Paper short abstract:

Madhupur forest was reserved by the state declaring the Garo unauthorized dwellers and encroachers. State and the timber predators remained at the back of deforestation while accusing the Garo for the misdeed. Lawsuit is the legal instrument to banish & marginalize the Garo.

Paper long abstract:

Marginality of a population stems from distinct sources among others, poverty and ethnic otherness. In other words social exclusion is structural primarily and agential secondarily. Ironically contemporary Bangladesh is beset with the both that rendered its social fabric exclusionary, given the fact that the country only four decades ago fought a democratic struggle to come out of the clutch of a regime that rejected the popular mandate for ascending into power of a party dominated by the Bengali population. About 2% of the population is ethnic minority at present in which there are dwellers in the plane and hills. Present paper is about those who live in Madhupur forest in Tangalil district. The ethnic people who live there are mainly Garo, a segment of the Indo-Tibetan population living in this part from at least a millennium ago. The kind of social system evolved with them rested on community ownership and management of land that is the forest. Over time a particular rhythm of life surfaced that synchronized nature and culture - in other words the Garo lived along with the Madhupur forest. Agriculture was the mainstay of economic life that was more of the nature of subsistence generation rather commoditization. During the pre-colonial and colonial phases of administration above arrangement of Garo living in Madhupur forest was not disrupted. The whole process got shattered with the onset of Pakistani rule back in 1940's and continued unabated even after Bangladesh was created in early 1970,s.