Tirpura:From cannon to democarcy, the epic of Bijoy Hrangkhawl

AMBASA: The frail figure of the 76-year-old man in the chair belies the fact that until he signed the peace accord with then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1988, Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawl was a jungle terror of Hills of Tripura.

Hrangkhawl, currently the president of Tipra Motha, a tribal party that could emerge as the kingmaker in the northeastern state in a tripartite election, still has its roots in a separate tribal state, Tipraland, but now also believes Is. “A gun wasn’t the best way” to get it.
In March 1983, the former supremo of the Tripura National Volunteers (TNV), a banned militant outfit, wrote to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi: “Armed rebellion is necessary to reach your heart. Either you after October 15, 1947 Deport all foreign nationals infiltrating Tripura or resettle them anywhere in India except Tripura.We demand independent Tripura.
In an exclusive interview to PTI at his two-storey, middle-class house set in a carefully manicured garden in Ambasa, in the hill-tribal district of Dhalai, bordered on two sides by Bangladesh, Hrangkhawl said, “When I started the war. In the 1960s, people called me anti-Bengali.
Waving his hands in the air, he said, “I have (since then) proved by my work that I am not a sectarian.” In Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTDAC), has a Bengali or other outsider been attacked?
Signed an agreement with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, which resulted in him surrendering with 447 followers and forming a new party, the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipraland, and adding more areas to the existing Tribal Autonomous District Council. Along with this, more seats were also reserved. For tribals in state legislatures.
“I knew that a gun was not the best way, but due to some reasons, I had to carry it. At least 50-60 cases were hanging over my head,” he said, according to Tipra Motha party campaigners. Between phone calls.
“Democracy is the best way. A constitutional solution (to demands for separate statehood) is better,” he reflected, adding, “Perhaps by taking up arms, I wasted some years in achieving (the goal).”

Hrangkhawl began his political career as the organizing secretary of the racist nationalist tribal Tripura Upajati Juba Samiti in 1967 and then became the leader of its militant wing Tripura Sena in 1977, soon after decades of Left Front After came to power in the small border state. Congress rule.
Within two years, this militant group broke away from the TUJS and transformed into the TNV, an extremist force, with the help of the Mizo rebels.

In June 1980, 255 plainsmen were massacred in Mandai, 30 km north of Agartala, in an attack by tribals. A front-page newspaper headline of the time screamed ‘planned human murder’, casting a fleeting light on this remote part of India.
Since this historic event, the arrest and release of the militant leader, the split of the TNV, the surrender of former comrades to form the rival All Tripura People’s Liberation Organization, and the revival of the TNV have become part of the folklore of Tripura terrorism. went.
A Tripura police report on the emergence and stages of militancy states that the TNV “aimed at killing non-tribals and security personnel, and looting arms and ammunition”.

Hrangkhawl, now a lighter version of the firebrand rebel who held talks with India’s prime minister, said, “We are demanding that the TTADC areas be upgraded to a state like Meghalaya”.
Allaying fears that a large number of non-tribals, who would also become residents of the new state, might face problems, he said, “We tribals, non-tribals, Bengalis, everyone, even here. That we have accommodated 13 non-tribals.- Tribal candidate from Tipra Motha.
Tripura has a majority of Bengalis and many of them live in large numbers in the tribal autonomous district, which was remapped by a 1988 agreement to include areas of mixed population.
While some Bengalis, termed ‘outsiders’ or foreigners by tribal parties such as the Tripura Rajya Adivasi Sangha (1953) and the TUJS, have lived here for centuries, many others came from Comilla in Bangladesh, where the Maharajah of Tripura Pass also had extensive property. estates as well as refugees from Sylhet and Chittagong during the partition of the country in 1947.
Explaining why his party wanted a separate state, Hrangkhawl said, “On the basis of population, the share of tribals is about one-third, so why don’t they (authorities) give us one-third of the budget?” Tripura has a budget of Rs 27,000 crore, yet they wanted to give Rs 5,000 crore and actually ended up giving us only Rs 1,000 crore.
Other parties including the BJP, Congress and the CPI(M) are likely to concede more administrative, fiscal and legislative powers through an amendment to the constitution known as the 125th Amendment, but old campaigners Hrangkhawl are content, Are not.

“More powers are part of the process but eventually we will have to have a separate state with a legislature,” the former rebel said.