India: A Milestone For Peace In Tripura – Analysis

On September 24, 2024, on the occasion of the laying down of arms by two prominent insurgent outfits – the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) and the All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) – in Tripura, Chief Minister Manik Saha, stated, “Now onward we could declare that there is zero insurgency in Tripura.” He also remarked that the current development in Tripura is a larger outlook of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of developing the region of Northeast, which implies the overall development of India.

On the occasion, Biswamohan Debbarma, the self-styled ‘president’ of the Biswamohan Debbarma faction of the NLFT (NLFT-BM) said, “We are celebrating the homecoming ceremony, which follows the accord we signed recently on 4th September. I would like to thank [Union] Home Minister Amit Shah, the Tripura government, and state agencies such as the Tripura Police, BSF, and Tripura State Rifles. We are very happy to have joined the mainstream. Now, more work lies ahead since we have returned home. There are many programs planned, and we will move forward in peace.”

The ‘presidents’ of the NLFT-BM, Biswamohan Debbarma; the Parimal Debbarma faction of the NLFT (NLFT-PD), Parimal Debbarma; NLFT Original (NLFT-ORI) Prasenjit Debbarma; and ATTF’s Alindra Debbarma handed over their AK series rifles. A total of 584 cadres of NLFT and ATTF laid down their arms as well. Out of these numbers, 261 were from NLFT-BM, 100 from NLFT (PD), 100 from NLFT-ORI and 123 from ATTF. The weapons handed over included 89 country-made guns, 13 pistols, nine AK series rifles, eight factory-made guns, seven land mines, one revolver and one rifle.

The occasion followed the Peace Agreement or the Memorandum of Settlement (MoS) which was signed between the Government of India (GoI), the Government of Tripura, NLFT and ATTF, in the presence of the Union Home Minister Amit Shah, at North Block, in New Delhi on September 4, 2024. For long years, since the inception of NLFT and ATTF on March 12, 1989, and on July 11, 1990, respectively, the two militant outfits have been involved in violent activities with the common objective of deporting all foreigners who entered Tripura after 1956, and restoring alienated tribals’ lands. In conjunction with the Agreement, Upendra Reang, ‘secretary general’ of the NLFT-BM, observed,

“Our movement has always been for the welfare of the Tiprasa people. We wanted a solution to the suffering of the indigenous community. With the government showing willingness to engage in talks and build trust, we felt it was time to seek a peaceful resolution.”

The catalyst for the agreement was the realization of the decline in the number of insurgent-related incidents and fatalities in Tripura. According to partial data compiled by the South Asian Terrorism Portal (SATP), since 2010, fatalities have been recorded in single digits for eight of the 14 years, while no fatality was reported in another six years (data till September 29, 2024). For the current year, no insurgent-related fatalities have been reported to date (data till September 29). There was a total of 13 insurgent-related killing incidents in which 16 fatalities were recorded [five civilians, seven Security Force (SF) personnel and four terrorists) from 2010 to September 29, 2024. Of these, NLFT was involved in 10 incidents including two NLFT-BM related incidents in 2021 and 2022, while ATTF was involved in only one incident, on January 4, 2023, which is also the last reported insurgent-related fatality in Tripura. The remaining two incidents involved the Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF), and another involving an unidentified militant group at the time of reporting.

Precursor agreements had also been signed between different stakeholders, the GoI and the Government of Tripura, to address the prevailing problems in the state. Three of the important precursor agreements involved the Sabir Kumar Debbarma faction of NLFT (NLFT-SD) (2019), the Bru Agreement (2020) and the Agreement with The Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance (TIPRA) (2024).

The Peace talks with NLFT were initiated in 2015 and subsequently, the MoS between NLFT-SD, the GoI, and the Tripura Government, was signed on August 10, 2019, in which 88 NLFT-SD cadres surrendered with 44 arms. After the agreement, three insurgent-related incidents of violence were reported in the state:

January 4, 2023: ATTF cadres shot dead a Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) local tribal leader in Sadar (East) subdivision of Tripura. Police said Bidya Debbarma, a member of the Janmejaynagar Local Committee and former chairman of the village development committee, had gone to meet his friend Gurumohan Debbarma in nearby Maharam Sardar para area in the evening. At around 7 pm, five ATTF cadres entered Gurumohan’s house and dragged Bidya away. The militants shot him dead from point-blank range 250 metres from the house.August 19, 2022: NLFT-BM militants killed a Border Security Force (BSF) trooper, Head Constable Girjesh Kumar Uddey, in a remote, forest area of Kanchanpur sub-division in North Tripura District. August 3, 2021: Two BSF personnel – Sub-inspector (SI) Bhuru Singh and Constable Raj Kumar – were killed in an ambush by suspected militants of the banned NLFT-BM at RC Nath Border Outpost (BOP) near the India-Bangladesh border in the Dhalai District of Tripura. Around 10 armed NLFT-BM militants ambushed a team of Security Personnel who were out to check the border fencing. 

With a single insurgent-related incident reported in each of the three consecutive years (2021, 2022 and 2023), it is evident that insurgent activities in the state had collapsed.

Indeed, according to SATP, between 1993 and 2004, Tripura recorded a total of 3,085 fatalities, including 2,225 civilians, 399 Security Force (SF) personnel, 403 terrorists, and 58 in the Not Specified category. In each of these 12 years, fatalities were in triple digits, with a high of 514 recorded in 2000, and an annual average of 257 fatalities. In the next five years, between 2005 and 2009, a total of 215 fatalities included 60 civilians, 44 SF personnel, 95 militants, and 16 Not Specified, yielding an annual average of 43 fatalities. In almost fifteen years between 2010 and 2024, there was a total of just 16 insurgency-related fatalities (as mentioned above). In fact, during this period, Tripura recorded fatalities in single digits for eight of the years, while no fatality was reported in another six years.

Another critical agreement, signed on January 16, 2020, between the GoI, the Governments of Tripura and Mizoram and Bru-Reang representatives in New Delhi, ended the 23-year-old Bru-Reang Refugee Crisis.

Another significant accord was a tripartite agreement signed between the GoI, the Government of Tripura and The Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance/TIPRA, popularly known as Tripra Motha, and other stakeholders, in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, in New Delhi on March 2, 2024. The pact resolved issues pertaining to the indigenous population of Tripura in relation their history of land and political rights, economic development, identity, culture and language.

These agreements were accompanied by packages of aid, rehabilitation and relief. The latest special package of INR 250 crore was approved by the Centre for the development of the tribal population in Tripura. In the Bru-Reang agreement, a package of INR 600 crores was sanctioned as aid for the overall development of 34,000 Bru refugees that would be settled in Tripura, while Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced that every family that was relocated due to ethnic violence in 1997 would receive a residential plot, a fixed deposit of INR 400,000, free rations for two years, INR 5,000 in monetary assistance each month, and INR 150,000 in assistance to build a house. Finally, the NLFT-SD peace agreement (2019) was accompanied by the UMHA’s Surrender cum Rehabilitation Scheme, 2018.

Meanwhile, the porous international border with Bangladesh (parts of Tripura’s 856-km-long border with Bangladesh are still unfenced due to local disputes) remains a hindrance, with numerous infiltration attempts by Bangladeshis and Rohingyas owning to the tumultuous state in the neighbouring country. A report compiled by BSF noted that, from January 2023 to April 15, 2024, as many as 1,018 persons, including 498 Bangladeshi nationals, were detained in Tripura while attempting to cross the Indo-Bangla international border. In the year 2023, a statement by BSF on January 2, 2024, as noted by SAIR earlier, a total of 744 people had been arrested by BSF while they were trying to illegally enter India from Bangladesh through the international border in Tripura. Among the detained individuals in 2023, 112 were identified as Rohingyas, while 337 were Bangladeshis, and 295 were Indians. In June and July 2024, more than 250 Bangladeshi nationals and Rohingyas were caught while infiltrating.

The most recent agreement which that brought an amicable resolution between NLFT, ATTF, the Government of Tripura and the Union Government, is a milestone for India’s policy towards the Northeast. NLFT and ATTF armed cadre have agreed to uphold national integrity and take part in the peaceful democratic process, ending the 35-year-long conflict in Tripura. At the same pace, the Government of India affirmed its commitment to the development of the North-East “while preserving the culture, language, identity of people of North-East.”