Parishad Leaders in Bangladesh," Journal of Social Studies (November 1990).

¹¹¹This term is used in the contract between the Ministry of Agriculture, Forest Division and Proshika Manobik Unnayan Kendra, especially p. 1.

¹¹²Abdul Hannan, Final Report of the Policy Analyst including a Draft Agro-forestry Policy, December 1994, Pp. 9-10.

¹¹³R.W. Timm, "The Adivasis of Bangladesh," Minority Rights International: (December 1991): 26.

¹¹⁴See Robert Mitchel's appraisal on January 1994 on the "Proshika Manobik Unnayan Kendra, Bangladesh", Phase V (July 1994-June 1999), especially p. 136.

¹¹⁵In 1977 and 1978 CARITAS (a leading member of the ADAB) legal aid program enabled Garo to recover 458.5 acres of land involving 1092 court cases. The government without giving any reasons stopped this legal aid project. See R.W. Timm, 1991, p. 26.

¹¹⁶Aturo Escobar, "Discourse and Power in Development: Micheal Foucault and the Relevance of his work to the Third World," Alternatives X: 338.

¹¹⁷ There is high preference for Garo women as domestic servants among the expatriates in Bangladesh as they consider Garo women are more "trust worthy" and "educated" compared to the Bengali Women.

¹¹⁹Here I am referring to the positions taken by eco-feminists such as Vandana Shiva and Maria Mies whose romantic idealization seem to legitimize the extremists nationalist parties policies toward the ethnic minorities. Shiva locates notion of "feminine principle" in Hindu Cosmology's meanings of life-giving force. The issue needs to be raised that to what extent this essentialism is different from the ideologies of "fundamentalist" groups. See Vandana Shiva, Staying Alive: Ecology and Development (London: Zed Books, 1989), and Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva, Ecofeminism (London: Zed Books, 1993).

¹²⁰See, for instance, Meredith Borthwick, The Changing Role of Women in Bengal, 1849-1905 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984) and Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial Masculinity: The "manly Englishman" and "effeminate Bengali" in the Nineteenth Century (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995).

¹²¹Eighteen sixty-six was, incidentally, the year the first novel by a Bengali woman was published.

¹²²See Lata Mani, "Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India" in K. Sangari and S.

Vaid (eds.), Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1989).

¹²³See Barbara Metcalf, "Reading and Writing about Muslim Women in British India," in Zoya Hasan (ed.), Forging Identities: Gender, Communities and State (New Delhi: Kali For Women, 1994), p. 2.