Koch of Modhupur: A Demographic and Socioeconomic Survey of a Marginal Ethnic Community
Koch iswell-known ethnic community of Bangladesh heavily assimilated into the majority Bangalee community. The 1991 population census enumerated the Koch at 16,5676 in the entire country though no segregated data at theupazila level was presented. A large percentage of Kshatriya population in nine Northwestern districts who seek their identity in the Kochpeople, remain invisible and unaccounted for as Koch.
By Sabrina Miti Gain and Raiyana Rahman with Philip Gain | English, PBK 44 pages, 2015 | Price: BDT 150, US$5
The Society for Environment and Human Development, in its efforts to generate segregated data on the Koch, did a pilot survey on them in Modhupur Upazila in Tangail district in 2012. It found 3,427 Koch people (833 households) in Modhupur upazila spread over 30 villages and seven unions. To everybody’s astonishment, the Koch people do not exist in Modhupur according to 2011 population census report. SEHD’s survey findings strongly support those who reject the official census on the Koch population. This is also a pointer to anomalies in the official census in case of many other ethnic communities of Bangladesh.
The tendency of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) to confuse [deliberately or out of ignorance] on statistical accounts of the ethnic communities and the tendency of many Koch themselves to identify themselves as Bangalees considered, this survey report on the Koch of Modhupur is an pointer to the deep identity confusion they are in.