That the agreement was inefficiently implemented is seen in the fact that Tripura, today, is perhaps the most violent of states in the North East with kidnappings, extortion, killings and rapes on the rise. Two major new insurgencies have risen from the ashes of the old TNV: the All Tripura Tigers’ Force (ATTF) and the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) being the main striking arms of the militants. NLFT attacks on fellow tribals have been occasionally marked by gang rapes, another attempt at intimidation and control as they try and force conversions to Christianity.

Many issues have been mixed up in the process and the demand for independence is getting more blurred by the day.

In addition, there are another fourteen ‘militant’ groups which officials and journalists in Tripura describe as essentially guns for hire. These are are deeply involved in vicious kidnappings for exortion rackets. The examples are countless and no one appears to be safe: a cabinet minister is shot when he goes to tackle his brother’s kidnappers; a lowly tea-shop owner is kidnapped and held for a princely sum before his captors agree to a lower price.

Both major political groups, the CPI(M) and the Congress, are said to patronize various underground organizations. But this patronage is beginning to backfire as they and their cadres find themselves at the wrong end of a gun.

Twenty years after Mandai, Tripura is still burning and bleeding. This escalation in violence remains primarily rooted in the question of land and identity— expecially after the Bengalisation of the state. Over the years, it has become inextricably linked to the politics of ethnic cleansing allied with extortion and lawlessness.

In an effort to calm tribal demands, the Tripura Tribal Autonomous Council (TTAC), was set up in an amended form in 1988 and again in 1993 to provide them with a degree of self-governance. Reservations for tribal candidates exist in 28 of the 30 seats. In elections in February 2000, a pro-NLFT group known as the Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT) captured a majority. Over these past months, the NLFT has sought to widen its sphere of influence by driving away non-tribals (essentially Bengalis) from those areas abutting the TTAC, which itself comprises more than two-thirds of the state’s total area. As this campaign continued in the year 2000, with occasional assaults on tribals reluctant to embrace Christianity, what is emerging is a state within a state, seized by democratic means but controlled by fear and the gun.

The future of such a political situation is unclear and potentially explosive.