Strengthening relationships between Indigenous communities and majority group in Bangladesh

When Marina Hasda, an Indigenous Mahali woman, goes to get her morning tea at an outdoor teashop near her village office a few miles from Rajshahi, Bangladesh, she knows her tea will come in a cup that is marked to be used by Indigenous people only.

Other women or men who are part of the majority Bengali people will get their tea in an unmarked teacup. By using only the Indigenous cup for Hasda, the shopkeeper shows his disdain for her ethnicity.

“In previous times, when we went to the teashop to get tea, the shop owner and the majority community people would become angry,” says Hasda, who is the executive director of MAASAUS, an Indigenous nonprofit organization that serves ethnic minorities in northwest Bangladesh. “Sometimes they would say, ‘Why do you come to this shop? For you, we cannot give a cup.’’

“Now, the shop owner does not show anger directly. Now, at least, we have a separate cup, but there is a cup. In the future, I hope there will be the same cup for us. I don’t know how long it will take.”

Hasda’s goal with MAASAUS, a Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) partner, is to empower Indigenous groups and decrease discrimination against them. She believes this can happen by encouraging understanding among all the religious and ethnic groups in her community.

Bangladesh’s indigenous ethnic groups are a small minority, about 1% of the entire population of 172 million people. Ethnic Bengalis make up the rest, more than 90% of whom are Muslim. About 8% of the country is Hindu. Christians in Bangladesh — Bengali and Indigenous — number about 0.3% of the total population, while indigenous people in the Rajshahi area are primarily Christian.

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Hasda believes that the majority and minority people in the Rajshahi community can become more cohesive.

“If the community people learn about each other, they will come together,” Hasda says. “It will be easier to work for peacebuilding. If they do come together, slowly discrimination will decrease.”

To encourage understanding, MAASAUS conducts workshops and trainings for community leaders who are interested in exploring cultural differences. Peacebuilding classes for other adults include a popular anger management topic.

“We all have this feeling – anger,” Hasda says. “If we are able to manage this anger, we will be able to live in peace in our families. This is attracting people. If we go there, we can learn this.”

Teenagers of different faiths also gather at MAASAUS peacebuilding trainings, where they learn about conflict and anger management, feelings, diversity and their value as human beings. Some of the teens take advanced training and become youth facilitators who teach community children similar concepts.

Adhapok Nojibor Rahman Girls High School is one place where MAASAUS’s training is helping teenage students of different religions strengthen their empathy and acceptance of each other, teachers say.

On an October morning in 2023, about 20 eighth and ninth graders gather outside for the monthly extracurricular peacebuilding class they chose to attend. The girls circle around a colorful playground parachute after listening to a short session about feelings.

Instructor Marestella Mardi asks them to say what brings them joy. One student says she feels joy when she visits an interesting place; another says that visitors bring her joy. To affirm each answer, the group lifts the parachute high in the air, filling it with air, before bringing it back down.

Later they break up into groups and roleplay situations that bring joy, fear, sadness and anger without using words. This activity leads to discussion about the importance of understanding your feelings and those of others.

If the girls can recognize feelings in themselves and learn to care for their own emotional well-being, they can learn to care for others, says Bilon Ruga, MCC’s peacebuilding coordinator in Bangladesh. “When we are taking care of each other, then it builds peace.”

Dalim Hossain, a Muslim teen who completed MAASAUS’S peacebuilding training, says the primary message he internalized is that as human beings, we should help our neighbors.

“When any person, regardless of their religion, falls into a problem, we should not think what religion he is from,” he says. “We should think he is a human being, so we should help him or her.”

He put his learning into action when a MAASAUS activity director asked him to give blood to a person in the hospital. The director knew he had A positive blood because Hossain’s group of youth facilitators gave blood during their training.

When Hossain arrived at the hospital, he realized the person who needed his blood was a Christian woman, who had recently given birth. He decided it didn’t matter which religion she was, so he gave blood.

Although the woman and her husband were very grateful, Hossain says people in the community criticized him for giving blood to a Christian. “I tried to make them understand that they (Christians) are also human beings, so we should help them.”

He’s not sure he’s changing the perspective of community members, but his mother’s attitude is different, he says. “At the beginning, she also was angry. I was able to make her understand that it is a good work, and I need to donate blood for others. My mother now encourages me, ‘If anyone needs help, you can help them.’”

MCC Bangladesh representative Gregory Vanderbilt refers to Matthew 5:9 (NRSV) – “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” – when he thinks about the young people who commit to working for peace in their communities.

“I often tell the youth that the way of peacebuilders—the ones Jesus says will be recognized as the children of God in all their diversity— is hard, but it is joyful because we go together,” he says.

Support for MAASAUS is growing, Hasda says, since the organization began in 2000. In the beginning, MAASAUS staff had to go into the community and persuade people to consider the training. When they held cultural events, MAASAUS searched for an audience.

But gradually, people who have benefitted from the trainings tell their friends. Now MAASAUS needs to cap the number of people who attend trainings or festivals, such as International Peace Day and International Indigenous Days.

Last October, MAASAUS sponsored a social harmony day, which brought a crowd of Bengali, Hindu and Indigenous people to watch their teenagers put on a show. Young women in brightly colored dresses performed dances from their own cultures and each others’ cultures, with intricate footwork and delicate hand and body movements. (link opens new window)

Other youth acted out a scene similar to the Good Samaritan story in the Bible to illustrate kindness. They sang songs about peace. They performed a skit contrasting farmers who treat their workers harshly with those who give their workers food and water to address justice issues.

As the youth learn and put on events together, they are increasingly comfortable bringing their friendships into each other’s homes. Joya Murmu, an Indigenous Christian says, she used to be hesitant to socialize with people outside her ethnic group.

Now, through MAASAUS and with the encouragement of her open-minded father, she has friends of all religions, who regularly visit in each other’s homes.

Murmu and her friend Shahadat “Johnny” Hossen, both youth facilitators, have their sights set on changing their community from the top down. “If we could work with the social leaders as they lead the society or community, it would be possible to decrease the discrimination in the community,” says Hossen.

He and Murmu picture themselves becoming community leaders eventually. Maybe then, everyone will use the same teacups.