Glorious Past, Tattered Present, Uncertain Future
By:JOSEPH PULINTHANATH SDB, Category: General, Posted on:2010-10-27 14:11:01

INDIGENOUS YOUTH OF TRIPURA AND THEIR CHANGING COMMUNITY

Introduction

How truly critical are the times we live in, is best assessed with at least a leeway of 50 years between us and the times we focus on, historians remind us. Hence there might be an element of foolhardiness about labeling a period or moment as 'critical'.

But there is something that makes every period, every moment, truly critical: 'the speed with which change takes place in our times'. What earlier took centuries now only take a couple of years. That's the nature of progress, perhaps.

Tripura in Transition

Despite being laden with an unfair measure of geographical and historical baggage, the bandwagon of change has not bypassed this tiny state of Tripura. There was a time not long ago when a kilogram of muia (bamboo shoot), cost a mere 1.5 rupee. Today it costs 20 to 30 rupees. That is the case with most other things too. The twenty-fold increase is indicative of the violent changes we have lived through in the recent decades.

The galloping pace with which 'change' overtakes everything else is both amazing and frightening. There was a time not too long ago in the past, when getting a land telephone connection to a village only about 20 kilometers from Agartala was thought an impossible feat. Today, mobile phones and even Internet cover a considerable part of the state. I can recall the many times, I have traveled for nearly 3 hours, just to receive or send a mail. And I can still remember the elation I felt on getting my first email. There was a time, not long ago, when a Kokborok audiocassette (let alone video) was a rarity in the entire state, and Kokborok was seldom heard in the capital town. 'The old order changeth' indeed. In the town of Agartala footpath vendors and their shanty structures are now giving way to supermarkets, malls and branded goods.

This is the sense in which everyone, but particularly the indigenous community of Tripura is passing through what might later prove to be a critical juncture in its history. It seems to be confronted at the moment with inevitable choices that are certain to affect the future course of the community.
It is a sobering thought on the one hand, but also an exciting one, on the other.
Sobering because it points to a community thats still struggling to find its core; exciting because every crisis is also an opportunity for revival, reorientation and rediscovery.

At least some of these 'choices' got to be about meaningfully coping with 'changes' that like surging waters threaten to sweep us off our feet? As long as we do not have the wherewithal to determine the course of the current, the direction in which our society is heading, then we are not coping but merely staying adrift.

An Agenda for the Youth

It is generally held that youth that are best equipped to invigorate and provide innovative leadership and direction to a community caught up in the wind of change. It is the youth who can dream a future of new possibilities and untried alignments.

At the moment we are, in fact, seeing the emergence of a new generation of youth that are enthusiastic about making a difference in the society they live. There is no doubt, despite their fair share of shortcomings, they seem to be eminently suited to spearhead a level-headed campaign for a better society.
Perhaps, to become even more eligible and effective for the work at hand, we could examine if there are there some things they would do well to pay attention to?

I can think of at least two things in this regard that the indigenous Youth of the state would do well to get rid of.

Prisoners of the Past

The first is 'nostalgically lingering in the past'. The indigenous communities of Tripura find it hard not to compare the blessed memories of the past with the grueling times of the present day. The glories of a bygone era continue to haunt them like a distant shining star on the horizon luminous but unattainable.
The past deserves to be acknowledged because it has contributed to shaping us and making us what we are. But dwelling nostalgically in the glories of the past renders one incapable of taking up the challenges of the present.

The indigenous communities of Tripura feel it almost an obligation to keep alive thoughts of the past wherein they enjoyed the supremacy of their land under their king and lived an almost idyllic existence in a land of plenty. Such blessed memories need not and cannot be surrendered or forgotten, because they still define us in some way and sets for us benchmarks of a higher kind that is our privilege and duty to adhere to.

But when memories, however blessed, become burdens and exists solely as a handy deadweight to compare our present woes against, it is perhaps time to let go of them. By letting go of the past, we do not sunder ourselves from it. Nor do we forget its role, significance and contribution. We merely do not allow it to benumb us.

It would be a pity if youth, the harbingers of change and progress, are themselves caught up in a time wrap.

A Make-Believe thing called 'Disunity'

The second thing we perhaps need to do is stop bemoaning disunity. The fissiparous tendency of youth and youth-led endeavors in Tripura are too easily cited to conclude that they are quite incapable of pulling off something momentous.

We need to examine the veracity of this oft-lamented lack of unity among groups and groups of individuals. To me personally the refrain of disunity has been intriguing. Interacting with members of the indigenous groups of Tripura, I have got the feeling there are no core issues on which any of them differ from the other. At the highest level of intent and vision, there is remarkable unity and consensus. There is even a good deal of enthusiasm to do something.
What we then seem to deplore is the lack of uniformity. Uniformity points to an external thing, a monotonous sameness whose desirability itself is often questionable.

Unity allows and encourages variety because its strength is derived not from sameness but from the unique contribution of its constituent members whose only similarity with another is the common goal, at times.
It would be disastrous to conclude that we do not have unity, merely by seeing that our actions and our methods and even our conclusions vary. "If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body."(1 Cor 12:15-16).

We too easily seem to conclude that there is no unity just because people speak a different language, and have a different culture and tradition. In looking for sameness and uniformity, we forget the crucial truth that the distinctiveness of the members is in fact the greatest strength of the bigger group.
It would be foolish to even wish for a time and place when all differences between various communities, groups, parties, and sections would disappear and we would have everyone thinking, acting uniformly. We would have robbed the community of its soul and sustenance.

We would do well to inculcate in us a radical inclusivity that enables us to understand and affirm the contribution made by various constituent elements towards the bigger picture, which matters most of all.

Hence, it is time that lamentations of disunity ceased and people began to appropriate the benefits of the higher unity that according to me adequately exists here in Tripura at least among the indigenous community. It is time one stopped waiting for everyone to fall in line with someones vision, someones method, someones prejudices and fears, however sacrosanct they may seem to be.
What should bother us is not that absence of unity perceived and understood as uniformity, but our inability to galvanize to our advantage the energy such disparateness essentially generates. When differences end up being debilitating, and not energy-generating, it is time to do something about it.

Conclusion

To come back to the reality of 'inexorable change' with which we began this piece. Bacon, the essayist reminds us, "Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly." As Bacon is being proved right in our courtyard, the elder segment of the population might be excused for going through life like some grand replica at Madame Tussauds, spending the butt ends of their days and ways in holy contemplation of the bygone 'Rajani amol'. The kids could be excused too, being caught up, as they are, in new sounds, sights, steps, buttons, albums and Facebook. But the youth, that segment of society, famed to change the world, and on which an entire community pins its hope, would do well to pay heed to this compelling agenda. "The old order changeth, yielding place to new". The New Order would be something we have ourselves brought about, either by the proactive stand we wisely adopt or by the passive resignation we lethargically succumb to.

End

(The Writer is the Director of the Indian National Award wining Kokborok Film 'Yarwng' and 'Mathia')

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