AN INSIGHT INTO MODERN TRIPURI SOCIETY
By:Somprai Debbarma, Category: General, Posted on:2010-03-03 19:04:09

Tripura, the erstwhile great kingdom ruled by the worlds second oldest dynasty the Manikya dynasty had a glorious past by virtue of its mighty kings and her great people. Yes ! she was great once upon a time but not now...!!. The bwsa or sons of Tripura of this age proudly like to say that their land was once a great kingdom ruled by great kings as is evident from the Ujjayanta palace standing in the heart of the capital of which type we will find nowhere in present Eastern India, then we have the Neermahal- the largest lake palace in Eastern India, the mystic Unokoti, etc. But my dear brothers & sisters what we..!!, the current generation have done for our motherland ???

Yes..!! we have given the non indigenous people the land to stay for, our religion to be cared of, and our culture to be cultured by them! And it is facilitated by none other than the sons of soil of Tripura.
Now let us identify and classify these sons of soil.

The first section is the one who think that the closer they are with Bengalis the wiser and respectable they are in the society. They would like to speak in the bengali language rather than in the pahari (as called by the Bengalis) - their own ancestral language. They enjoy reciting poems, singing, dancing, etc. in the Bengla language which according to them is far more advanced than the pahari one and so they like to flow with the advanced language. Majority of this section stay in auli or town and they are regarded as well-educated! They feel shy and hesitate to wear their own pahari traditional attire and so wear the attire of the their's whom they believe are more advanced than that of the paharis, and thereby they regard themselves as high class tripuris (self- proclaimed). Ironically, they equally enjoy the ST status as the paharis to avail the facilities meant for the underprivileged. I would suggest that whoever do not know their mother language should be stripped off the ST category facilities.

Then comes the second section the pseudo guards of the political integrity of Tripura- the netas and self- proclaimed caretaker of the political arena in Tripura. These are none but a set of bourgeois politicians. There was a time when a section of wannabe guards thought that they need to float a political party to safeguard the interests of the Tripuris against the atrocities of the government run by the majority Bengali. It was formed and subsequently broke down into many, and the reason was that there were too many great leaders who are so by birth and therefore cannot afford to be lead by others! They formed their own parties where they could get chance to lead their respective followers.
Ironically, one of such parties had found solace in the form of an Indian national party, which if we go back to history; have facilitated the entry of refugees especially during 1971 war in our so-far-then peaceful Tripura.
Another set of such so-called leaders are the one who are with the current ruling government which claims to be poor peoples government (really??!!). Such leaders become big-nosed when called upajapti neta or comrade by their (non tiprasa) bosses in the government. These upajati netas believe that there is equal share of power between the two, not knowing that the dominant Bengalis are dominating and will always dominate in every field including us

The third section are the die-hard religious (self-proclaimed) guards which is further subdivided into two- one comprises of a section of newly convert christians who seems to have shunned their traditional religion(Animism) due to more of the fact that they hate their traditional religion rather than due to love for christianity. This section like to mock at people following their own traditional faith rather than preaching what Christianity really is and why it embraced by billions of people worldwide. They are more bothered about what people of other faiths do than their own religion.

The other sub-division is a section of those belonging to the traditional Tripuri faith, who claim themselves to be the real guards of traditions but seems to be guards more of the non indigenous religion. They organise pujas, festivals of the others in a very big way but do little or none during their own faiths festivals. In town particularly during puja or festivals, these section of people participate in the so-called clubs which impose puja fees on people rather than asking donations for organising such pujas.
In fact, this club system never existed in Tripura before and it is a culture brought by the Bengalis which has influenced the tiprasas to such an extent that nowadays we can find a good number of such clubs even in the rural areas. These clubs are mostly concentrated in urban areas and are abode to anti-social and notorious elements with destructive mindsets; in contrast to the clubs outside Tripura which are meant only for sports whereas religious events or festivals are taken care by some other social organisations. These clubs have destroyed the future of the Tiprasa youths particularly the students coming from villages in hope of better education. The foremost cause for the non-performance of Tiprasa students in academics is the exponentially rising trend of drug abuse in Tripura especially Agartala, which had of late become an abode for drug abuse. The reason is the easy accessibility of these drugs and the cheap cost price, leading to slow poisoning of Tripuri society.

These three sections mentioned above, I believe are the major elements, which will destroy our motherland in very near future if not eradicated. They are paving way for achieving the cherished dream of the non tiprasa.

I remember once at Agartala I came across an eminent Bangladeshi writer, who was in Tripura for a festival, saying in her speech that Tripura is just like another district of her country..!!!; and as expected there was a huge applause from the audience.

My dear brothers & sisters, can you imagine that..?? It is due to such sections of people mentioned above that we need to hear about such scary dreams..!!.
We need to identify and eradicate such people first before blaming others.
It can be achieved, I believe, by proper education and imparting them to the mass. Though education is not only one of the means to restore our lost glory but it is a major factor. For the deprived uneducated people, they don't bother who is from which religion or land, they know only the language of hunger, deprivation..!!; it is only the educated who understands the role of politics in the survival of ethnicity in this world. Thus it is a great responsibility and duty of the educated Tiprasa class of the current generation to realise the need of the hour in order to retain the glory of the Tiprasas in this world.
I believe: THE TIPRASAS WERE WARRIORS AND WILL BE WARRIORS FOREVER.
Hambai.

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