The Northeast presents a complex picture, where stunning natural beauty combines with ethnic violence and insurgent movements. From Assam to Tripura, the region of the Seven Sisters has become a hot topic for strategists and social activists, who have debated on how to bring about normality and connect the region, emotionally and physically, with the rest of India.
Governments have consistently resorted to a militaristic approach to deal with the escalating insurgent violence. Over the the past two decades, almost 20,000 people have died in the Northeast and millions have been displaced — a testimony to the failure of the state’s approach to the problem and its ability to protect common citizens.
While many ceasefire agreements and peace accords have been signed to end the violence and heal the mental and physical wounds of the people, the scars have seldom healed completely. In this situation, tiny Tripura’s successful restoration of normality after decades of turmoil is indeed a story worth telling.
Chronicling Tripura’s experience with counter-insurgency (COIN) operations, senior IPS officer Kuldeep Kumar, who led the Special Forces (SF) of the Tripura State Police, regrets the scholarly neglect of its achievements. Kumar took on the responsibility of remedying this, and the present volume is his succinct description of the efforts that went into transforming the state. Tripura, the only state in the region to have repealed the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in May 2015, demonstrates how the integration of police strategies with comprehensive government initiatives have re-established the rule of law and a sense of security among the people.
Tracing the roots of unrest, Kumar points out that Tripura’s tribal population, which stood at 52.89 per cent in 1901, came down to 31.8 per cent in 2011 with the influx of refugees during Partition and again after the liberation of East Pakistan/ Bangladesh. As a result, many tribal people lost their land and were reduced to working as landless labourers. This generated much heartburn, frustration and discontent that set the stage for violence. From the emergence of the Tripura National Volunteers (TNV) in 1978 to the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) and All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) in later years, 28 insurgent groups sprang up in Tripura. By 2000, the security scenario was extremely disturbed as a result of both land alienation and tribal insurgency.
According to Kumar, the achievement of the Left Front government in re-establishing a secure environment for civil governance, development and welfare in areas ‘liberated’ from insurgency has been an integral component of the comprehensive COIN campaign in Tripura.
Kumar points out how in Tripura troops of armed battalions have lived in close proximity with civilians in areas of intense conflict. This has provided effective security through protective patrols and also helped in the collection of intelligence and in liaising with local leaders. The government promoted ‘peace through development’ through large-scale meetings, effective political mobilisation of women, devolution of powers to local bodies and by encouraging the youth to renounce violence.
In real terms, the figures released by the Planning Commission in 2012 indicate a substantial decrease in reduction of poverty from 40 per cent in 2004-05 to 14 per cent in 2011-12.
However, charting out the path ahead, Kumar says that despite various positive developments, much remains to be done to uplift the economic status of the tribal people and improve their access to quality education, health, sanitation, drinking water and physical infrastructure. In this respect, he also points out that the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous Development Council is an extremely important institution geared towards fulfilling the aspirations of self-administration by tribal people. He also cites the highly visible role of women in the fight against insurgency.
On the whole, this book is a timely reminder for strategists, social activists and scholars struggling for solutions to insurgency.
V.B. Ganesan is currently engaged in writing biographies of Satyajit Ray and of Abdul Karim Sahitya Visharad, a Bengali scholar of estwhile East Pakistan.
Published - August 13, 2016 04:15 pm IST
