Lit­tle known to many In­di­ans and the rest of the world is the fact that the North­east states of In­dia be­came part of In­dia, not in 1947, but later, af­ter the then peo­ples rep­re­sen­ta­tives signed an ac­cord with the then Gov­ern­ment of In­dia.  One such state was Tripura which joined In­dia on 15 Oc­to­ber 1949. The jour­ney of the orig­i­nal in­hab­i­tants of these lands -the in­dige­nous peo­ples -Twiprasa -speak­ing the lan­guage Kok Borok, like that of other eth­nic peo­ples and mi­nori­ties, has been a tale of de­cep­tion, treach­ery, loot, mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion and dis­hon­our of all com­mit­ments in the merger agree­ments.

MODERN-DAY TRIPURA IS NOT WHAT IT WAS UN­DER THE REIGN OF MA­HARAJA BIR BIKRAM KISHORE MANIKYA BA­HADUR -the for­mer King of Tripura be­fore the state merged with the In­dian Union in 1949. Tripura to­day has more peo­ple from Bangladesh than their own tribal peo­ple. Un­like the rest of the coun­try, Tripura so­cial and po­lit­i­cal bod­ies want to work on NRC and CAA.

Tripura to­day is led by its first Bharatiya Janata Party flam­boy­ant chief min­is­ter  -Bi­plab Ku­mar Deb, who has per­fected the art of shoot­ing from the hip -whether he is talk­ing about Pun­jabis, Haryan­vis,  the rights of the in­dige­nous peo­ple of Tripura -the Twiprasa na­tion or even the rights of me­dia per­son­nel whom he re­cently abused.

One will find it dif­fi­cult to be­lieve that even the Chief Min­is­ter of the state is said to be of Bangladeshi ori­gin. He speaks Ben­gali and has a dis­dain for those who speak the Kok Borok lan­guage.

In the re­cent past, the elec­tions to the Tripura Tribal Ar­eas Au­tonomous Dis­trict Coun­cil have been with­held due to the Covid19 pan­demic and the gov­ern­ment has nom­i­nated a non-in­dige­nous bu­reau­crat, for­mer Chief Sec­re­tary of the state -G. K. Rao, to run the af­fairs as ad­min­is­tra­tor.

Since the last 70 years, Tripura has been colonised in a sys­tem­atic man­ner. The lead­ing Left and left-ori­ented par­ties of the coun­try, sid­ing with all mech­a­nisms of the state to de­mo­graph­i­cally up­root the lo­cal peo­ple, over the years, not only tol­er­ated whole­sale in­fil­tra­tion from neigh­bour­ing Bangladesh but en­cour­aged it too.

The de­mo­graph­ics of the state of Tripura have been so per­ni­ciously man­aged that the Ben­gali dom­i­na­tion is com­plete. The bor­ders are so porous, that if you know how to do a 3-feet long and high jump, you can criss­cross the two coun­tries in a jiffy. If you are more in­gen­uine, you can bribe your way through on both sides.

Twiprasa-the in­dige­nous peo­ples who were 93 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion way back in 1951 were down to 23 per cent in 2007 as per the data given by Brigadier Am­rit Ka­pur in the In­dian De­fence Re­view. As of 2020, it is down to less than five per cent. It may also be un­der­stood that the in­flux is of Hin­dus and Mus­lims and not of Mus­lims alone.

When I vis­ited Tripura, nearly a year ago to par­tic­i­pate in protests for the rights of the in­dige­nous peo­ples, I saw the dom­i­nance of Bol­ly­wood mu­sic, Ben­gali bill-boards, Ben­gali lan­guage and the fear in the minds of the in­dige­nous peo­ples to stand-up to the state-spon­sored and ruth­lessly ad­min­is­tered Ben­gali dom­i­na­tion.

Yes­ter­day, ob­serv­ing the 71st day of in­clu­sion in In­dia,  all across the state there were demon­stra­tions by the Tripura Peo­ples’ Front, protest­ing the poli­cies of the Union and the state gov­ern­ment against the tribal peo­ple of the state.

Thanks to the coura­geous stand and ef­forts of the Tripura Peo­ples Front led by iron-lady Patal Kanya Ja­ma­tia, there is an up­ris­ing against the de­mo­graphic, cul­tural and po­lit­i­cal change thrust on the tribal peo­ples. She is spear­head­ing a non-elec­toral, le­gal and peo­ples strug­gle over the past 6 years against the so­cial, po­lit­i­cal, eco­nomic and cul­tural dom­i­na­tion over the past seven decades.

The scion of the erst­while King of Tripura -Pradyot Kishore Manikya Deb­bar­man has re­cently forged unity amongst var­i­ous tribal groups through a se­ri­ous en­deav­our to “work on NRC, CAA, iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and elim­i­na­tion of il­le­gal vot­ers from the vot­ers’ list, stream­lin­ing of for­est rights laws, more pow­ers and fund­ing for the Au­tonomous Dis­trict Coun­cil.”

The tor­tu­ous jour­ney of 71 years must come to an end and the hu­man rights, so­cial and po­lit­i­cal rights of the tribal peo­ples of Tripura must be ho­n­oured.