CC_India

Tripura’s high rate of crimes against women is witness to the grave situation of women.
In the past few years the state has consistently achieved notoriety for having the
highest or second highest crime rate against women in the country, more than double
the national average for crimes such as torture including cruelty by husbands and
relatives, molestation, rape as well as high rates of kidnapping and abduction.
Continuance of the AFSPA makes for suspicion, ethnic
tension and alienation. The public image of Tripura’s
‘good governance’ cloaks a fractured world, one in which
tribal women are particularly vulnerable to violence
within the family, insurgent violence and state violence.
The breakdown of social cohesion among the tribal
communities, and within family structures, the criminalisation
of militancy and the culture of non accountability
that militarisation and attendant security laws
like AFSPA have entrenched, has made for a very high
risk environment especially for women. Tripura’s high
rate of crimes against women is witness to the grave
situation of women. In the past few years the state has
consistently achieved notoriety for having the highest
or second highest crime rate against women in the
country, more than double the national average for
crimes such as torture including cruelty by husbands
and relatives, molestation, rape as well as high rates of
kidnapping and abduction.
Lilypar Hrangkhawl, member of the All Twipra Indigenous
and Minority Association (ATIMA), noting the increasing
number of violations against women, emphasised
the erosion of indigenous cultural rights and the intrusion
of such practices as dowry among the indigenous
communities. Women’s work participation in Tripura
is the lowest in the Northeast. She echoed many of
the women respondents in her criticism of the State
Women’s Commission. It was vulnerable to ‘political
manipulation’ and evidently discriminated against the
complaints of indigenous women. Tribal women respondents
deeply resented their ‘lowly’ treatment by upper
caste Bengali settlers. As also reflected in the questionnaires
‘Middle Men’ a euphemism for corruption and
patronage networks blocked women’s access to the
existing government schemes of entitlements. The one
significant advancement has been the strides in girls
education. Tripura has a female literacy rate of 83%
but this success is again fractured with many schools
remaining closed and in a dismal state in the tribal
areas. Political participation at the panchayat level in
the non VI schedule tribal council area, i.e. for Bengali
women is high especially in view of Tripura racheting
up reservations to 50%. However in the state assembly,
women’s political participation has been declining
with only four elected, 3/4 Bengali women. In the
Autonomous Tribal District Council reservation ensures
but caps representation of one tribal woman within top
and Executive Committee positions (12 members) and 3
tribal women in the Council (30 members).
Tripura has been neglected in comparison with the
human rights focus on violations by state and non state
actors in the insurgency affected states of the Northeast.
Moreover, during the decades when violence was most
intense, the few fact finding efforts faced serious limitations
in documenting the violence and atrocities of
the militants, though the women were more forthcoming
on army atrocities. As Sejut Halam (65) a women in
the village of Kalucherra across the Dhalai River said,
“You people come here from the town once a year for
your own purpose, but the extremists might attack us
or beat us to extract why you have come here.” 37
42 UNEQUAL CITIZENS: Women’s Narratives of Resistance, Militarisation, Corruption and Security