Nepal, Aug. 21 -- In the hill town of Rangamati in eastern Bangladesh, in the neighbourhood of Contractor Para along Jail Road lives Manoj Bahadur Gurkha, a cultural activist and musician who was born and raised here.

His ancestors were brought here 200 years ago by the British military to subdue the indigenous people in the hilly jungles between India and Burma. The area was largely self-governing, and even the Mughals hadn't ventured here to rule directly, preferring to collect a trade tax in the form of raw cotton from the indigenous chiefs.

The British colonial administration later named this remote area 'Chittagong Hill Tracts' when it annexed, and separated the hilly region from the greater Chattogram district in 1860. These hill...