Bawm Erotic

The Bawm are a hill people of southeastern Bangladesh. In the Chittagong Hill Tracts, their religion sets them apart as much as their language does. Most of their neighbors are Buddhist, Muslim or Hindu, but the Bawm are almost entirely Christian, and village life is organized around the church. Most live in Bandarban district, around Ruma, Rowangchhari and Thanchi, with smaller numbers elsewhere in the hill tracts. Related communities live across the border in Mizoram in India and in Chin State in Myanmar. Bengali usage spells the name Bom, and British colonial records called them Banjogi.

Their language belongs to the Kuki-Chin branch of Sino-Tibetan and is close to Mizo, which says a lot about where their history points. Oral tradition says the Bawm came from the Chin Hills to the east, and their cultural ties have long run toward Mizoram rather than toward the Bengali plains. Christianity arrived in the early twentieth century through Mizo evangelists, and it brought schools and a script in the Roman alphabet. Since then the church has become the community's main civic institution as well as its religious one, and it shapes much of social life. Before they converted, the Bawm made offerings to a world of spirits.

Socially the Bawm divide into two main branches, Sunthla and Panghawi, and each is made up of named clans. Villages traditionally sit high on ridges, with houses raised on posts above the slope. Families have long lived by jhum, the swidden farming of the hills. They cut and burn a patch of forest, plant rice alongside maize, vegetables and cotton, then leave the land to regrow for years. Many households now also keep fruit orchards and grow cash crops. Women weave on backstrap looms, and handwoven skirts and shawls are still the clothes people wear to church and celebrations.

The recent past has been hard. Since 2022 an armed group called the Kuki-Chin National Front, which claims to speak for the Bawm and related peoples, has fought Bangladeshi security forces in the hills around Ruma and Thanchi. The military operations that followed, especially after bank robberies in both towns in 2024, led to many arrests. Hundreds of Bawm villagers fled into Mizoram, where they found shelter among people who speak a closely related language. For a community this small, the conflict has disrupted ordinary life in their own district, including farming, schooling and simple travel.