People's Democracy

Women’s Rallies Resolve To Bring Left Front Again To Power

SETTING a new milestone in the history of women’s movement in Tripura, thousands of women, in a militant mood, thronged the three rallies held on December 30. Taking place in the state capital Agartala, in Dhalai district’s headquarters at Ambassa and at Kumarghat in North Tripura, these rallies were organised by the Tripura state committee of All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA). Roaring their resolution to defeat the threat posed by the Congress-INPT combine to rob the state of democracy, development, peace and progress, women belonging to all sections of society came from all corners of Tripura to merge themselves into these huge rallies.

The huge rally of Agartala was held in Astabal maidan and represented the people of West Tripura and South Tripura. The rallyists from Kamalpur, Gandachhara and Ambassa subdivisions in Dhalai districts poured into the Chandraipara school ground of Ambassa. The third rally, of Kumarghat, was held in the huge ground adjoining the Pabiacherra market that was brimming with the rallyists coming from Kailashahar, Dharmanagar and Kanchanpur subdivisions of North Tripura district as well as from Longthorai Valley subdivision of Dhalai district.

Braving extremist threats over the past two days, dauntless women from remote areas, young and old, set out from their homes early in the morning and could return only between 9 p m and 10 p m. The rallyists from the remotest areas of Gandachhara set out on the previous day to traverse upto 25 km on foot before boarding the buses, hired with their own money, to cover the remaining distance of about 55 km. Overwhelmed by such upsurge of women committed to form a fifth Left Front government in Tripura with a view to protecting their hard earned rights and self-respect, speakers at the three rallies voiced their firm faith in the potential of these rallies to reinforce the Left and democratic camp in the days to come.

The speakers included CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and chief minister Manik Sarkar, the party’s Central Committee member and agriculture minister Aghore Debbarma, state secretariat member and Lok Sabha member Bajuban Riyan, Rajya Sabha member Matilal Sarkar, and several AIDWA leaders including its general secretary Brinda Karat.

Addressing the Agartala rally, Manik Sarkar accused that the Congress party has, whether in power or out of power, never sought or striven for democracy and development in Tripura. On the other hand, whether in power or out of power, the CPI(M) and the Left Front have always struggled hard for specific and legitimate demands of the masses. The Congress has not only consistently opposed any step towards or movement for democracy and development; it also scuttled the Left Front government’s all-party initiatives to defend peace and harmony against the extremist menace. Not only that, the Congress party ultimately struck an unholy alliance with the INPT that serves as a front for outlawed extremists. The aim is clear --- to usurp power at gunpoint in the assembly polls slated for February coming. In short, the Congress and INPT are hoping to replicate in the coming assembly elections the same trick through which the INPT usurped the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (ADC in short) at gunpoint in the polls held to this body in May 2000.

However, Sarkar expressed his firm faith that the unforgettable experience of the predatory Congress-TUJS combine’s jungle rule in Tripura during 1988-1993 will only temper the steely resolve of the state’s population to foil the daydream of the Congress.

In this context, Sarkar also pointed to the way the INPT, after capturing the ADC most undemocratically, looted the ADC funds and misused the money and other resources for furthering the outlawed NLFT’s objectives. It was, for example, in ADC vehicles that about 60 students were taken to the NLFT camps in Bangladesh for arms training.

(One will note here that after the TNV, that was notorious for the massacres it committed during the 1980s, surrendered its arms, a wing of it converted itself into the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) for continuing the same kind of terrorist outrages. At the same time, another wing, led by TNV supremo Bijoy Hrangkhawl, acted as the NLFT’s political cover under the name of Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT). Later, when the Tripura Upajati Juba Samiti (TUJS) shed its independent identity and merged with the IPFT, the new entity was christened as the INPT, with which the Congress party has now struck a politico-electoral alliance.)

In her speech, AIDWA general secretary Brinda Karat lashed out at the Congress politics of capitulation before communal forces at the all-India level and its share in criminalisation of politics. She paid rich tributes to the women of Tripura for the indescribable sufferings they have braved and the immense sacrifices they have made, including martyrdom, in their incessant struggle against insurgency. To these fighting women and their unique and inspiring struggle she convened the revolutionary solidarity of lakhs of AIDWA activists countrywide. She also urged them to bond together into a solid patriotic force so as to give a fitting reply to the heinous conspiracy of predatory politicians in the coming assembly polls.

At the Kumarghat rally, Aghore Debbarma revived the memory of the semi-fascist terror unleashed by the Congress-TUJS combine in Tripura during 1988-1993, its unbridled atrocities, and its moves to kill democracy and development, peace and progress through corruption and carnage, rapes and repression. He called upon the women of Tripura to re-establish the pro-people Left Front government in the state through their massive participation in the coming battle of ballots and thereby set a glorious example before the Left and democratic movement in the country. (INN)