Mandai Bazar: Massacre or media hype? It is not a question that would ordinarily have much relevance 43 years on, but in Tripura’s politically volatile Mandai Bazar, as three tribal candidates face off in this month’s upcoming assembly election, it is a question that candidates prefer not to dwell on. Of the 47,000 voters in this reserved constituency (reserved for tribal candidates), about 12,000 are Bengalis and raking up the past is a fraught proposition.
The Mandai massacre of 1980, when some 450 Bengalis were hacked to death allegedly by tribals, had been described by the then Tripura Chief Minister Nripen Chakroborty as a “genocide”, and has since been compared to the My Lai massacre of Vietnam and the Nellie massacre of neighbouring Assam that happened three years later.
“It was all exaggerated by the media, hardly 10-12 bodies were found. If relations (between Bengalis and tribals) were indeed so tense, then how did Left Front win this seat for 25 years,” is how BJP’s mandal president in Mandai, Ajit Debbarma dismisses the incident.
He has reason to. Up against a rising Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance (TIPRA Motha) candidate and a former CEO of the autonomous district council (ADC) fighting the assembly election on a Left Front ticket, BJP has pinned its hopes on a coming together of the Bengali and a part of the tribal votes in its favour to win the seat. In 2018, the seat was fought and won by BJP ally Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT).
Ajit is a veteran here of many battles, unlike the BJP candidate Tarit Debbarma, who is a resident of neighbouring Jirania and is fighting his maiden assembly elections. Ajit fought the 2021 Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) elections on an IPFT ticket, but the polls were swept by the Motha. Then he joined BJP for “better avenues of career progression”.
His calculations are simple: “we are hoping the Bengalis will vote for us and of the 35000 tribal votes there will be polling of 30,000 and if we get at least a third of the votes — evenly split with Motha and the Left — we are home.”
There is a calm on the surface but Mandai has a reputation of being both violent and anti-Bengali and is also known to be not too welcoming of the media. In 2017 a journalist was hacked to death while covering political protests.
“They break cars first and ask questions later,” said Anup Roy of Agartala, who was driving the car in which ThePrint reporter was travelling.
Also read: ‘I am biggest Hindu in Tripura, namaz happens at palace’: Debbarma pitches Muslim-tribal unity
‘No work has been done in the hills’
Preparations are on in full swing for two political meetings in the main market of Mandai — BJP’s in the community hall and Left Front’s at a street corner, as ThePrint reached Saturday. The loudspeaker is blurting out a campaign song which talks about how good the Left Front is with its cabinet of erudite ministers and their leader is (former chief minister) Manik Sarkar.
Sarkar is not fighting the elections this time and the face of the Left Front and of the Left Congress alliance is Jitendra Chaudhury, a tribal leader. But the message has not gone down to Mandai.
The Left Front is hopeful that BJP’s calculations won’t work as tribal votes have a way of going to the same candidate.
“There is a saying here that TIPRA voters are like ants they flock together. But which way they will flock is very difficult to predict. The problem is that BJP voters are very vocal, sometimes they commit even when they plan to vote elsewhere. Everybody else is silent. And that silent voter will decide the elections,” said a Left worker, speaking on conditions of anonymity:
The disillusionment about both the Left and the BJP is high in Mandai.
“The issue in this election is TIPRA Land. It was promised last time and not given. Anybody who is telling you that work has been done for the development of tribals is lying. There is no water even, leave alone other facilities. It is all tall talk. These areas voted for the Left Front for many years, but nothing came of it. Motha is the party of the king, but nobody knows what will happen this time,” said Surjo Deb Barma, who runs a hardware store in the area.
By king, Surjo means Pradyot Debbarma, scion of the erstwhile royal family of Tripura, whose party — the TIPRA Motha is fighting the assembly elections independently. Wooed by both the Left-Congress and the BJP for a tie-up, Pradyot had insisted on a written commitment on Greater Tipraland from his would-be allies. The ‘Greater Tipraland’ idea also includes Tripuris living in Assam, Mizoram, and Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh.
The obvious distrust between tribals and Bengalis notwithstanding, Bengali remains the preferred language of communication over Hindi and if the other person does not speak Kokborok, the language spoken in Tripura’s tribal areas. “Bangla Bangla,” Ajit responded, when asked which language he preferred to speak in.
Prantho Sarkar is a marketing representative for Godrej and a resident of Agartala. He has been doing professional rounds of Mandai since 2020.
“All this talk about anti-Bengali etc I have also heard, but honestly I have never faced any problem. I have been here quite a few times and they are not like that at all. But it is true that the general level of violence in the entire state has gone up in the past few years. Addiction (drug) is up, lawlessness is up,” he alleged.
For locals there are far more pressing issues than communal distrust.
“There are no roads beyond the main thoroughfares, houses are all thatched. Some changes have happened since the Motha won the ADC elections but development in these parts has been limited only to papers,” said Jayanta Deb Barma, who runs a shop selling things like socks and hats.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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