The frail figure of the 76-year-old man sitting on a chair, belied the fact that till he signed a peace treaty with the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1988, the name Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawl used to strike terror in the wooded hills of Tripura.
Hrangkhawl, currently the president of the Tipra Motha, a tribal party which may well emerge as the king-maker in a three-cornered election that the northeastern state is facing, still roots for Tipraland, a separate tribal state, but now also believes that the “gun was not the best way” to achieve it.
In March 1983, the former supremo of the Tripura National Volunteers (TNV), a proscribed militant outfit, had written to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi: “Armed insurgency was necessary to reach your heart. Either you deport all foreign nationals who infiltrated into Tripura after 15 October 1947 or settle them anywhere in India other than Tripura… We demand a free Tripura.” In an exclusive interview to PTI at his two-storied, middle-class home set in a carefully curated garden at Ambassa, in the hilly tribal district of Dhalai, surrounded on two sides by Bangladesh, Hrangkhawl said, “When I started fighting in the 1960s, people dubbed me anti-Bengali.” Waving his hands in the air, he said, “I (have since) proved with my work that I am not communal. In the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTDAC), has any Bengali or other outsider been attacked?”
The accord signed by him with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, which led to his surrender with 447 followers and formation of a new party – The Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipraland –and the inclusion of more areas in an existing tribal autonomous district council, along with more seats reserved for tribals in the state legislature.
“I knew that the gun was not the best way, but for some reasons, I had to take it up. At least 50-60 cases were hanging on my head,” he said, in between telephone calls from Tipra Motha party campaigners.
“Democracy is the better way. A constitutional solution (to demands for a separate state) is better,” he reflected, adding, “maybe by taking up arms, I lost some years in attaining (this aim).” Hrangkhawl started his political life as organising secretary of the ethno-nationalist tribal Tripura Upajati Juba Samiti in 1967 and then became the leader of its militant wing Tripura Sena in 1977, soon after the Left Front came to power in the tiny border state after decades of Congress rule.
TNV, an extremist force
Within two years, this militant group broke away from TUJS and evolved into TNV, an extremist force, with help from Mizo rebels.
On June 1980, an attack by tribals saw the massacre of 255 plainsmen at Mandai, 30 kms to the north of Agartala. One front page newspaper headline of that time screamed ‘Well-planned human slaughter’, focusing a transient spotlight on this remote part of India.
Since that landmark event, the militant leader’s arrest, and release, splitting-up of TNV, surrender by former colleagues who formed the rival All Tripura People’s Liberation Organisation, and a revival of TNV became part of Tripura terror folk-lore.
A Tripura Police report on ‘Emergence of militancy and its phases’ said TNV “attacks were directed at killing non-tribals and security personnel, and looting arms and ammunition”.
Hrangkhawl, now a milder version of the fire-brand rebel who parlayed with India’s prime minister said, “we are demanding that the TTADC areas be upgraded to a state like Meghalaya”.
Allaying fears that the large numbers of non-tribals, who would also become residents of the new state being sought, could face problems, he said, “We can accommodate tribals, non-tribals, Bengalis, everyone… we have even put up 13 non-tribal candidates from Tipra Motha.” Bengalis constitute the majority in Tripura and many of them live in large numbers in the tribal autonomous district, whose map was changed by the 1988 accord to include areas with mixed population.
While some of the Bengalis who were dubbed ‘outsiders’ or ‘foreigners’ by tribal parties such as Tripura Rajya Adivasi Sangha (1953) and TUJS, have lived here for centuries, many others came from Comilla in Bangladesh, where the Maharaja of Tripura also owned vast estates, as well as from Sylhet and Chittagong as refugees during the partition of the country in 1947.
Explaining why his party wanted a separate state, HrangKhawl said, “On the basis of population, tribals account for nearly a third of it, so why don’t they (authorities) give us one third of the budget? Tripura’s budget is for ₹27,000 crore, yet they wanted to give ₹5,000 crore and actually ended up giving us just ₹1,000 crore.”
Other parties including the BJP, Congress and the CPI(M) are willing to concede more executive, financial and legislative powers, possibly through an amendment to the Constitution – called the 125th amendment – but Hrangkhawl, the old campaigner, is not satisfied.
“More powers is part of the process… but finally we have to have a separate state with a legislature,” said the former rebel.