PEOPLE OF BANGLADESH
Bangladesh is the world's eight most populous nation, with about 160 million to 170 million people, and the most densely populated large country in the world, with 1,260 people per square kilometer (3,315 people per square mile). There were 128,095,000 people in Bangladesh in 1995, and the population density at that time was 836 people per square kilometers (2,236 people per square mile). About 38.2 percent of all Bangladeshis lives in urban areas — double the figure of the mid 1990s — and most of the remaining people live in small agricultural villages in rural rice-growing area. Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, has grown enormously in recent decades to become a "megacity". The greater Dhaka area is home to over 18 million, about 15 percent of Bangladesh’s population.
Great strides have been made in family planning and now the population is only growing at the rate of about one percent a year as women are having an average of two children, compared 6.8 per woman in 1965 to around 3 per woman in 1999. The average life expectancy 72.3 years, compared to 56 years in the 1990s. About 26.5 percent of all Bangladeshis are under 15. About 6.8 percent are over 65.
The people of Bangladesh are called Bangladeshis. The majority of them are Bengalis (Bangalis or Bangalees), which are defined as speakers of the Bengali (Bangla) language. They live in the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent, which is divided between India and Bangladesh. Bengalis can also be found in Calcutta and eastern India. They make up 98 percent of the population of Bangladesh.Other groups found in Bangladesh include the Bihari and a million members of tribal groups that live in the eastern frontier regions near Mynamar and Assam (India) and hilly regions of Sylhet, Mymenshingh, Rangmati, Khagrachari and Bandarban.
Ethnic Groups in Bangladesh
More than 98 percent of the people in Bangladesh are Bengalis (or Banglas). Other indigenous ethnic groups make up around 1.1 percent (2011 estimated) of the population. Bangladesh's government recognizes 27 indigenous ethnic groups under the 2010 Cultural Institution for Small Anthropological Groups Act; other sources estimate there are about 75 ethnic groups; critics of the 2011 census claim that it underestimates the size of Bangladesh's ethnic population [Source: CIA World Factbook, 2020]
There are about 12 major tribes inhabiting the Chittagong Hill Tracts who are ethnically distinct from the Bengalis. Collectively, they total about one million people, Their facial features and language are closer to the Burmese. About 250,000 inhabitants of Bangladesh are Biharis, non-Bengali Muslims who migrated from India to what was then East Pakistan. In the coastal areas of Bangladesh, Arab, Portuguese, and Dutch settlers adopted the Bengali lifestyle and mixed with . [Source: Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations, Thomson Gale, 2007]
Bangladesh is much more homogenous than West Bengal. Only one percent of the population identify themselves as non-Bengalis. These non-Bengalis are mostly tribal people who speak Tibeto-Burman languages and who live in the border regions of the country. Tribal groups can be found in the eastern frontier regions near Mynamar and Assam (India) and hilly regions of Sylhet, Mymenshingh, Rangmati, Khagrachari and Bandarban. Their facial features and language are closer to people living in Myanmar.
Biharis are primarily the descendants of Urdu-speaking non-Bengali Muslim refugees from Bihar and other parts of northern India. They numbered about 1 million in 1971 but had decreased to around 600,000 by the late 1980s. They once dominated the upper levels of Bengali society. Many also held jobs on the railroads and in heavy industry. As such they stood to lose from Bangladesh independence and sided with Pakistan during the 1971 war. Hundreds of thousands of Biharis were repatriated to Pakistan after the war. [Source: James Heitzman and Robert Worden, Library of Congress, 1989]
Cultural Mix in Bangladesh
According to “Countries of the World and Their Leaders”: The area that is now Bangladesh has a rich historical and cultural past, combining Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, Mongol/Mughul, Arab, Persian, Turkic, and west European cultures. Most Bangladeshis (about 88.3 percent) are Muslims, but Hindus constitute a sizable (10.5 percent) minority. There also are a small number of Buddhists, Christians, and animists. Sufi religious teachers succeeded in converting many Bengalis to Islam, even before the arrival of Muslim armies from the west. About 1200 AD, Muslim invaders established political control over the Bengal region. This political control also encouraged conversion to Islam. Since then, Islam has played a crucial role in the region's history and politics, with a Muslim majority emerging, particularly in the eastern region of Bengal.” [Source: “Countries of the World and Their Leaders Yearbook” 2009]
According to “Cities of the World”: “The great majority of the Bangladeshis are of mixed Aryan-Dravidian stock; however, many families can also track their ancestors back to the Middle East and central Asia. These Bengalis inhabit most of the broad plains of Bangladesh. The original tribal people, with less than 1 percent of the population, migrated hundreds of years ago from Burma, Thailand, Assam, and other areas in Southeast Asia. They possess oriental features and live mainly in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and along the northern borders of the Dinajpur, Mymensingh, and Sylhet Districts. [Source:“Cities of the World” , The Gale Group Inc. 2002]
The first inhabitants of Bangladesh were thought to be short, curly haired proto-Australoids and proto-Mongoloids from the lower Himalayas. Stone Age tools found in Bangladesh indicate human habitation at least 20,000 years ago. Archaeologists have discovered relics in West Bengal that as old those found at Mohenjadro and Harappa from the Indus Valley civilization that dates to 3000 to 1500 B.C. Remnants of Copper Age settlements date back ro 2000 B.C.
Ancient Bengal was settled by Austroasiatics, Tibeto-Burmans, Dravidians and Indo-Aryans in consecutive waves of migration. Historians believe that Bengal, the area comprising present-day Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, was settled in about 1000 B.C. by Dravidian-speaking peoples who were later known as the Bang. Their homeland bore various titles that reflected earlier tribal names, such as Vanga, Banga, Bangala, Bangal, and Bengal.
Indo-Aryans who came from central Asia and followed the Ganges invaded what is now Bangladesh in the 5th and 6th century B.C. The Aryan invaders spoke and Indo-European languages, which provide the basis for all the languages in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh as well as English, French and Spanish. The Ayrans intermarried with the local population. Aryan society was led by a warrior aristocracy whose legendary deeds are recorded in Rig Veda. Dravidian immigrants from southeastern India arrived in Bangladesh around the same time as the Aryans. People also migrated from Tibet and Burma.
Bengalis
Bengalis are defined as speakers of the Bengali (Bangla) language and live in the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent, which is divided between India and Bangladesh. Most live in West Bengal, a state of India, and Bangladesh. They are also known as the Bangali and used to be known as the Bengalese and Baboo. Bengali is an anglicization of Bangli, the name that the Bengali’s call themselves. [Source: Most of the information for this articles comes from the Encyclopedia of World Cultures: South Asia, edited by Paul Hockings, C.K. Hall & Company, 1992]
The Bengalis are the second largest Muslim ethnic group in the world following the Arabs. There are both Muslim and Hindu Bengalis but the vast majority are Muslims.
Bengali speakers make up 85 percent of the population of West Bengal/ . Most of the non-Bengalis are from other parts of India, living in Calcutta. Only about 56 percent of Calcutta's 11 million people are Bengalis. Most signs and advertisements are written in English and Hindi, not Bengali. There are significant numbers of tribals living on rural West Bengal.
There are around 250 million Bengalis worldwide, Most are in West Bengal (with a population of 91 million in 2011) and Bangladesh (with a population of 161 million in 2013). There are several million in Assam , Bihar and Tripura states and several hundred thousand in Orissa and Meghalaya. There are also large numbers n the United States, Canada and Britain. There are lots of Bengalis in the Jackson Heights, Queens, New York.
Bangladeshi and Bengali Physical Characteristics
Bangladeshis look like Indians and have a reputation of being courteous and friendly and hospitable towards foreigners. Bengalis tend to be small and dark. Susan Hab wrote in the Washington Post, Bengali women have "regal features and carriages, creamy skin, dark flashing eyes and long blue-black hair worn in a bun and often wrapped with flowers or adorned with silver ornaments.
According to “World Press Encyclopedia”: “Despite the religious affinity with the Islamic world, culturally Bangladeshis feel closer to the speakers of the Bengali language in the Indian part of Bengal, sharing with them the rich cultural traditions manifested in literature, music and the arts. The press and media reflect such a love among the citizens of Bangladesh and regularly publish special articles and features on Bengali culture. [Source: “World Press Encyclopedia”, The Gale Group Inc., 2003]
Describing the working people of Bangladesh in the 1970s, William Ellis wrote in National Geographic, "The average male Bengali is short, with dark skin stretched over a slight frame. But his tolerance for arduous labor is that of a giant. nearly blinded by sweat, he pedals a pedicab with as many as four passengers in 104-degree heat. As a laborer he works 12 at a stretch, carrying bricks and other building materials on his head. He will pay with his hearing for having spent most of his lifetime in a jute mill, where a thousand automatic looms clank forth a ceaseless din.” [Source: William Ellis, National Geographic, September 1972]
Bengali and Bangladeshi Identity
Bangladesh is noted for the ethnic homogeneity of its population. Over 98 percent of the people are Bengalis, predominantly Bangla-speaking peoples. People speaking Arabic, Persian, and Turkic languages also have contributed to the ethnic characteristics of the region.
A member of the Indo-European family of languages, Bangla (sometimes called Bengali) is the official language of Bangladesh. Bangladeshis closely identify themselves with their national language. Bangla has a rich cultural heritage in literature, music, and poetry, and at least two Bengali poets are well known in the West: Rabindranath Tagore, a Hindu and a Nobel laureate; and Kazi Nazrul Islam, a Muslim known as the "voice of Bengali nationalism and independence." Bangla has been enriched by several regional dialects. The dialects of Sylhet, Chittagong, and Noakhali have been strongly marked by Arab-Persian influences. English, whose cultural influence seemed to have crested by the late 1980s, remained nonetheless an important language in Bangladesh. [Source: James Heitzman and Robert Worden, Library of Congress, 1989 *]
Since independence in 1971, a national identity has evolved that goes beyond its Bengali origins and digs deeper into its Muslim roots. Islamic religious identity has become increasingly important. Islamic holy days are nationally celebrated, and Islam pervades public space and the media.
According to “Countries and Their Cultures”: “Bangladeshi national identity is rooted in a Bengali culture that transcends international borders and includes the area of Bangladesh itself and West Bengal, India. Symbolically, Bangladeshi identity is centered on the 1971 struggle for independence from Pakistan. During that struggle, the key elements of Bangladeshi identity coalesced around the importance of the Bengali mother tongue and the distinctiveness of a culture or way of life connected to the floodplains of the region. Since that time, national identity has become increasingly linked to Islamic symbols as opposed to the Hindu Bengali, a fact that serves to reinforce the difference between Hindu West Bengal and Islamic Bangladesh. Being Bangladeshi in some sense means feeling connected to the natural land–water systems of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and other rivers that drain into the Bay of Bengal. There is an envisioning of nature and the annual cycle as intensely beautiful, as deep green paddy turns golden, dark clouds heavy with monsoon rains gradually clear, and flooded fields dry. Even urban families retain a sense of connectedness to this rural system. The great poets of the region, Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nurul Islam have enshrined the Bengali sense of the beauty and power of the region's nature. [Source: “Countries and Their Cultures”, The Gale Group Inc., 2001]
Character of Bangladeshi People
Bangladeshis have been described as gracious, polite, and adaptable. They keep high spirits under the most adverse conditions. According to “Cities of the World”: “The people of Bangladesh are friendly. Crowds are everywhere. The vast numbers of people sometimes overwhelm a newcomer. The tradition of secluding women creates a largely male population to be seen on the streets and in the marketplace in older sections of Dhaka and the villages. With the expanding garment industry, however, more women are working and in public view. [Source: “Cities of the World” , The Gale Group Inc. 2002]
People in Bangladesh can be poor but still have some dignity because so many are in the same boat. Bangladeshis are exceptionally hospitable. They often invite travelers into their homes. Many people are invited to weddings. Some even are asked to give out awards at ceremonies. Despite poverty people are very honest and thoughtful. Its hard to be alone.
One tourist office representative for Bangladesh said, "The Bangladeshi people are the best thing about the country. They talk to you on the street and invite you to their homes for dinner. Nobody leaves Bangladesh without being accommodated by the locals. Bangladeshis simply won’t leave you alone."
World Happiness Report Score: 4.83 (compared to 7.5 in Denmark and 3.3 in Tanzania). Bangladesh ranks 107 out of 153 countries. The ranking is based on a Cantril ladder survey in which respondents in each economic are asked to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10, and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale. [Source: United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network and Wikipedia wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report
In an article on Bangladeshi village life, Kamran Nahar wrote: “Generally they didn’t lie. Stealing or any kind of economic corruption was out of sense, since most of the people were economically solvent and their demands of life were also very limited. With the changing society of near towns and by the influence of western culture, social values and ethics of this area are not only changing fast, but also degrading with a great tension... People don’t mind to be rich by corruption, rather the society bows to him since his pocket is heavy with money. Strangely they are very sensitive to religious matters. None can tolerate any sarcastic remark or question on any religious beliefs or customs. They consider the disobedience to religious ceremonies as a greater offence than the deviation from ethics. Even if a debauchee prays his five times prayers, people think, whatever he is in his individual life, after all a pious and better than a skeptic or idol-worshiper. They believe in fate blindly, since religion says, man’s fortune is predetermined by Allah and he can’t change his lot. This belief has made them idle and they make their fate responsible for all their sufferings, even regarding economic condition. Once, the surroundings and soiled ways were full of jungles and thickets. [Source: “Bangladesh Culture: A Study of the South Para of Village ‘Silimpur’” by Kamrun Nahar, September 2, 2006]
See Society
Bengali Character
Bengalis love it when attention s focused on their language, culture and achievements. They bristle at criticism of Calcutta. Paul Theroux wrote in the Great Railway Bazaar, "Bengalis were the most alert people I had met in India. But they were also irritable, talkative, dogmatic, arrogant and humorless, holding forth with malicious skill on virtually every subject except the future of Calcutta.”
Bengalis have a reputation for preferring to sit around and talk rather than work. Bengali workers are known for showing up late, going home early and spending much of their time at idly chatting.
The Bengali poet and novelist Sunil Gangopadhyay told the New York Times, "We are an emotional people. We love to create and we love to talk. Some would say we talk to much. Whenever two or three people get together, they stop all work, and begin talking for hours." A bureaucratic from Uttar Pradesh told the New York Times, "If there are 10 Bengalis, there will be 11 opinions. The Bengali may have no food on the table, but he's off arguing somewhere about the Vietnam War or the last book he has read or whether it is a good idea to change every signboard in the city from Calcutta to Kolkata."
People from Calcutta are regarded as friendly, warm and intellectually arrogant. Known throughout India for being frank and informal, they like football, fish curry and arts and literature. A Bengali proverb goes that anger turns men into kings and women into whore.
Tribal People of Bangladesh
Tribal groups in Bangladesh can be found in the eastern frontier regions near Mynamar and Assam (India) and hilly regions of Sylhet, Mymenshingh, Rangmati, Khagrachari and Bandarban. Their facial features and language of these people are closer to people living in Myanmar. The government's policy of resettling Bengalis in the tribal regions, which is much less densely populated than Bangladesh as a whole, has led to racial and religious disturbances and a small-scale tribal insurgencies.
Bangladesh's tribal population consisted of 897,828 persons, just over 1 percent of the total population, at the time of the 1981 census. They lived primarily in the Chittagong Hills and in the regions of Mymensingh, Sylhet, and Rajshahi. The majority of the tribal population (778,425) lived in rural settings, where many practiced shifting cultivation. Most tribal people were of SinoTibetan descent and had distinctive Mongoloid features. They differed in their social organization, marriage customs, birth and death rites, food, and other social customs from the people of the rest of the country. They spoke Tibeto-Burman languages. In the mid-1980s, the percentage distribution of tribal population by religion was Hindu 24, Buddhist 44, Christian 13, and others 19. [Source: James Heitzman and Robert Worden, Library of Congress, 1989 *]
Tribal groups that live outside main tribal regions in the east and northeast parts of the country include Santals in Rajshahi and Dinajpur, and Khasis, Garos, and Khajons in Mymensingh and Sylhet regions. Primarily poor peasants, these people all belonged to groups in the adjoining tribal areas of India.
Four Largest Tribal Groups of Bangladesh
The four largest tribes were the Chakmas, Marmas (or Maghs), Tipperas (or Tipras), and Mros (or Moorangs). The tribes tended to intermingle and could be distinguished from one another more by differences in their dialect, dress, and customs than by tribal cohesion. Only the Chakmas and Marmas displayed formal tribal organization, although all groups contained distinct clans. By far the largest tribe, the Chakmas were of mixed origin but reflected more Bengali influence than any other tribe. Unlike the other tribes, the Chakmas and Marmas generally lived in the highland valleys. Most Chakmas were Buddhists, but some practiced Hinduism or animism.
Of Burmese ancestry, the Marmas regarded Burma as the center of their cultural life. Members of the Marma tribe disliked the more widely used term Maghs, which had come to mean pirates. Although several religions, including Islam, were represented among the Marmas, nearly all of the Marmas were Buddhists.
The Tipperas were nearly all Hindus and accounted for virtually the entire Hindu population of the Chittagong Hills. They had migrated gradually from the northern Chittagong Hills. The northern Tipperas were influenced by Bengali culture. A small southern section known as the Mrungs showed considerably less Bengali influence.
The Mros, considered the original inhabitants of the Chittagong Hills, lived on hilltops and often fortified their villages. They had no written language of their own, but some could read the Burmese and Bangla scripts. Most of them claimed to be Buddhists, but their religious practices were largely animistic.
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, Bangladesh Tourism Board, Bangladesh National Portal (www.bangladesh.gov.bd), The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Wikipedia and various books, websites and other publications.
Last updated February 2022