As the pre-assembly poll campaign heats up in Tripura, the State seems to be heading for a sharper ethnic divide in 2023 between the majority Bengalis and native tribal groups. New poll entrants Tipra Motha (TM) fighting for a greater separate Tripura (Tipraland) State, have confirmed the worst fears of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by calling for greater tribal consolidation. It has appealed to BJP’s tribal ally Indigenous Peoples’ Front of Tripura (IPFT) to support and join the movement for separate statehood. The State BJP unit has not been particularly surprised, its leaders had earlier expressed their anxieties about the TM’s political motives. There has been no immediate reaction from the ruling BJP which has already announced plans to maintain its present alignment with the IPFT and ruled out any understanding with the TM. In 2018 the BJP got a majority for the first time in the State assembly polls along with its ally IPFT defeating the Left Front. The isolation of the CPI(M) from the tribals led to the defeat of the Front. Notably, the tribals constitute 31 percent of the population of Tripura.
In recent times, Tripura has undergone spells of sporadic political violence, but the TM’s tentative initial steps have not been provocative. Non-tribals and Muslims have been present in significant numbers at its mass meetings. TM leader Pradyot Debbarma has taken care to insist that the party is not targeting non-tribals in any way. It will pursue its objectives in a Constitutional way. Its approach so far remains a contrast with the more aggressive assertion shown by the IPFT, which also conducted an agitation for separate statehood some years ago. There had been much tension and some violence at the time. Its alignment with the ruling BJP has somewhat blunted the earlier sharper edge of the IPFT’s agitation for separate statehood following its participation in the process of administration and governance. Understandably, there has been noticeable support for the TM according to Tripura-based media reports, among the new generation of aspirant tribal youths, most of whom are as a rule more proficient in the use of English not to mention the internet, than their older family members and relatives.
Meanwhile, the BJP has much to answer for especially among hard-pressed common people who paid the price for unemployment and a drop in their incomes, while ruling party-backed anti-socials were allowed to flourish has been the broad theme of the Opposition-sponsored campaign so far. The other major concern among both Oppositions as well as ruling party circles is whether a potential consolidation of the tribal vote bank would lead to a similar coming together among Bengali voters in the State, by way of a reaction. In the Northeast region as a whole, political loyalties have been often dominated by considerations of their ethnic origins and local history, among voters. Opposition parties fear that the BJP might win an advantage if this were to happen. State BJP leaders point to the example set by Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma in this context. Once seen as an Asomiya hardliner in matters relating to the status of Bengali Hindus and Muslims in Assam, as a chief minister he has gone out of his way to accommodate the fears of common people in Bengali-dominated Barak Valley areas and also encouraged local economic development. Therefore, the tribals, BJP leaders insist, should have no fears of being sidelined in Tripura now or in the future.
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