The last of the Patros
The ethnic minority community called Patro or Laleng, who once reportedly inhabited the entirety of the current Sylhet metropolitan area, are now on the verge of extinction with a population of less than 4,000
As soon as I stepped into the temple premises of Kushirgul village under Sylhet's Shahporan Thana, some 250 km east-north of Dhaka and 42 km from the Bangladesh-India land port in Tamabil, a sharp scent of camphor engulfed my senses.
An extraordinary juxtaposition of events was unfolding before my eyes. While little children were laughing and playfully running around in front of a few fair stalls to commemorate the recently concluded Saraswati Puja, a day-long horinaam and leela sangkirtan (a soiree of devotional singing) was going on a few metres behind. The audience, predominantly elderly women, were lamenting with loud cries and embracing each other.
As I approached them, two women aged around 65 stepped forward. Without allowing me a moment to comprehend the situation, one of them hugged me tightly, continuing to weep for more than two minutes. After finally releasing me, she promptly sat down on the ground and reached out to touch my feet.
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I was completely caught off guard. This was not exactly what I had anticipated before coming to Sylhet to explore the ethnic minority community called Patro or Laleng, who once reportedly used to live in the entirety of the current Sylhet metropolitan area, but are now on the verge of extinction with a population of less than 4,000. They claim to be the descendants of Gour Govinda, the last Hindu king of the Gour Kingdom in Sylhet.
Also, this was the first time I was about to be shown respect by getting my feet touched, that too by a woman nearly three times older than me. I was able to intervene just in time to stop her. But that didn't stop me from initiating a conversation with her.
The woman was draped in an orange floral shari with sindoor applied along the parting of her hair, indicating that her husband was still alive. She had a red tilak (mark) on her broad forehead, and a Hindu religious symbol drawn with sandalwood paste around it.
While there were subtle indications of Mongoloid facial features, her brownish complexion made her appear more like a Bangalee. She seemed able to move effortlessly and remain hyperactive during religious occasions even at an advanced age.
As she wiped her eyes, I asked her, "do you belong to the Patro community?" She nodded her head. "Yes, there are around 60 Patro families in this village. My name is Shyamola Patro."
I informed Shyamola that I am a journalist and travelled all the way from Dhaka to meet them. Her eyes flickered with hope. "Can you help me get my youngest son secure a job in the police? He is a good boy, but his age for a government job is running out," she said.
I had to disappoint her by saying that contrary to popular belief, journalists don't have such authority. Nevertheless, I expressed my interest in hearing her story. "Let's go to my house then. There's too much noise out here," she responded.
And thus, we made our way to Shyamola's house, situated right next to the temple area. The signs of extreme poverty were evident within the yard of her home. The house had a makeshift and shabby appearance, with a tin roof covering the half-plastered walls.
A drain ran behind it, emitting such a strong stench of sewage that one would find it difficult to breathe properly. Once again the only joyous thing about the house was Shyamola's two grandchildren, aged seven and three, playing and fighting with each other.
"As you can see, we live in dire circumstances. Currently, our family comprises 13 members including me, my husband, three sons, their wives and children," Shyamola informed me after sitting on a half broken chair.
She explained that only her three sons are the breadwinners of the family. Due to lack of education, her two older sons are forced to work as day labourers while the youngest completed his Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) long ago and aspires to join the police force.
Despite performing well in the initial recruitment process and having police officers visit their home for inquiries on multiple occasions, he ultimately failed to secure the job and now frequently works as a day labourer.
It dawned upon me that she probably thought I was a police inquirer in disguise. I wondered from which angle I might appear to resemble one.
"With the limited money my sons make, it's impossible to maintain a comfortable lifestyle," Shyamola continued, claiming that things were not always like this. "There was a time we also enjoyed prosperity."
"When was it?" I asked her.
"Oh, that was many moons ago, before the 'sangram'. I was just a little girl back then," Shyamola said. She was referring to the Liberation War of 1971.
A chequered history
"Like others, my family also fled to India. But once the war was over, we heard (Bangabandhu) Sheikh Mujibur Rahman making the announcement that we could come back to our homeland, and so we did. But many chose to stay back in India," she recalled.
However, for those who returned, life was never the same again. They witnessed their homes and lands gradually taken over by Bangalees and settlers.
And it wasn't just in 1971. A big chunk of Patros also migrated to India earlier, during the 1947 partition. As a result, although the community is primarily rooted in the forests of the outer range of Sylhet city, Jaintapur, Gowainghat, and some villages of Moulvibazar district, there are diaspora communities in the Indian states of Meghalaya and Assam as well.
Still now, "the Patros in Bangladesh are being disenfranchised and marginalised at a rapid rate as result of land grabbing by local feudal lords and politically powerful people in the area," Dr Golam M Mathbor, a professor in the School of Social Work at Monmouth University in New Jersey, told me.
Interestingly, before visiting Sylhet to explore the Patro community in person, I had attempted to contact some of its members through Facebook.
One of them was a 21-year-old Asiki Patro. Several minutes into our conversation over a Messenger call, it was revealed that their village is in Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya. He further added that their nationality is Indian, and they don't possess any better knowledge of Bangladesh than regular Indians.
"We have been living in Shillong for three generations now. I was told my great-grandparents fled here at the end of British rule. Now Patro is just a surname for us. We are recognised more as Bangalees here," revealed Asiki.
Clearly, neither Asiki nor Shyamola, nor anyone else in her village, was aware of the rich historical background of the Patro community that I had come across in various books and studies.
It is widely believed that when Gour Govinda was defeated during the Islamic conquest of Sylhet in 1303, led by Sikandar Khan Ghazi, Syed Nasiruddin, and Hazrat Shah Jalal (R), he lost the right to live in the capital, Gour.
Afterwards, the royal family as well as the wealthier Patros, fled the current Sylhet metropolitan region with some of them moving to the nearby deep forests of northern Sylhet.
But the real dispute lies in the origin of the Patros.
According to various specialists, the Patros are believed to have originated from the Tibetan-Himalayan Peoples, commonly known as Bodo.
The Bodos, pronounced Bo-Ros, are an ethnic and linguistic community, considered early settlers of Assam in the northeast of India. They belong to a large ethnic group called the Bodo-Kachari.
Another belief suggests that the Patros are descendants of the 'Mongolic Monokher' family and belong to the Bodo sub-section of the Bodo-Naga section within the Assam-Burmese group of the Tibeto-Burman branch of the Tibeto-Chinese family.
Therefore, the Patros are considered branches of the ethnic group named Boro. According to studies, these people migrated to Assam from southwest China via Tibet and Bhutan in ancient times.
But why are the Patros called Laleng alternatively? I asked this question to Shyamola. In reply, she informed me that they identify themselves as Laleng, but it is the local Bangalees or Sylhetis who call them either Patro or Pator. However, she doesn't know exactly why.
Mohammad Abdul Hye presented an explanation in his book 'Laleng Canvas'. According to him, traditionally, the Laleng were known for producing charcoal, which is locally known as Pathor (stone). Thus, they might have come to be known as Patro or Pator by others.
Alternatively, the word Laleng also stands for stone in the tribe's own language. Perhaps some writer or researcher once asked one of the tribe's members what their identity is, and he replied with the word Laleng. Maybe that's how both Laleng and Patro were popularised as their identity.
H R Risley first used the words Pathor and Pator to describe the Laleng in his 1872 book 'Tribes and Castes in Eastern India,' and it influenced other researchers and writers to pick up the name.
However, in recent times, Bangladeshi researchers are more inclined towards using the word Laleng, which was popularised in 2005 by Pavel Partha, director at Bangladesh Resource Centre for Indigenous Knowledge (BARCIK).
Notably, the Patros, divided into 12 clans of equal states, were also described as 'chutiya' in R N Nath's book 'Background of Assamese Culture' published in 1948.
Dying heritage
As I conversed further with Shyamola, my surprise grew at the stark absence of greenery in the area, contrasting with my prior expectations. When I inquired about this, she explained, "20 years ago, there used to be dense forests everywhere. But now, it's all gone."
Shortly after, I was introduced to Bikrabala Patro Bipasha, the wife of Shyamola's middle son. Despite nearing her 30s, she appeared no older than 20.
It turned out that she is literate, unlike most other women in the village. She read up till the eighth grade, but couldn't go any further. One of the main obstacles she faced was the absence of a written form of their language.
Additionally, her family prohibited her from attending school with other Bangalees after a certain age. "If we could receive education in our own language, our community would be in a better position today," regretted Bipasha.
Another member of the village, Bishnu Patro, a 10th-grade student at Jahiria MU High School, also shared with me that the inability to study in their mother tongue is one of the reasons they can't compete with native Bangla speakers.
Notably, Laleng is one of the 14 endangered ethnic languages in Bangladesh, according to a linguistic survey conducted by the International Mother Language Institute (IMLI) that concluded in 2018. The list also includes Kondo, Kharia, Koda, Soura, Mundari, Kole, Malto, Khumi, Pangkhua, Rengmitcha, Chak, Khyang and Lusai.
There is a possibility that all these endangered languages will soon be lost forever along with their linked culture and traditional knowledge if proper measures are not taken.
Mashrur Imtiaz, an assistant professor of Linguistics at the University of Dhaka, shared with me that the number of Laleng language speakers is significantly smaller than the entire community and the potential extinction of the language will have severe consequences.
"The language loss of the Patro community would wipe out the knowledge core and cultural variation within the community itself, and there would be a certain knowledge gap for the younger generation for sure," he said.
While talking to Bipasha, she mentioned that they possess some books written in the Laleng language, which are stored in the Paskop (Patro Samprodai Kollyan Porishod) office in Surma Gate, another nearby village where Patros reside.
Therefore, I decided to visit the office sometime later. However, when I went there, I saw that the books were written in Laleng pronunciation using Bangla alphabets.
Sharmi Barua, currently pursuing her PhD on the Laleng language at the University of Sydney, highlighted that there are additional factors contributing to the erosion of the cultural distinctiveness of the Patro community, with deforestation being among the most significant.
"If we question why the Patro community is losing their traditions and rituals so rapidly, we would get the answer that it is because they are losing forests," she said.
She gave an example that hunting used to be an auspicious social, religious and cultural event for the Patros and it was never considered as a mere hobby. However, due to deforestation, it has become increasingly challenging for them to engage in this traditional activity.
"For the same reason, the present generation doesn't have good knowledge of medicinal plants like their ancestors used to," she remarked.
Barua further emphasised that it's unrealistic to expect ethnic minority communities to maintain their cultural heritage. while uprooting them from their natural habitats.
Indeed, the Patro community depends on land-based economic activity, primarily engaging in hunting, gathering, small-scale agriculture, and swidden farming. Their culture and way of life are closely linked to the land they have traditionally occupied.
According to a study published in 2017 in the Journal of Social Studies titled 'Land grabbing and its impacts on indigenous livelihoods: A study on the Patro community in Sylhet,' the most tragic issue for the Patro peoples is land grabbing, with an estimated loss of around 217,100 decimals of land over the preceding three decades.
Shyamola may not be familiar with specific statistics, but she is keenly aware that losing lands following the 1971 war is the primary reason they no longer enjoy a prosperous life.
"My father owned many lands that were passed down from his father. Although I'm not certain of the exact extent of those lands, now we find ourselves with nothing except the plot of land we currently reside on," she told me.
Abul Barkat, in his 2016 book 'Political Economy of Unpeopling of Indigenous Peoples: the Case of Bangladesh,' outlined the primary methods by which the lands of the Patros have been taken away: forgery in land records, appropriation through falsified documentation, seizure by influential Bangalees, and occupation by settlers.
Earlier, a study titled 'Identity Crisis of Patra Indigenous People' in the Annual Review of Ethnic Affairs in 2008, observed that governments also acquired their lands under the guise of various development projects, including social forestry, eco-tourism, establishing eco-parks, and projects aimed at protecting natural biodiversity.
Life on the edge
As I kept speaking to Bipasha on various aspects of her life, it became more apparent that the Patro community also lacks access to healthcare services.
Bipasha said that she had normal deliveries during the birth of both her children, but not everyone is as fortunate. Some face complications during delivery and often succumb to death before receiving proper treatment.
"Maybe hospitals are now not far away, and roads are also better than before. But it is the lack of awareness that leads to the death of many," she said, recounting that just the previous month, one of their neighbours lost her life while giving birth as she wasn't hospitalised in time.
As I was talking to Bipasha, I noticed Shyamola standing next to me holding something in her hands. It turned out to be the prasad (food offered to God) she had brought from the temple while I was speaking to others. It was a simple mixture of guavas, plums, and rice.
"We don't have much to offer in our house now. Please eat this," she said with a shy smile. While hygiene might be a concern in other cases, I simply could not refuse her. She reminded me so much of my own grandmother, whom I lost five years ago.
As I bit the prasad that tasted more pungent than sweet, I remembered something else and turned to Bipasha, asking her, "Did you know there are only 3,100 people in your community according to the Population Census 2022?"
She appeared puzzled for a moment, and then replied, "Our community is certainly not that large, but the number shouldn't be so few either."
Indeed, there seems to be some confusion surrounding it. According to Gaurango Patro, president of Paskop, the census reported the Patro community's population as 3,100, even though their own survey conducted in 2020 indicated that there were 705 Patro families in Bangladesh, totaling 3,999 individuals, comprising 2,076 males and 1,923 females.
Overall, the Population Census 2022 found only 16,50,159 ethnic community people living in Bangladesh. However, rights activists claim the number would be no less than 30 lakh.
When I spoke to Pavel Partha, he concurred that the government data is problematic and highlighted the government's lack of commitment to preserving the ethnic minority communities.
"According to IMLI's 2018 survey, one of the endangered languages is Koda. But the population census didn't include the Koda community of Rajshahi in their report. Even though they included 50 ethnic minority communities, there are many such exclusions in the census report, which don't do justice to our effort to preserve these communities," he said.
Moreover, such exclusions also result in many aspiring members of ethnic minority communities remaining marginalised, as they are denied proper recognition, as well as the rights like quota system in education and job sector associated with it.
Take Shyamola's youngest son for example. As his age runs out, so does the family's prospect for a better future. However, without proper acknowledgment of the entire community, they will persistently lag behind, lacking the support necessary to thrive.
When I was taking leave from Shyamola, she once again clasped my hands firmly, her eyes brimming with thousands of expectations. Little did she know that most people in the country are unaware of their very existence, and many other communities remain unrecognised for who they are and what they represent.
Shyamola didn't bid me goodbye. "Please do something for my child," she said. I couldn't bid her goodbye either. "All I can do is write," I replied.
