18/08/2026
Chakmas Observe "Black Day" in Delhi to Mark Historical Injustice of 1947 Partition.
New Delhi | August 17, 2026
Chakmas in Delhi marked "Black Day" on August 17, retracing a wound that goes back to 1947. The event, held at Bhagwan Birsa Munda Bhawan in New Delhi, protested what the community sees as the illegal and unjust handover of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) to East Pakistan during Partition.
Speakers laid out the history for the gathering. When India was being split up, Chakmas and other hill tribes in the CHT wanted to join India, and Congress leaders had assured them the region wouldn't go to Pakistan since the population was 98% non-Muslim. Both the Mountbatten Plan of June 3, 1947 and the Indian Independence Act of 1947 had kept the CHT outside East Bengal's notional boundary.
Then came the night of August 14-15, 1947. Roughly 10,000 Chakmas gathered at the home of British Deputy Commissioner Col GL Hyde in Rangamati, the CHT headquarters, hoping to raise the Indian flag right then. The DC told them to come back at sunrise. So at dawn, thousands hoisted the tricolour publicly in the town's football ground, with the DC present, then followed him in procession to the official government flag-hoisting ceremony. As far as they were concerned, they were now part of independent India.
That belief lasted two days. On August 17, All India Radio announced that the Bengal Boundary Commission had awarded the CHT to Pakistan, not India. Under freedom fighter Sneha Kumar Chakma, the community resolved to resist the award and sent him to Delhi to rally support from the Indian government. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru turned the request down. The Indian flag stayed flying in Rangamati for another week regardless, until August 21, when the Pakistani Army arrived, pulled it down, and annexed the CHT. India, for its part, chose not to send troops. What followed, according to the speakers, was a campaign of atrocities against the region's Buddhist minorities by the East Pakistan regime, one they say continues today in Chittagong Hill Tracts under Bangladesh.
Paritosh Chakma, convenor of the Black Day Observation Committee, said the Chakma National Council of India began marking August 17 this way back in 2016. The community also calls the day "Poraa Hobaallye Din" — Burnt Forehead Day — since the forehead stands for a person's luck and future. As Paritosh Chakma put it, it's now widely felt that the community's future "got burnt to ashes" on that day in 1947.
Bipul Chakma, who heads the Delhi Chakma Students Union, pointed to a deeper cost: before Partition, Chakmas lived across the CHT as well as Assam, Mizoram, and Tripura, but the Radcliffe Line split them between two separate, sovereign nations instead of one — something he called the most unfortunate chapter in the community's history.
Similar observances took place the same day in Mizoram, including the Chakma Autonomous District Council and Aizawl, in Guwahati, Assam, and across Tripura. An online discussion followed on the channel Changmah Raw, bringing together Nirupam Chakma, former member of the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes and current chief executive member of the CADC; three MLAs — Prova Chakma and Rashik Mohan Chakma of Mizoram, and Sambhulal Chakma of Tripura; Shanti Bikash Chakma, Samajpati (chief) of the Chakma community in Tripura; Paritosh Chakma, author and social activist; and Ashutosh Chakma, General Manager at State Bank of India, Guwahati. The panel revisited the events of 1947 and called for unity grounded in Chakma nationalism to address the problems the community faces in both Bangladesh and India.
