CC_India

in the rural areas has led to starvation and prostitution.
Properties are lost, looted or occupied. Displacement
has impoverished once self sufficient landed cultivators
and reduced them to day labourers. Food security
has been disrupted and malnourishment has reached
alarming levels. Girls and women’s ability to access
health, education and other entitlement schemes has
been undermined.
Feb 18, 1999, West Tripura: Rabinder Dev, a Bengali
trader along with four others were abducted. NLFT
militants on the same day fired at a bus killing three
passengers.
Feb 27 1999 at Dattaram, Udaipur: Purnima Ghosh was
kidnapped on her way to school.
Dec 1999, Raiyabari village: This mixed population of
Muslims and Jamatiya tribals were attacked by NLFT
insurgents. Six women including a 13 year old Muslim
girl were gang raped. Homes were looted, food and livestock
taken. All 124 families fled to Udaipur. The displaced
men, once settled cultivators have become day
labourers, the women maids in other people’s homes.
Even four years later only 20 families have returned.
April 2001 Gayapara village: Padmbati Debbarma
was kidnapped from her father’s house by Rabicharan
Debbarma of the NLFT and forced to cohabit with him.
He was killed by the security forces in an encounter.
Padmabati found herself stranded. Her parents feared
taking her back as their village was in the grip of the
rival faction ATTF. A middle ranking leader of the political
party INPT gave her shelter but ended up sexually
exploiting her. She has been trying to escape his control.
July 15, 2002 Kalucherra: Insurgents belonging to the
banned NLFT raided a nursery school in broad daylight
and started firing indiscriminately. Villagers and school
teachers were objecting to insurgent activities in the
area. Dahlia Halam (20) a nursery aide was shot and
killed. Her family quietly left the village.
In the tribal areas the education and health systems
have nearly collapsed during the violence. Despite the
claims of the state education minister in 2001, Sources
from the Tripura Upajati Juba Samity (TUJS) claim that
between 1999-2000 nearly 80 % of the schools in the
tribal areas were closed. Dropout rate of Classes I-X
is was high as 76.8%, particularly in the Autonomous
District Council ( ADC). Some schools were occupied by
the security forces.
This had a psychological impact on the mind of young
children who in all likelihood have witnessed state terror
in their homes. In many cases teachers, largely non
tribal, are afraid to go to schools in the tribal areas and
arrange for proxy teachers. Between 1993-2000, some
20 teachers and non teaching staff were killed, 58
were kidnapped of whom 6 are still missing. It should
be added that the syllabus of the curriculum is hostile
to the indigenous peoples. According to Bijoy Kumar
Hrangkhawl (Member of Legislative Assembly Kulai
Tripura East) the “history of indigenous people has been
removed from the syllabus of primary and secondary
education.”
AFSPA REMAINS
Officially as the state’s Chief Minister has stated to the
Assembly, insurgency has practically ended and independent
assessments by the South Asia Terrorism Portal
(SATP) also corroborate this. However, AFSPA introduced
to fight insurgents remains in force, and only in the
tribal areas. Of Tripura’s 61 police station circle areas, 28
are under the act and another 6 are partially ‘distrubed’
where the Borok people reside. As Anthony Debbarma, a
leading human rights campaigner stated, the presence
of army camps in the heart of a village is a continuing
source of tension and trauma for the people, who in
all probability have had their husbands, brothers, sons
killed and been victims of rape. ‘Bored’ soldiers who are
culturally ignorant of the tribal way of life make for a
highly volatile situation. This is reinforced by the army
strategy of WHAM or civic action which particularly targets
women for development and welfare activities as
detailed above in the section on J&K. Indeed Operation
Sadbhavna in J&K, had its earlier incarnation in Tripura
and the Northeast as ‘Saathi Lago’ and ‘Friends of the
Hill Peoples’. The CC voiced a very firm demand for the
withdrawal of AFSPA.
Although the insurgency is virtually over and most of
the experiences of violent conflict transforming women’s
lives is in the near past, what was striking from the
questionnaire responses was the continuing reiteration
of ‘security’ as a concern in the Autonomous District
Council area. It was a reminder of the peculiarity to
Northeast insurgencies which get transformed into
splinter groups of armed militants whose activities are
more criminal than political. They provide the necessary
muscle power to the formal structures of power and
authority and also assure their patronage and survival
in what Northeast scholar Sanjib Barua calls ‘durable
44 UNEQUAL CITIZENS: Women’s Narratives of Resistance, Militarisation, Corruption and Security