Can Indigenous People And Bengalis Of Tripura See Eye-to-eye In Polls?

The hen in the forest now
Roams and clucks from noon to dusk.
The haunting madhavi fragrance escapes the rustle of spring air.
It is acrid with the smell of gunpowder.

These lines from Tripuri poet Chandrakanta Murasingh’s Kokborok poem ‘Forest’, translated by Bamapada Mukherjee, describes what the people of other northeastern states term the ‘Tripura way’. Written in 1987, the tumultuous time when Tripura’s indigenous communities were militantly claiming their rights against Bengali domination in the state, this poem reeks of the gunpowder that covered the hilly state at the time.

Interestingly, in the last couple of years, with the emergence of TIPRA Motha, the conflict between Bengalis and indigenous communities is gaining momentum. The organisation is fighting for a ‘Greater Tipraland’, under the leadership of Pradyot Manikya Deb Barma, a descendent of the Manikya dynasty that ruled the state for more than six centuries.

How did Bengalis get so much prominence in the tribal hill state? How have the conflicts between migrant Bengalis and the indigenous people shaped the political discourse in Tripura? What is the ‘Tripura way’? Are we standing on the verge of another eruption of violence that leads us to recall the blood-stained 1980s? These are some pertinent questions as the state goes to the polls this month.

The first documented entry of Britishers into the Northeastern region of India could be attributed to Treaty of Yandabo in 1826. Through this pact with the Burmese king, the British annexed Assam and, following the 1857 revolt, expanded their administrative presence into other regions and merged a few kingdoms with Assam. However, their policy for Tripura was different. While they conquered the state, the Manikya dynasty, ruling the state since the early 14th century, was allowed to work under British paramountcy. It was a sort of dual arrangement for the monarchs of Tripura­—on the one hand, they continued to be the rulers of Hill Tippera (the old name of Tripura); on the other, they worked as British subjects and zamindars in the plains of the Chakla Roshnabad region, then part of British Bengal.

According to Rajmala, the royal chronicle of Tripura that documents the major historical events of the Manikya dynasty, the hill state witnessed consecutive uprisings against the princely policies of tax collections, oppressions by sardars and bureaucrats. Most prominent among them are the Kuki revolt (1860-61) against feudal exploitation, the Jamatia revolt (1863) against forced coolie labour and the Reang rebellion (1943-1945) against the taxation system of Maharaja Bir Bikram Manikya. These rebellions, however, had little to do with the identity of the tribes. From the late 19th century, however, the preference of Manikya kings for educated Bengalis in administrative work started spreading discontent.

The ensuing economic disparity between the tribals and the Bengalis was also responsible for it. While in the hills, tribals were habituated to jhum farming (shifting cultivation), in the plains they used to practice settled cultivation. In the hills, the village chiefs used to collect ghar-chutki kar or family tax as there was no permanent land on rent but in the plains, the king himself, as the zamindar, used to collect tax from the plough cultivators.

The monarch would give the responsibility of collecting these revenues to the sub-farmers. Saqib Khan in his research paper titled “Is tribe a homogenous category? Evidence from Tripura in North-East India,” argues that these sub-farmers were mostly Bengali. In some cases, the kings even granted lands to these people with or without rent, creating small taluks or permanent tenancies. Through this, Khan notes, the monarchy created, “a class of intermediaries in the plains and this class consisted of both Bengalis and elite tribals.”

So, even before the Partition of Bengal and the historic migration of Bengalis to the hill state, they were gaining economic and social mobility in the region. Discussing the social stratification of Tripura society during the late 19th century, Khan divides it into three tiers: tribals, monarchs and nobility at the top, Bengali officials, talukdars, jotedars (big and smaller farmers) and moneylenders occupying the middle class and the impoverished tribes at the bottom.

However, the demography of the region changed dramatically during and after Partition. As per the official records, the number of people who came to Tripura from Bangladesh between 1947 and March 24, 1971 (the cut-off date) was 6,09,99. This migration had a double-edged impact on the state and its political economy. First, between 1951 to 1981, the population of the state tripled and second, the tribals who were the majority in 1941 was reduced to a minority.

Several reports, surveys and researches have cited two major reasons behind the demographic transitions in the hill state. First, is the rehabilitation and settlement of Bengali refugees mostly supported by consecutive Congress governments, which offered them khas (land with clear title) lands to stay, leading to the alienation of tribal lands. Second, the domination of Bengali moneylenders who after getting ownership of the lands hitherto used by the tribals for shifting cultivation started lending money to affected tribals at exorbitant rates, only to finally usurp their lands. The Dhebar Commission report of 1961 clearly mentions how the influx of the displaced persons “adversely affected the tribals and accelerated the land problems”.

Dasarath Deb, former chief minister of Tripura and the only tribal head of the state after 40 years of the state’s accession, in his paper “Sixth Schedule: An Outcome of Continuous Movement” demonstrates how the land offered to the Bengalis created animosity among the tribals. For example, Swasti Samiti, a Bengali cooperative society had been given jhumia land in Kanchanpur, earlier used for shifting cultivation. Khan also notes, “The lands which had been in possession of jhumias and other tribals since long, were later earmarked for refugee rehabilitation and in 1963–64 the government, with the help of the police, took away those lands forcibly and evicted the tribals from those areas.”

This process of rehabilitating the Bengalis expectedly irked tribal communities who were till then living in a friendly manner with the Bengalis, despite their cultural dominance. The influence of Bengali Hindus was so dominant that Biswajit Ghosh, in his paper titled ‘Ethnicity and Insurgency in Tripura’, records that “the Hindu identity of the Tripuris and some other tribes (Jamatia, Noatia) also led them to engage Brahmin priests on certain social occasions and worship Hindu gods and goddesses.”

Ghosh also pointed out that it was in only in the mid-18th century that Bengali language received official status. “The process of Sanskritisation of the tribes and their subsequent assimilation under the royal patronage helped in developing a tradition of tribe-non-tribe unity in Tripura from the mid-14th century,” he wrote.

However, political organisations in the early days tried to uphold the class-based unity of tribals and peasants, under the ideological influence of the Communist parties. When Tripura acceded to India in 1949, the Ganamukti Parishad (GMP), an organisation known for its struggle for a responsible government, tried to make a united force of peasants and tribes who would not fight on the basis of ethnicity but would engage in class-based struggle. The first spark of ethnonationalism in Tripura could thus be traced to the formation of the Tripura Upajati Juba Samiti (TUJS) mostly peopled by Christian tribals who had not only received western education but also had the opportunity to borrow ideas and strategies from neighbouring Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur and Assam, all witnessing identity-based struggles. The major objectives of the TUJS were “the creation of an autonomous district council for the tribes under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution; the restoration of tribal lands from non-tribals which were illegally transferred; the recognition of Kokborok language, and the adoption of Roman script.”

The politics of TUJS in the early stages was parliamentary; later it took a militant turn. The Congress, known to be the champions of Bengali refugees, continued planting Bengalis in tribal lands. The Left parties, to sustain their political relevance, kept silent and didn’t espouse the tribal cause. Even after sufficient tribal sentiments, TUJS couldn’t perform well in the consecutive 1970 assembly and 1971 parliamentary elections.

Ghosh notes that such failure to mobilise people provoked them to opt for extra-parliamentary routes. Thus, in the mid-1970s, the Tripura Sena, a militant organisation, was formed under the leadership of Bijoy Kr Hrankhawi. Trained by the Mizo National Front, Sena members started targeting refugee areas. In response, a Bengali militant organisation, Amra Bangali, came into operation.

The conflict led to one of the most unfortunate incidents in the history of Tripura, known as the Mandai massacre. On June 8, 1980, at Mandwi village, near the state capital of Agartala, at least 300 Bengalis were butchered by insurgent tribal groups. The riots, reports shows, led to the killing of at least 1000 people across the state. This militant action resonated through the 1980s and 1990s in Tripura. The founding of organisations like the Tripura National Volunteers (TNV), the All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) and the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) continued insurgent activities, disrupting peaceful solutions.

In 1982, under political pressure, the Tripura Assembly constituted the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Councils (TTAADC) Act and the Centre brought it within the Sixth Schedule in 1985 through a constitutional amendment. Consecutive Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) were signed between different organisations and the central governments (the Rajiv Gandhi-Bijoy Hrangkhawl Agreement, the Agartala Agreement). Though they broadly promised cultural restoration and privileging of tribal rights, they did not deliver on these promises and  the claims for separate statehood for tribals continued to surge its head.

The political relevance of the Indigenous People’s Front Tof ripura (IPFT), a coalition of indigenous groups formed in 2000, is gradually declining and another indigenous political front, the TIPRA Motha is becoming much more relevant. But will they be able to succeed? Professor R. K. Debbarma tells Outlook, “Tripura has always had a history of strong tribal-based regional political parties. The Left Front, under Manik Sarkar, was able to keep these regional parties divided and weak. IPFT became a force to reckon with but the alliance with BJP turned out to be a poisoned chalice.”

Debbarama, who chairs the unit for research and development, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Guwahati, adds, “TIPRA Motha emerged to filled the void, propelled by social media and younger generation voters. It looks like TIPRA Motha is the only indigenous party right now but it cannot win by harping on indigeneity alone. It will have to win the support of Bengali voters and other small tribal groups. The party will need to rethink its slogan and demand if it wishes to remain relevant beyond one election.”

But who should be held responsible for the emergence of IPFT or TIPRA Motha? Debbarma says, “I think it is the political parties, both Congress and the Left Front, which have failed to assuage feelings of alienation/deprivation, as well as the material basis of this sentiment/feeling.”

The attacks in the post-CAA phase on the Bengali refugee families staying in northern Tripura recall the days of bloodshed and ethnic mobilisation. Will Tripura move toward a peaceful solution? Or will it again follow the ‘Tripura Way’? 

(This appeared in the print edition as "The Tripura Way")