Whom do we trust? Questions on peace, development and prosperity, a mystery of Tripura politics
By:Sunil Kalai, Category: General, Posted on:2011-05-24 06:01:47

We can only see what we are able to see, what we are ask to see and what the society allows us to see. Media is the influence of culture and culture is the production of human society. Messages of journalism are mean to mirror and reflect reality. In this situation reality is unchanging and meaning is unchanging but in the case of propaganda and reality construction by media it remain opposite of what was said, question remains, "whom do we trust"?

"Who will speak for us when we cry? Who will see our tears when nobody takes our pictures? The Left Front and the Congress will always toe their party line and there is no one fighting for our people, raising our issues. People need to know this is the land of tribal. The problem starts when you do not accept or know this, so you want everything to be yours. If you respect me, I will respect you, but there is no mutual respect in Tripura. They are encroaching on our right to employment, our right on land and all the other opportunities that present themselves. How can we accept it? Yes, we have limitations. We know that and they also have their rights but they must share these rights with us, said Mr. Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawl MLA, INDIGENOUS NATIONALIST PARTY OF TRIPURA (INPT), while talking to a journalist from Tehelka magazine on December 18, 2010 on the question why he joins politics. Are our problems and issues, reality constructed or constructed reality? What comes to my mind every time in reflecting on the issues of what we see in reality and reflected in the media of Tripura is an eagerness to do something for my society and my community. What makes our society behind is the mindset, an ideology of foolishness over a period of time and not to deny to the fact of false consciousness.

The recent issue on renaming of Agartala airport on 29 June 2010, the Tripura Assembly has unanimously supported a proposal to rename Agartala airport as Kabiguru Rabindranath Tagore airport after the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore proposed by congress MLA and supported by Chief Minister himself. The newspapers report does not disappoint us but it evokes in us a thought provoking question, whether, the most responsible leader like Chief Minister acknowledge and respect the history of Tripura, forgetting about the Royal dynasty. Are they not proud of our long history? If not, why? If yes, was it the way to honor our past glorious history by the person of the highest dignity of our state? What is the lesson we the young generation learn? We learn what is taught to us, but yes, we want to learn the true history, history of an undistorted version. We respect our history and we expect the older generation of the world to acknowledge about our existence from the past to future. "Nationalism is not a sporadic sentiment that suddenly appears, but gradually evolves when a nations survival becomes threatened by an external power and thus, in an overreaction, harks back to its heritage through a variety of means. Thus Lawson suggests, "Nationalism is a reaction of peoples who feel culturally at a disadvantage (Lawson 169 remarked, Satish C. Aikant in his article, Reading Tagore: Seductions and Perils of Nationalism ASIATIC, VOLUME 4, NUMBER 1, JUNE 2010, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, India. We made up our minds that our long history of 184 kings contribution cannot be change over by borrowing the name of Tagore in order to lend our history to others and if we do that for our own, we are killing ourselves. Indeed we the youth condemned the renaming of the airport after Tagore. It should be named after His Highness Late Maharaja Bir Bikram Manikya who in the crucial period of Second World War builds this airport. We want justice through media but where are the media of Tripura? Are they discriminating our issues? The issue of humankind, where are our leaders? Particularly, the political leaders.

"We have no proper toilets, kitchen and during the rainy season we cannot sleep because of the rain dropping inside our room since the roofs are leaking. We cannot study at night because there is power cut due to non-payment of electricity bill for many years, said Jugal Kishore Tripura, captain of Tripura Boys Hostel, Shillong in the year 2006. On 24th October 1992, Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council, (TTAADC) an Autonomous Body constituted under Sixth Schedule of the constitution of India with its headquarter at Khumlwng, Tripura established a hostel in Shillong for Tripura boys on lease for a period of ninety nine years. The land measures 33685 sq. ft situated at MAWBLEI, Madanrting, Shillong-21 in the state of Meghalaya, North East India. "We have sent letters of prayer for help and renovation work for the buildings and stipends but nothing is given to us. Prayers after prayers, requests after requests, everything remains in vain. When the leaders come to visit us, they go back after giving us big talks. When we go to Agartala to meet them, we never get appointment. We are sad because our own government is not doing anything for us. We really do not know whom to trust, said Mr. President of students community, Shillong. The students community remains affected from lack of proper infrastructure and facilities in Shillong, unlike the students of other Northeastern states. Perhaps, we have many leaders in Tripura but lacks in having one righteous leader. It reminds us of the verse in the bible, "For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Matthew 7:8, but in the case the Tripura Shillong students, they must have found this strange when it comes to their demands from Tripura government. The situation seems, "if a son asks a father for bread, will he give a son a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a snake? Mathew: 7: 9-10, is this verse a standing point?

"To them politics means gaining glory and coming into power at the price by cheating the innocent" said Manoj Sahil Debbarma. Should we not invest in hard work, sincerity and sacrifice? Neither though people dearly give chance to those who are with potentials. Here is what one can clearly see that development and prosperity will not take place until we work for it. If we want development, our mind should seek for it and finally we have to strive for development and prosperity. Jampuijala is one of the biggest tribal areas under TTAADC; it falls under the police station of Takarjala, Bishalgarh sub division. There are more than thirty villages under its block but most of these villages are still lagging behind the standard of living. Dwarkai Kalai Para is one of the villages, which is five kilometers away from the main market. After sixty-three years of Indian Independence, not even a single bus the villagers could see. Not even a single dispensary is found nearby, "I have died several times before I really die, my eldest son Aiswrang Kalai committed suicide few years back, my second son Bidhya Kalai died last year after falling sick for several months on bed. I am with another two sons but it kills me once more when my third son spent twenty-eight days in jail due to some political problems. I am now eighty above and I am old enough to see the cruelty and tyranny of our own people, said, Aiswrangpha bursting with tears in his eyes, one of the eldest members of the village. His eldest son suicide after coming back from jail being charged of having link with the insurgency and the second son died due to lack of treatment from sickness since they are poor. It is difficult to imagine continuing pursuing life in such a bad state of affairs. May be there is a negligence from the side of the administration and lack of initiative from the local leaders too, despite, Jampuijala being cent percent tribal area. No proper schools, health centre and most important still, there is no road connectivity and proper power supply.

"In the name of anti insurgency operation, many tribal were killed by Tripura police and government is not doing justice to the indigenous people. Primary schools are converted into TSR camps and innocent people are being killed in the process", pointed out Mr. Debobrota Kalai Ex-Chief Executive Member, TTAADC. Tripura is politically displaced, religiously divided, economically poor and educationally backward due to political compulsion by the party in power, people are debarred from sharing political power befitting to their prominence before independence, are now under apprehension that they would gradually lose their cultural identity as BOROK. The Government on the other hand never tried to resolve to such fear and their increasing anti tribal sentiments compelled the indigenous to agitate against the Government in general and outsiders in particular. "We are demanding separate state. IPFT believe that until and unless we get separate state based on ADC area, the Tripura people cannot survive as because for the last sixty years, we have been experiencing that we cannot enjoy political power, the political power is not in our hand it is enjoyed by the illegal immigrant. expressed Mr. Mewar Kumar Jamatia, leader of the IPFT. Although the ADC areas comprise two third of the total states area and the tribal formed one third of the states total population, the TTAADC remained under developed. It had always been denied its due share of fund. Although the government of India announced several schemes for the development of the tribal, nothing much is being done.

In October 2005, the state government announced a plan to regroup over 5,883 families. In Dhalai district, over 3000 families are identified as beneficiaries. The beneficiaries were to be engaged in different cultivations like medicinal plants, bamboo etc for their livelihoods. As many as 1326 families, mostly poor and jumiah people were to be rehabilitated around the Rohidapara Joint Forest Management Committee (JFMC) in the district, while Naithongcherra, Hathimatha and Jeolcherra JFMC were being as other rehabilitation places. Six years are gone since the announcement of the regrouping plan by the state government, the public are the best witness about the development for the tribal, and how much have we benefitted from this plan? The Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT) under the leadership of Narendra Chandra Debbarma came into existence on 25 February 2009 at Khumulwng with an objective of separate statehood demand based on ADC area. Mr. Bidhyut Phirang Debbarma while addressing the gathering on 25 February 2010 during the 72 hours hunger strike at Agartala organized by IPFT said, "We demand separate state based on the ADC area in order to solve our economic problem. According to the 2001 census report, we are only 27 percent in the total state population. The numbers of the non-tribal are increasing due to huge cross border illegal immigration from Bangladesh. The central government ignored the demographic complexity by not stopping the influx from the neighboring country. In the case of Kashmir or Punjab any act of crossing the border by the Pakistani, media highlights internationally but in the case of Tripura, neither the government nor media highlights our issues. We feel insecure for our future so we need to have a new state of our own. Due to the unrestricted flow of the influx from Bangladesh, it not only disturbed the demographic balance but the progressive increase in the state population and steady decline in the proportion of the native is also the reason for unrest in Tripura. The ethnic conflict in Tripura therefore gives opportunity for dubious political game. Agitation for creating new tribal states in other parts of India since 1966 encouraged them to think independently and it influenced here too.

In 1974, the government amended Tripura Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act 1960, which made a provision for regularizing of the illegal transfer of tribal lands to the non-tribals until 1968. Instead of restoring the traditional lands to the tribal claimants, the government gave another blow to them. This must have had some relations in the process of unrest in Tripura. Tripura tribes, who were debarred from sharing political power befitting to their prominence before independence, are now under the apprehension that they would gradually lose their identity. The government on the other hand failed to remove such an apprehension as their increasing anti Bengali sentiments compelled them to take up arms against the government in general and Bengali in particular. During the last thirty years, thousands of people including the civilians, insurgents and security personnel lost their lives in insurgency related violence and Tripura now needs peace and prosperity. "In any part of the world when the sons of the soil are being deprived, then they go frustrated and for that reason they have to protest on that. India got independence in 1947 and three years after Indias independent Tripura merged with India by means of merger agreement. We feel that it was a forceful merger agreement because we cannot see anything for the son of the soil of Tripura written on merger agreement. In the process, history of Tripura too was made in different angle. In every state of Northeast we see the local community rule the state but in the case of Tripura we are being ruled by the outsider; Nagas in Nagaland, Mizos in Mizoram, Arunachalis in Arunachal, Manipuris in Manipur and so is in every other states. We the sons of the soil are being deprived so much so that we have no other options and in democracy minority like us will never enjoy democratic rights. That is why we have taken undemocratic means of taking up guns to fight and we have seen its victory taking the example of Cuba and gun culture is the last option for Borok dopha, said Mantu Kalai when I interviewed him in 2009 while I was doing an academic project on ethnic conflict in Tripura.

For many years, Tripura is witnessing and suffering in the crossfire of vote bank politics and virulent ethnic conflict and the time has come for the younger generation to take up the new perspective on making Tripura a peaceful state. History and records has shown us the ill effects on how Tripura had been suffering due to politics, corruption, gun culture and ethnic conflicts. It has taken us back to 200 years from future civilization. Renaming of places and changing the color of the parties and ruling will never be able to change the thousand years long history of Tripura. History has proved to us that 40 years back Tripura never witness poverty and hunger, but in the last 20 to 30 years, what we see is conflict, poverty and the new epidemic of drug abuse and prostitution in the state. How can our leaders, administration and government remain quite on these matters? The youth are taken into the wrong direction. Who is responsible for all theses? Our prayer to the ruling government and administration is, please resolve the matter. History also informs us that our Fas (rulers/kings) of Tipra kingdom were never greedy or waged war and killed anyone; they had always been very merciful to their subject. We could see the politicians speaking ills of our history, and should we blindly trust? Newspapers report these days that girls are available in hotels for money due to poverty and sometimes for luxuries.

Development and prosperity are firstly in our attitude. Secondly re-defining our goal for development; thirdly, in overcoming the obstacles we have in mind because some people try to divert us from our goal and wanted to lead us into the road of failure, fourthly, it is on the choice we make on the options between to do and not to do. Finally, every individual must feel he can only bring change for himself, a prosperity and development one has to work for it in order to achieve it. Certainly, only if we nurture something we can hope in future. It is time we stop blaming each other due to our selfish motives, differences on the grounds of religion and community. Our dreams to make Tripura into a number one state in India will take hard work and sacrifice and it is never impossible. I am quite sure we are convinced by it because it is the voice of our inner feelings. Let us remind ourselves and remain united as a family. Let us continue to hold what belongs to us. As we know that "Failure is never the final and success is never ending, our determination will bring development and prosperity in the state making example of power, victory in preserving our thousand years long history in the coming days. Let us alarm a reminder of the criminal misdeeds of the past that reminds us once again that remedy of the problems also primarily lies in the hands of our political rulers.

(The Writer is an Asst. Professor in the Dept. Journalism and Mass Communication, Tripura University)



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