Tripura, with a geographical area of 10,039 sq. km. – most of it hills – is northeast India's smallest state. At various moments in history, Tripura's Manikya kings have controlled large parts of Eastern Bengal (Bangladesh) and ruled over tens of thousands of Bengali subjects. Even after the advent of the British, when the Tripura kingdom was restricted to its present hill confines, Bengalis and indigenous tribes lived in peace. Indian ballot box democracy, in which numbers and vote banks matter more than grassroot development or community concerns, accentuated the ethnic divide as the influx from East Pakistan continued unabated.
Picture: AK Gupta
The influx intensified the land alienation of the tribes and added to their collective sense of loss and marginalisation. Almost all writers on the Tripura insurgency have identified land alienation amongst the tribespeople as the major cause for the violence that has eaten into the vitals of a once vibrant state. The Sengkrak movement, Tripura's first manifestation of overt ethnic militancy, commenced in 1967 as a direct fall-out of the large scale alienation of tribal lands, accentuated through state patronage. The ruling Congress government backed the forcible occupation of tribal lands in the Deo valley by the Swasti Samity, an organisation of Bengali settlers. The Reang tribesmen organised themselves into a militant group to retaliate against the alien settlers.
In settled agricultural areas such as Khowai and Sadar, all within 100 km. of the state's capital Agartala, between 20 to 40% of the tribal lands had been alienated by the end of the '70s, when tribal insurgency gathered momentum. In some parts of south Tripura district, as much as 60% of the tribal lands were alienated and sold in distress conditions as a result of unequal economic competition with Bengali settlers. The unrest caused by the steady land loss was further exacerbated by the submergence of a huge swathe of arable land owned by the tribals in the Raima valley as a result of the commissioning of the Gumti hydel project in south Tripura. This project not only disturbed the fragile ecology of the Raima valley, it also left a permanent scar on the tribal psyche. All tribal organisations including the communist-backed Gana Mukti Parishad fiercely protested the commissioning of the Gumti hydroelectric project in 1976. But the Congress government crushed the protests. It was determined to augment Tripura's power supply but only succeeded in augmenting tribal unrest by dispossessing thousands, denying them of their only economic resource and collective symbol – their land.
A 30 m. high gravity dam was constructed across the Gumti river about 3.5 km. upstream of Tirthamukh in south Tripura district, for generating 8.60 MW of power from an installed capacity of 10 MW. The dam submerged a valley area of 46.34 sq. km. This was one of the most fertile valleys in an otherwise hilly state, where arable flatlands suitable for wet rice agriculture make up a mere 28% of the total land area. Official records suggest that 2,558 tribal families were displaced from the Gumti project area, but this only includes families who could produce land deeds and were thus 'official' owners of land. Unofficial estimates vary between 8,000 to 10,000 families or about 60 to 70,000 tribespeople displaced by the project. In the tribal societies of the northeast, land ownership is rarely personal and the system of recording land deeds against individual names is only a recent phenomenon.
Most of those ousted by the Dumbur dam failed to get any rehabilitation grant and were forced to settle in the hills around the project, returning to slash-and-burn (jhum) agriculture. The dam destroyed the once bountiful tribal peasant economy of the state. Tripura's leading economist Malabika Dasgupta has shown in her study of the Gumti hydel project that "attempts either to protect the environment to the exclusion of considerations for the well-being of the people or to improve their level of well-being without consideration for the environmental impact of such policies can neither protect the environment nor improve the standard of living of the people." (EPW, October 7, 1989)
The Gumti, Tripura's principal river, is formed by the confluence of two small rivers, the Raima and the Sarma, the former flowing out of the Longtharai range, the latter originating from the Atharamura range. Before the dam was built, the Gumti river flowed southward through a gorge in the Atharamura range beyond the confluence of the Raima and the Sarma. It spilled over a series of rapids, which were locally known as the Dumbur falls at Tirthamukh (Pilgrim's Point), a place considered holy by the tribals and also by Bengali settlers, who bathe here during the Pous Sankranti festival every winter. Beyond Tirthamukh, the Gumti flows westward up to Malbassa village and then changes direction again, cutting through the Deotamura range. After crossing the Deotamura, it flows for another 60 km. before it enters Bangladesh. After flowing about 80 km. through eastern Bangladesh, it joins the Meghna river and then flows into the Bay of Bengal.
The upper catchment of the Gumti consists of eleven Gaon Sabhas – nearly sixty villages – in the Gandacherra block of Tripura's newly formed Dhalai district.
The upper reaches of the catchment area are steep and hilly, located on the east of the river. But towards Tirthamukh, the river is flanked by small flat-topped hills, locally called tillas with many lungas or lowlands between them. As it comes down to Tirthamukh, the Gumti waters huge flatlands all the way along its course into Bangladesh. Prior to the hydel project's commissioning, the upper catchment supported a small tribal population. A small Bengali population practised wet rice cultivation around Boloungbassa and Raima and some were into trading while the tribals, originally almost all slash-and-burn agriculturists called jhumias, had begun to settle down to wet rice cultivation, having learnt it from the Bengalis. The kings of Tripura had settled some Bengali farmers in remote areas to encourage tribals to pick up wet rice cultivation and abandon jhumming, which is ecologically damaging.
Before the construction of the dam, the hills around the present project area were sparsely populated and the area was almost wholly under dense forest cover supporting a rich and varied wildlife population. The Tripura Gazetteer of 1975 talked of sighting "large herds of Indian elephants in the Raima-Sarma region along with some tigers and bears in the dense forests." Dasgupta says the area "was an abode of deer, bear, wild boar, tiger, elephant and a wide variety jungle cats". The vegetation was rich, so was the fauna.
But after the hydel project was commissioned, almost half of the tribal families displaced by the dam moved into the hills in the river's upper catchment. In addition, the roads built to first transport construction material and then to support the project opened up these rich forests to illegal loggers. The surplus-producing tribal peasantry was not only angry at the loss of their rich flatlands and lungas, they were also forced to revert back to the slash-and-burn jhum cultivation that has, in Dasgupta's opinion, "caused irreparable damage to the ecology of the upper catchment of the Gumti". Illegal logging by businessmen backed by politicians has further damaged the area. During two extensive trips into the Gumti valley in 1985 and 1998, this writer found extensive felling of trees, which was going on unchecked in the absence of any forest personnel.
The insurgent National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) has not banned tree-felling as some other northeast rebel groups such as the National Democratic Front of Bodoland have. Rather, they have encouraged it. In large parts of the Gumti valley upstream of Tirthamukh, tribal villagers told this writer that the NLFT had allowed loggers to operate freely as long as they paid the rebels a percentage of their profits. Relatives of some insurgent leaders were even in the business, entering into partnership with Bengali-owned saw mills of Amarpur, Udaipur and Sonamura. So the tribal insurgents who had capitalised on the community's anger at the large-scale displacement at Gumti were now collaborating with the most exploitative segments of the settler society to raise funds.
The Gumti hydel project must be decommissioned for four reasons:
- The Gumti hydel project is now not producing more than seven megawatts of power even in the peak season when the reservoir is full during the monsoon. However, the state government says that by investing Rs. 1.18 crores, it has been able to restore the output to the original installed capacity of 10 MW. It also says that while the running cost of the project is around three crore rupees per annum, it rakes in nearly Rs. 21 crores through the sale of electricity. Officials in the Tripura Power Department describe the project as "very profitable". However, siltation levels continue to increase and unless the reservoir can be dredged, there will be no rise in output.
- With the discovery of huge natural gas reserves in Tripura and major gas thermal power projects in the pipeline (including one with the capacity to generate 500 MW against the state's current peak demand of 125 MW!), it is a waste to invest further funds in the Gumti hydel project. If the state can produce three times more electricity than it now uses, there is a strong case for decommissioning the dam. This will free a huge area for other pressing uses. An ideal power strategy for Tripura would be to produce around 500-600 MW of electricity, feed half of that into the northeastern grid, use 150 to 200 MW within the state keeping in mind the rising demand, and sell the balance of 100 MW to Bangladesh as North Eastern Electric Power Corporation's former chairman, P.K. Chatterji had suggested. In the long run, as Bangladesh augments its own capacity, surplus power could be fed into the regional grid for use by neighbouring power deficit states such as Mizoram.
- If more than 45 sq. km. can be reclaimed from underwater after so many years in the Gumti project area, at least 30,000 tribal families, perhaps the whole of its landless population, can be gainfully resettled in this fertile tract. Before the dam, this area's fertility was legendary. Tripura faces a food deficit and turning this area into a modern agrarian zone will solve the state's food problem. The problem of tribal land alienation, believed to be the root cause of tribal insurrections in the state, can be tackled in one go, and the injustice done to the tribals can in some measure be rectified. Conflict resolution needs both symbol and substance – this gesture could provide both. Never before has an existing development project been dismantled to preserve the interests of indigenous peoples. Since this project is proving to be a white elephant, it is easy to justify its decommissioning in view of its potential to solve the problem of tribal landlessness.
- If almost the entire tribal landless population can be gainfully resettled in the project area, it will free the hilly forest regions from human pressure. Since most of these landless tribals practice jhum, which is harmful for the ecology of the hills and the forests, it is essential to settle this entire population in wet plains such as the Gumti area. Unlike the plains, the hills cannot sustain the high pressure of human settlements. From an ecological viewpoint, the resettlement of the landless tribals of Tripura in the Gumti project area will be welcome. The state's forest cover, presently receding, will improve. I must stress, however, that the area reclaimed from beneath the waters of the Gumti reservoir must be used only for resettling landless tribals – a compact area in keeping with Maharaja Bir Bikram's tribal reserve concept.
This decommissioning proposal should be implemented before ethnic polarisation between the Bengali settlers and indigenous tribes reaches illogical limits. The state is still ruled by the CPI (M)-led Left Front, a left-of-centre coalition, which has the support of both Bengalis and tribespeople. Tribal parties and militant groups will support the dam's decommissioning and Bengali extremist groups are not yet powerful enough to resist it. A political dialogue can be initiated to create the proper climate for decommissioning and suggest an alternative economy. Even the security agencies will benefit from this settlement – a happily-settled tribal population is less volatile than one with empty stomachs and angry minds.
Peace can be brokered through this method, as the root cause of the tribal insurgency will be addressed. The tribal peasantry will be substantially empowered through this relocation of priorities. If the dam goes, some of the Bengali fishermen in the area may feel upset at the loss of the Dumbur lake (as the Gumti reservoir is popularly known). But in the larger interests of ethnic reconciliation, the dam must go. The tribal insurgency movements in Tripura have focussed only on power-sharing concerns or resorted to mafia-style extortions, ignoring grassroots development issues and strategies for the empowerment of the tribal peasantry. Only such empowerment can lead to the percolation of the fruits of development, making it an equitable process.
The author is BBC's Eastern India correspondent and author of the acclaimed Insurgent Crossfire – Northeast India.