Silence in the Courtroom: How Language Excludes Bangladesh’s Indigenous People from Justice

Guest post by Galib Mahmud Pasha. Galib is a civil servant in the Government of Bangladesh and currently pursuing a Master of Environment at the Australian National University. His research interests lie in policy, governance, migration, legal anthropology, and environmental justice in South and Southeast Asia.

Dipesh Chakrabarty once recalled that when he was a child in a colonial classroom, he felt an urgent need to urinate. However, he could not ask for permission in English, as the only language he could speak at that time was Bangla. For this reason, terrified of exposing his Bengali tongue, he remained silent until his trousers were wet. In that moment, the body registered what the mind already knew: to live under a foreign language is to live under the constant threat of humiliation. That private humiliation in a colonial classroom echoes a wider reality that many Indigenous people in Bangladesh still face, including in court. Although the term “Indigenous” remains politically contested, it is commonly used to refer to communities such as the Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Mro and Santal, whose languages and institutions long predate the modern state. 

Many live in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, while others live in the plains, but across these settings the same problem persists once a dispute enters the formal judiciary: justice proceeds in Bangla and often English. While colonial rule has formally ended, its legal afterlife persists. When justice is conducted in a language Indigenous people cannot speak, silence becomes structural rather than accidental. This legal pluralism is reflected in the law itself: most citizens in Bangladesh are governed by the general state legal system, including the Penal Code 1860, the Code of Criminal Procedure 1898, and the Code of Civil Procedure 1908, while Indigenous communities in the Chittagong Hill Tracts navigate both customary institutions and the formal judiciary. This means the Bangla-speaking majority can move through the state legal system without facing the same linguistic barrier. 

In theory, this pluralism acknowledges cultural diversity, but in practice, it generates structural barriers. All the proceedings in mainstream courts are conducted in Bangla and often in technical English. Even many native Bengali speakers struggle with the dense judicial lexicon; for Indigenous peoples, whose own languages have no legal status, comprehension is almost impossible. Without interpreters, bilingual judges, or advocates, the promises of equality before the law collapse into procedural exclusion. Bangladesh’s legal order makes space for plural institutions, yet its formal courts still operate monolingually, excluding many Indigenous people from meaningful access to justice.

An incomprehensible system

Bangladesh is often described as a diverse country, home to more than fifty Indigenous communities, including the Chakma, Marma, Santal, Khasi, Mro and Tripura, among many others. However, the term ‘Indigenous’ remains politically contested. Official language instead prefers terms such as ‘tribal’ or ‘small ethnic groups,’ avoiding a label that implies collective rights, even though many of these communities speak their own mother tongues and maintain customs and legal traditions. In 1972, soon after independence, Bangladesh ratified the ILO Indigenous and Tribal Populations Convention, 1957 (No. 107). Later, it declined to ratify the more progressive ILO Convention No. 169 of 1989, which differs from its predecessor in its integrationist orientation and affirms more decisive rights to land and language. 

The Constitution of Bangladesh reflects a similar ambivalence. Article 3, forged in the aftermath of the 1952 Language Movement, preserves Bangla as the sole state language, a significant identification of national identity, but one that simultaneously entrenches the exclusion of minority tongues. Article 23A promises to preserve the cultures of "tribes, minor races, and ethnic sects" despite not recognising their languages or institutions in law. In the document, Article 27 promises equality before the law, and Article 31 the inalienable right to protection of law. In practice, those assurances operate through a legal system many Indigenous citizens cannot fully understand. 

This is most visible in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, where communities speak languages such as Chakma, Marma, Tripura and Mro, yet none carries meaningful standing in court. Previously, British colonial officials separated the area from the plains in 1860 and codified its special status through the Chittagong Hill Tracts Regulation, 1900. Under the 1900 Regulation, once administration and justice were combined, the Deputy Commissioner acted as judge, appeals lay with the Divisional Commissioner, lawyers were prohibited, and the High Court exercised no oversight. Simultaneously, it acknowledged customary institutions, the rajas, mouza headmen, and village karbaris who continued to resolve disputes according to customary law. Reforms since independence have layered complexity into this hybrid system. 

Although judicial reform in the Chittagong Hill Tracts has transferred formal authority from administrators to the regular judiciary, legal duality persists. Criminal matters now proceed through the state court system, while many local disputes continue to be addressed through customary institutions under the Chittagong Hill Tracts Regulation of 1900. Rule 40 still allows chiefs and headmen to hear certain minor disputes, often in Indigenous languages and without lawyers, making these forums the most accessible site of justice for many Indigenous families. 

However, when the stakes are high—especially in cases involving rape, murder, land disputes, or conflict with Bengali settlers – customary justice gives way to the formal courts. There, proceedings run in Bangla and often English, leaving many Indigenous litigants reliant on lawyers and court officials they may not fully understand. Although reliable court-wide statistics on interpreters or Indigenous legal representation are scarce, this exclusion remains difficult to reconcile with Articles 27 and 31 of the Constitution of Bangladesh and Article 14(3)(f) of the ICCPR.

Structural injustices

 David Graeber once noted that officials in Madagascar shifted into French when explanation gave way to command. A similar hierarchy shadows Bangladesh’s legal order. Bangla and English carry the authority of the state, while Indigenous languages remain outside the courtroom. As Pierre Bourdieu argues, law does not operate through rules alone, but through a juridical field shaped by linguistic and symbolic power. In the Chittagong Hill Tracts, this helps explain why customary institutions may remain visible, yet the decisive language of law still belongs to the state. Courtrooms and scripting justice in a language many neither understand nor trust.

In Rangamati district, a rape case was initially brought to the karbari shalish for a local mediation process, where victims could speak freely. But the matter was reduced to a token settlement of 2000 Taka (about £12), a sum that hardly suggests adequate redress for a serious sexual offence. A similar case in Giptoli union was reportedly resolved through compensation rather than criminal accountability. Such outcomes reflect a broader pattern: local mechanisms may be linguistically accessible, but they can still fail to deliver justice in serious offences, especially where rape is reduced to compensation or informal settlement. Furthermore, when disputes involve Bengali settlers or serious offences, they rarely remain in Indigenous hands and instead shift to Bangla-only state courts, where victims face silence and exclusion. 

For many Indigenous people, entering court in a language they do not speak often reflects delay, dismissal, or retaliation. Moreover, silence is often discerned as safer than seeking justice, as exclusion is not incidental to the system, but rather the mechanism that sustains it. Courts may be formally open to all, but they are accessible only to Bangla and English speakers. In Graeber’s terms, the courtroom becomes a “language of command” where Bangla speaks, and Indigenous peoples are rendered silent.

For Indigenous people in Bangladesh’s courts, silence is not a choice but the structure of the system itself. Foucault reminds us that governing begins with making populations legible, and in Bangladesh, legibility means using the Bangla language. In the Chittagong Hill Tracts, governmentality operates through linguistic domination in the courtroom. It functions to suppress pluralism and enforce obedience, silencing diverse voices. Until Indigenous tongues are treated not as folklore but as languages of law, the courtroom will remain less a forum of justice than a sanctuary of command.

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