Prejudice, petulance and the fall-out of the politics of sub-contract in the cauldron of Tripura’s ethno-centric politics
Shekhar Dutta
June 6, 2025
The chief minister Dr Manik Saha seems to have spelt out a redline in a recent speech, asserting that ‘nothing beyond limits will be tolerated’. This Eliotian allusion was obviously aimed at the mayhem created by BJP’s alliance partner ‘Tipra Motha’ workers in Udaipur by closing down all offices to protest the failure of DM (Gomati) Tarit Kanti Chakma to meet party supremo Pradyot Kishore in his official residence at 8-00 in the night. How far the chief minister will and can go to preempt or put down such illegal protests of the coalition partner in the coming days remains in the realm of conjecture only. However,by all indications, but for the short-sighted soft peddling by BJP leadership at the central level and at one stage by the ousted chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb, the ‘Tipra Motha’ that flourished and continue to thrive on dreams and delusions would never have undertaken such a misadventure. For the ruling BJP the growing political risks are too obvious to be ignored. But there are certain crucial questions that beg concrete answers to the issues pitchforked by the illegal and anti-democratic depredations of the ‘Tipra Motha’.
First and foremost is the question why Pradyot Kishore who wields considerable influence in the present dispensation had made no attempt to meet and speak to the chief minister or the chief secretary for a whole month but kept trying to contact the DM (Gomati) to sort out an undisclosed issue. There is reportedly a murky background to his futile bid to meet Tarit Kanti Chakma in the latter’s official residence at an odd hour even though Chakma had allegedly failed to attend his phone calls for a whole month . Had Tarit Kanti Chakma as the head of district administration with power and control over land allotments, proprietorship etc rubbed Pradyot and his party the wrong way by either refusing to oblige or by purposely avoiding a direct contact ? Be that as it may , Tarit Kanti Chakma as a civil service cadre officer can not be faulted or proceeded against for what he did , not even under provisions of the civil service conduct rules. That leaves Pradyot and his party with the lone option of settling scores and scaring the administration by extra-constitutional action to pave the way for his ascension to the pinnacle of political power by wily bargaining in a post-election scenario.
The situation that obtained in Udaipur recently symbolizes a larger malaise that afflicts the state’s polity and this stems from the short-sighted and short-cut politics of BJP’s central leadership. There is an unmistakable similarity in the scenario with what had happened in the state politics in the eighties of the last century. Despite having initiated a lot of tribal welfare measures-the legislation of TLR LR Act-1960, formation of Tribal Development block, 2nd amendment of the TLRLR Act passed to facilitate land restoration with 1969 as the cut-off year, introduction of education in ‘Kokborok’ at primary level and finally the formation of ADC under the 6th schedule-the Congress had to have recourse to the politics of sub-contract by allying with the regional TUJS and then INPT. Even though the Congress had secured 9 ST seats and more than 40% of votes in the 1972 assembly election , the party had virtually written off its once-powerful tribal organization and support base on the back of a series of missteps taken by late PCC president Ashok Bhattacharjee. The Congress is paying the price even today for the cardinal political sins committed by the last generation of leaders.
The BJP in Tripura is all set to meet the same fate, it seems, as the party appears to have virtually wound up its ‘Jana Jati Morcha’ (tribal front) that had acquitted itself exceedingly well with support rooted at the grassroots. In the 2018 assembly polls the BJP had won 10 out of twenty scheduled tribe (ST) reserve seats besides subsequently winning the East Tripura (ST) LS seat and nine seats in the ADC polls of 2021 that indicated the growth of an organic base . But consistent apathy of the state and central BJP towards strengthening the tribal front may spell disaster for the party as is already evident. The blame for this can be squarely laid at the door of former chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb who had suddenly started cozying up to Pradyot Kishore and helped to boost his image by unthinkingly agreeing to resettle the Reang refugees of Mizoram-all cultural aliens-in Tripura in an unprecedented move. Even as the price of this folly is being paid by the people of the state, the central BJP leadership has started giving traction to Pradyot by signing a so-called peace accord with a virtually non-existent militant organization. Among the more than 300 so-called militants who surrendered a maximum of forty might have possibly been engaged in active militancy and fifty percent of the financial benefits given to the returnees will only fatten the coffer of ‘Tripra Motha’ for the assembly election of 2028.
What is most concerning for the state’s political firmament and the general population is the appeasement of Pradyot by the central BJP leadership, presumably from ignorance of Tripura’s socio-economic , political and demographic realities . Since Pradyot and his party have nothing to show in terms of success of the ADC run by them, they perforce have to resort to fissiparous politics and sell wicked myths and dreams to the people to capture the vast majority of 587 Village Committees late this year and the ADC early next year. The major casualty in the process of BJP central leadership’s unnecessary politics of appeasement at the cost of the party’s own tribal base and ‘Motha’s politics of opportunism and quest for power is going to be ethnic relation in the state.
At a time when a large section of tribal people are keen to join the mainstream of national politics , having already attained nationhood, the central BJP leadership is sacrificing a vital political base in a sensitive bordering state to a parochial ethno-centric force. What is even more tragic is that Tripura has been a victim of an organised campaign of falsehood by regional tribal parties as well as the CPI (M) that Tripura had been taken over by the Bengali immigrants despite incontrovertible historical fact that the state had never been shorn of Bengali presence . Even in the first imperial census of 1872 present Tripura had a Bengali population of 30% which registered decadal growth in every census till reaching around 50% in 1949 and the entire population had settled here with encouragement and incentives from royal administration from the extended part of princely ruled plainland of Tripura known as ‘Chakla Roshanabad’.
True, the demographic balance had tilted majorly since 1947 influx but the pertinent question is whether Tripura has made so much of development over the past 76 years without any contribution from the majority community in all spheres of governance including education, health , general administration and other sectors. The prisoners of pre-conceived notions may believe in and articulate wicked myths but facts remain etched in historical records alongside the unimpeachable truth that the Bengalis also had bolstered the tribal fight for rights through active participation in many movements and, before that, in running the royal administration, educational and health set-up and in introducing largescale plainland cultivation among many other contributions . Pradyot and his ilk should be mindful of the axiom that the wheel of history is reversed first in tragedy and then in farce.
(Tripurainfo)
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