The most invisible and unheard communities in Bangladesh include, among others, ethnic communities or adivasis, tea workers, Harijans (cleaners and sweepers), Rishis (cobblers), Kaiputras (a pig-rearing community), Bedes (gypsies), Jaladas (a largely seafaring fisherfolk community concentrated in the coastal districts of Chattogram and Cox’s Bazar), sex workers, Hijra or transgender persons, and Biharis. Together, these communities comprise around five million people.
These communities face acute discrimination, wage deprivation, hostility, indignity, and various other forms of human rights violations due to their religion, occupation, ethnic identity, culture, migration history, and geographic locations, among other factors. They are among the over 40 million people in Bangladesh who are multidimensionally poor or extremely poor. What is more troubling is that many of these communities are identified as “untouchables” or “Dalit.”
When the interim government embarked on an ambitious reform agenda and began setting up commissions across different sectors with the stated aim of ending discrimination, the communities that suffer the most from social and economic injustice hoped that dedicated reform commissions would be established to protect their interests.
However, to their deep disappointment, no such specific reform commission was formed, nor were any institutional initiatives taken to address their shared and distinct challenges. Now, with national polls knocking at the door, there is still no clear commitment from political parties towards these communities, who remain largely invisible and whose voices continue to go unheard.
Fishing boats of the Jaladas community at sea. Credit: Philip Gain
Those of us who have worked closely with these communities for decades are in a position to raise concrete issues and concerns that political parties must take seriously. If political parties genuinely claim to represent the people and all citizens, they have a responsibility to do justice to the country’s diversity by formally recognising these communities. This requires clear commitments to constitutionally recognise ethnic communities as “Adivasi” and to ensure dignity and respect for other groups who, because of their occupations, religious identities, or social positioning, remain economically poor and socially and politically excluded.
Some communities are not only subjected to everyday discrimination within social and political culture but are also systematically exploited for the economic benefit of political and business interests. The most extreme examples include tea workers, whose current maximum daily cash wage stands at Tk 187.43, and Harijans (city cleaners) in Sreemangal Municipality, whose monthly salary is Tk 1,000—up from Tk 500 until December 2024. Many other communities survive on similarly meagre incomes, living hand to mouth. Poverty, combined with the stigma attached to their work and identities, has trapped these groups in cycles of deprivation and exclusion across generations.
“The political parties are coming to us, but we want clear manifesto commitments to end wage deprivation and discrimination,” says Rambhajan Kairi, a leading tea workers’ union leader. “Tea communities and Harijans are entirely landless and deserve legal rights to the land they have lived on for generations.” Tea workers also demand an end to routine violations of labour laws.
The main criticism of current Social Security Programmes (SSP) is that they remain largely nominal, with half or more of the budget benefiting the non-poor. Economist Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman argues that expanding budgets alone is insufficient; what matters is state commitment to combating corruption, ensuring efficient governance, and delivering justice, particularly in programme design and implementation. He stresses the need for targeted support for marginalised communities, women, the disabled, low-income occupational groups, and youth—issues that deserve serious debate during election campaigns.
One of the most pressing concerns for completely landless and marginalised communities is access to khas (public) land. Bangladesh has an estimated three to four million acres of identified khas land, including agricultural, non-agricultural land and water bodies. Fair distribution of this land to the landless would be a crucial step towards securing entitlements and enabling pathways out of poverty. Yet only a small number of landless households receive khas land, while local elites, politicians and other influential groups benefit disproportionately. Despite its significance, the issue of khas land distribution is largely absent from election campaigns, and landless communities remain weakly positioned to claim their rights.
Equally urgent are long-standing land, forest and environmental issues affecting ethnic communities in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) and other forested regions. These communities have received little meaningful attention from the interim government. It is striking that the July Charter makes no reference to “environment”, “forest” or “climate change”. The erosion of customary rights in forest areas dates back to the British-era Act VII of 1865 and continues today, as communities steadily lose access to forest commons. They expect political parties to address these concerns in their election manifestoes, but so far there has been little reassurance. Addressing these issues requires political courage and grounded engagement.
Discrimination remains a pervasive reality for many marginalised groups, stripping them of dignity and equal citizenship. Ending discrimination is essential to restoring their status as full and respected members of society. During the previous government, efforts were made to draft legislation to address this problem, including the proposed Anti-Discrimination Act, 2022, which was tabled in Parliament but never passed.
Although more than twenty international conventions and national laws exist to protect small ethnic groups, tea workers and other marginalised communities, implementation remains weak. Many public and private institutions lack clear guidance, while key laws—such as the Labour Act, 2006, and the State Acquisition and Tenancy Act, 1950—are frequently misused or violated. This has led to the loss of Adivasi land and the exclusion of communities not officially recognised as “Aboriginals”, allowing unlawful land transfers and leaving legal protections ineffective. These pressing realities, largely missing from public debate, must be directly addressed in election manifestoes.
Bangladesh’s 13th parliamentary election, scheduled for February 12, 2026 alongside a constitutional referendum, represents a critical moment in the country’s democratic journey. The continued absence of concrete policies, commitments and implementation frameworks for the protection of marginalised and socially excluded communities remains deeply concerning. These groups are still largely invisible in mainstream political discourse. Yet there is cautious hope that political parties will learn from past failures and take meaningful steps to recognise marginalised communities as citizens entitled to dignity, equality and full participation in public life.
Philip Gain is a researcher and director of the Society for Environment and Human Development (SEHD). He can be reached at [email protected].
