An Open Letter to the Chief Minister of Tripura
By:Tonmoy Debbarma, Category: General, Posted on:2010-07-14 17:14:23
Sir,
We the Indigenous Communities of Tripura are deeply hurt by the recent bill introduced in the state assembly that proposes to rename the Agartala Airport after the renowned poet Rabindranath Tagore. You cannot be oblivious to the fact that legislators, as representatives of the people, have the bounden duty to represent the will of the people in the House. As can be evinced from the widespread dissatisfaction that is brewing within the Indigenous Peoples polity over this decision, it may be deducted that the legislators, in this case, have gone against the will of the people that have elected them. I address you Sir, as the leader of the House and as the head of the state Government.
We deplore the fact that you have, in this case, displayed utter insensitivity to the sentiments of the indigenous Borok people, who although, reduced to a minority now, are nevertheless, the original inhabitants of this land. We consider this as an affront and a calculated move by vested interests to obliterate the final vestiges of Indigenous peoples memorabilia from this land and thereby to complete the process of occupation of this land by people from across the international border.
As the leader of a state that has had more than its fare share of violence and ethnic conflict in the past, we aspect you to promote peace and to quell potential sparks that could rekindle ethnic animosity and ill-feeling between peoples. By raking up this issue and giving it a sinister turn, you have not only lost the Indigenous people but have also engendered a conflict that bodes ill for all peoples in the state.
At the outset, Sir, we wish to make it clear that we are not prepared to let the Airport issue go the way you propose. We are hurt but not surprised at your move because this is merely the latest of a series of measures, whereby you have, all through the past, displayed the total disregard and antipathy for the dignity and welfare of the indigenous Borok people of this state.
Dr. Manmohan Singh, the prime Minister of India, referring to the newly opened terminal 3 in Delhis Indra Gandhi International Airport said, an Airport if often the first introduction to a country (state). By the same token it might be said that Agartala Airport would be the first introduction to Tripura that a visitor would get. How irrational that the image of Tripura that will be served on a platter to a visitor would be the image of a gentleman, who was but a mere visitor to the state, however great his credentials may be.
Sir, despite the brutal marauding we the indigenous Borok people have been subjected to by people who have settle here from elsewhere, we still feel for this land. It is the only homeland we have had since time immemorial. We request you not to ridicule any further the few remnants of identity we still possess. To satisfy compulsions political or otherwise, that you may have, we request you to pick on less sensitive and less volatile artifacts.
As the preeminent specimen of a people and as one holding the high office of the Chief Minister of the Land, we address you Sir, do not betray and trample on the aspirations and dignity of a people that welcomed you to their land, although, like in the legend of the camel, we finally got pushed out of all realms that matter. Your very credentials to talk about Tagore a person who passionately defended the culture and heritage of peoples and groups however small and marginalized, gets laughably blurred. We consider this latest antic of your Government, by far the most evident way of hurting us; thereby also putting the great Tagore to shame and diminishing an entire race.
Sir, the magnanimity and moral authority of a government, we believe, is indicated in the way it treats the weakest among its subjects. After having made the Indigenous people of Tripura an impotent minority, if you continue to bulldoze them, it betrays on your part a desire for annihilation. Let us forget magnanimity; at least allow us to live with basic human dignity.
We as a race, Sir, have struggled, and have undergone untold misery in our homeland; we have suffered loss of land, identity, status and opportunity thanks to your people thats took advantage of our goodness and swarmed on us and stifled us. But we beg to submit, we have not lost our dignity, our pride, our basic human decency.
Your community too have struggled and suffered a lot. But somewhere along the line, among other things, we fear, you lost your pride; your nobility. Perhaps, it is we who deserve chiding for presupposing that you understand any more concepts like magnanimity. People like Tagore get sullied when the likes of you pretend to honor him.
Today I feel thankful that I am not one of your race. Had I been, I would have felt ashamed. More ashamed than what I felt when I lost my Homeland to you, more ashamed than what I felt now, that you are taking away our face from this land. This are things we can we will have to live with perhaps. But the shame of robbing someone you should be helping, stabbing someone you should be protecting the shame is unbearable for us. We are Indigenous Borok , Sir.
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