People's Democracy

Huge GMP Rallies Challenge Conspirators

 Haripada Das

THE Tripura Rajya Upajati Ganamukti Parishad (GMP in short) set a new record of mobilisation in the tiny state on November 9. No less than 50,000 people participated in three simultaneous GMP rallies in three districts, defying all the threat from outlawed extremists. Not only they participated in the rallies in thousands, they also made clear their intention to again vote the Left Front to power in the coming assembly elections. These elections are slated to take place in February coming. 

Since the erstwhile IPFT (now INPT) usurped the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (ADC in short) with the help of the NLFT’s guns in 2000, a section of the anti-Left press and the Congress-INPT alliance had been propagating that the GMP has lost its ground and got alienated from the tribal masses. But the three rallies on November 9 made them shiver and tumbled their daydream of capturing power through falsification of the people’s mandate with the aid of anti-national secessionists.

The first and the biggest rally took place at the Astabal Maidan in capital Agartala, West Tripura. The ground overflowed with the tribal people from West and South Tripura districts. CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and chief minister Manik Sarkar and the tribal welfare minister and GMP general secretary Aghore Debbarma addressed the rally.

People from Kamalpur, Ambassa and Gandachhara subdivisions joined the second rally at Ambassa, the headquarters of Dhalai district. CPI(M) state secretary and Central Committee member Baidyanath Majumder and state cooperative minister Niranjan Debbarma addressed it.

The third rally at Kumarghat was attended by the tribal people from Longthorai Valley in Dhalai district and the subdivisions of North Tripura district. It was addressed by GMP president Bajuban Riyan, PWD minister Badal Chowdhury and rural development minister Jitendra Chowdhury. 

In all the rallies, the huge congregations, largely comprising men and women in their traditional dresses and with their band instruments, aired their strong commitment to ensure a growth in the GMP’s strength, no matter what attacks the anti-national forces launch to weaken it. The GMP could not be deviated from its commitment earlier, nor will it be possible to deviate it in future from its chosen path. The GMP is firm on advancing its cause of protecting the tribal interests through a united democratic movement.

Addressing the rally, Manik Sarkar elaborated the anti-tribal stance of the 30-year Congress regime before 1978 and the five years long jungle rule of the Congress-TUJS coalition during 1988-93 when the tribal masses were subjected to inexplicable exploitation and oppression. In order to make narrow gains, the Congress sowed the seeds of hatred between the tribals and Bengalis in the state and in other north-eastern states where no worthwhile development could be registered. The area’s backwardness is one of the major causes that are breeding extremism, and the Congress is responsible for the present dimension of the problem, Sarkar asserted.

Explaining in detail the package programmes undertaken by consecutive Left Front governments for the tribal people’s economic, social and cultural uplift, Sarkar warned the people that going by the way the present ADC is behaving, all the pro-tribal programmes will be jeopardised before reaching their targets in the absence of the Left Front government.

Referring to the context of Aiyar’s column in an English daily (see People’s Democracy, November 24), Sarkar said the Congress is now vainly trying to cleanse the stains of blood from Hrangkhawl’s hands. It is known that Hrangkhawl is one of the notorious kingpins who triggered an ethnic riot in 1980 and butchered thousands of innocent people for two decades. Yet he does not repent his dark past. His speech in Geneva indicates that he still boasts of his savage acts. The involvement of INPT leaders and ADC executive members in sending in their official vehicles 63 innocent college going tribals students to NLFT bases in Bangladesh for arms training, amply indicates that Hrangkhawl and his party have not abandoned the path of secessionism. Rather they are blatantly using their positions in ADC for advancing their secessionist cause, Manik Sarkar maintained.

Sarkar further said the history of the Congress deception vis-à-vis the people’s interest has not been effaced from the people’s minds to date. They know it well that, with such a black track record, they will not be able to halt a clean sweep by the Left Front in the coming assembly elections. It is to get rid of such a destiny that, throwing to the winds all sense of shame and dignity, the Congress has aligned with the INPT, an offshoot of the anti-national NLFT extremists. Sarkar then urged upon the masses, amid cheers and applause, to raise an invincible fortification so that any ill attempt of the anti-national conspirators is resolutely foiled.

Lambasting the Congress party’s anti-tribal policy, Aghore Debbarma said the tribal people number about 9 crore in the country as a whole. But neither the Congress nor the BJP, the present ruling party, has a consistent tribal policy. They are adopting opportunistic stand, varying from one state to another, to allure the tribal people. Because of such opportunism, these parties have no base among the tribal people, justifiably, even after 55 years of independence. The Congress is out to assimilate the tribals, instead of preserving their languages, culture and identity.

Describing the present ADC administration as a misrule and a regime of rampant corruption, Debbarma said a party cannot claim to be a champion of tribal interests only because its leaders are tribals. The present INPT-controlled ADC is a glaring instance of this fact. Rather, one wonders how a self-proclaimed ‘indigenous’ party has stooped down to the level of betraying the indigenous people. Radhacharan Debbarma, leader of opposition in the ADC, also addressed the rally.  

Addressing the Ambassa rally, Baidyanath Majumder expressed firm confidence that the alert and conscious people of Tripura shall not let the treacherous alliance come back to the helm of power. Lambasting Aiyar for certifying Hrangkhawl as a patriot, Majumder quipped: “Has not Aiyar thereby dubbed as anti-nationals hundreds of our martyrs, including Comrades Bimal Sinha, Anand Roaja, etc, who were killed by outlawed NLFT extremists fathered by Hrangkhawl?”

Referring to the anti-democratic rule of the Congress-TUJS coalition during 1988-93, Majumder said the coalition liquidated all the elected panchayat bodies with a single stroke of pen and did not conduct elections again till it was ousted from office. It turned all the polls and bypolls held during its tenure into a complete farce. Its armed goons instituted a jungle rule in the state and launched an unprecedented reign of terror against the opposition parties. They killed over 300 leaders and cadres, and destroyed offices throughout the state. But now the same parties are shedding crocodile tears for democracy. As a matter of fact, democracy has no place in the Congress organisation, nor has the party any regard for democratic norms and ethics, Majumder asserted. Cooperative minister Niranjan Debbarma also addressed the rally at Ambassa.

At the huge rally at Kumarghat, Bajuban Riyan, Badal Chowdhury and Jitendra Chowdhury highlighted the abysmal fallout of the extremist depredations for the lives and livelihood of the tribal people, for the development of tribal areas, and for services like health and education, etc. They also reminded that the NLFT militants, protagonists of the so-called “independent Tripura,” are now remote-controlling the present ADC. This important body of self-governance has been converted into a body to be looted at the dictate of the “invisible allied force,” as the NLFT extremists are commonly termed. To carry out the commands of this “invisible” force, three members of the present ADC’s executive sent college students, in their official vehicles, to their Bangladesh camps for arms training. The speakers fervently appealed the people to rise in unison, defeat this anti-tribal, anti-democratic and anti-people alliance and take a vow to form a fifth Left Front government in the coming elections.