Unwanted and hounded

 The situation in Tripura’s Kanchanpur and Panisagar areas remains tense after protests against the planned resettlement of thousands of Bru migrants permanently at Kanchanpur sub-division of North Tripura turned violent on November 21. It was a democratic protest that became tragic when Bengalis staged demonstration against resettlement of Brus in Tripura after police tried to quell the crowd that resulted in firing in which one died and later another succumbed to injury. Tripura is a state with multi ethnic communities making up more than 70 per cent of the state’s population. The Brus or Reangs are said to have come first from Shan State of upper Burma (now Myanmar) in different waves to the Chittagang Hill Tracts and then to Southern part of Tripura. Similarly another group entered Tripura via Assam and Mizoram during 18th Century. Brus or Reangs belong to Indo-Mongoloid racial stock. Their languages has affinity of Austro-Asiatic groups under Tibeto-Burman family. Ethnically Reangs are divided into 2(two) major clans (i) Meska and (ii) Molsoi. Their language is known as “Kaubru” which have a tonal effect of Kuki language though broadly it is Kok-Borok dialect. Brus were literally forced out of Mizoram where ethnic clashes occurred for over two decades. Eventually Brus (or Reangs) fled to Tripura and after which an agreement was signed in January 2020 in which some 32,000 Bru refugees were provided shelter in camps. Over two decades ago, they were targeted by the Young Mizo Association (YMA), Mizo Zirwlai Pawl (MZP), and a few ethnic social organisations of Mizoram who demanded that the Bru be excluded from electoral rolls in the state. In October 1997, following ethnic clashes, nearly 37,000 Bru fled Mizoram’s Mamit, Kolasib, and Lunglei districts to Tripura, where they were sheltered in relief camps. Since then, over 5,000 have returned to Mizoram in nine phases of repatriation, while 32,000 people still live in six relief camps in North Tripura.As much as the Mizos despised the Brus as aliens, the Bengali community in Tripura have resented the refugee package given to them through an agreement signed between the Centre, State and Brus. Forced out of Mizoram and now unwelcome in Tripura, the Brus are pushed to the wall and certainly find themselves like pariahs that no one wants. The Tripura government had decided to resettles thousand of Brus at Kanchanpur sub-division in north Tripura but the Bengali community has opposed the resettlement plan. The protestors demonstrated and then began to block the National Highway 08 resulting in clashes with the Tripura police. Interestingly, the Mizos (under Mizo Convention) and Bengalis under Nagarik Suraksha Mancha (NSM) decided to join hands against a common foe (Brus) to create a platform called Joint Movement Committee (JMC) to restrict the number of Bru refugees allowed for settlement at Kanchapnur to 1500 families. JMC convener Sushanta Baruah said the agitation was started to save ‘ancestral lands’ from Bru migrants as the government was planning to settle 5,000 migrant families at Kanchanpur instead of 1,500 as assured by the local administration a month back. It is ironic that while the indigenous Twipuris have not objected to resettlement of Brus in Tripura, the largest migrant community-Bengalis (from erstwhile East Pakistan, now Bangladesh)- has forgotten that they have reduced the indigenous Twipuris to the status of minority in their own home land.