A visit to Tripura, a remote state in the country’s northeast, takes one back in time to the immediate post-colonial India. Or even much earlier. Development, it would appear, has bypassed the state that has been ruled uninterruptedly by communists for the last 25 years. With virtually no industries and a sluggish economy, poverty and disease stalk the hapless people of the state, where infrastructure is in total shambles, healthcare is rudimentary at best, education is poor and unemployment rife.

The worst off are the tribals of the state who form about 30 per cent of the state’s population of 37 lakh. A large majority of the tribal villages have not witnessed any development since Independence and, in fact, exist as they would have even a century ago. Most of the tribal villages in the thickly forested hills are not connected by roads, very few have water and power supply, healthcare and educational facilities are miles away and require arduous treks through steep hills that would test the physical prowess of even the most agile, and starvation deaths are a way of life.

Leave aside the rest of the state, even Tripura’s capital Agartala presents a picture of backwardness and neglect. Most roads are a nightmare to negotiate, prolonged power cuts are the norm, potable water remains a dream for most, the stench from open sewers choking with dark, turbid water unbearable, and an air of despondency hangs heavy over the city. Agartala, in short, bears the shabby and defeated look of a city falling apart at its seams.

Blaming New Delhi

The state’s communist rulers put the blame for their abject failures on successive Union governments. Terms like “step-motherly treatment” (of Tripura by New Delhi) are bandied around by communists with practised ease. The Narendra Modi government has, over the past three years, being singled out for blame. “The present government has withdrawn the special category status to northeastern states and that has hurt us badly. Even otherwise, Tripura has never got its due from the Centre. Successive governments in New Delhi have never entertained our pleas for financial aid for developing the state. Tripura, because of its remoteness and backwardness, needs special attention from the Centre, but that has not been forthcoming at all,” says senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Badal Chowdhury.

But these are just excuses for not only covering up the inefficiency of the communists, but also for their “deliberate policy” of keeping people poor, says former Congress spokesperson and Agartala’s prominent physician Ashok Sinha. “Thousands of crores of rupees have been sanctioned for Tripura over the past quarter of a century. Most of these funds have not been utilised and the little that has been shown to be utilised has gone into the pockets of the rulers and their party,” said Sinha, who has joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) now with the sole mission of ousting the communists from power. “The Congress does not have any existence anymore in Tripura and it is only the BJP which can dislodge the communists from power,” he explains.

The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has been privy to the loot, says Sinha. “I took documents that clearly proved massive misappropriation of funds in the rural employment guarantee (MNREGA) scheme in Tripura to the then rural development minister Jairam Ramesh. He not only refused to intervene, but also reprimanded me for presenting allegations of corruption against a ‘friendly’ government,” recalled Sinha. The problem, he says, is that Congress governments at the Centre winked and looked away at the misappropriation of central funds that have been poured into the state. “Even if 30 per cent of those funds had been utilised properly, the face of Tripura would have been dramatically different today,” he says.

Statistics show that Tripura has received more than Rs 70,000 crore over the last four years from the Union government for development works under various heads. But, says BJP state general secretary Rajib Bhattacharjee, a substantial percentage of the funds have gone back because the “inefficient and inept” Left Front government in Tripura could not utilise the funds. “And most of what was shown as spent went into the coffers of the CPI(M) and the pockets of its leaders and cadres,” he added.

Bhattacharjee contends that even if a third of the funds that the state has received from the Union government over the past 25 years been spent honestly, the face of the state would have been dramatically different. Bhattacharjee’s allegations not only find wide acceptance among people of the state, but are also borne out by the sad ground reality in Tripura.

GROUND REPORTS

Mangal Sardarpara:

This village is actually a conglomeration of a few small hamlets scattered over three hills. To reach this village in Shimna Assembly constituency and under the Twisamongkrwi gram panchayat, one has to travel 40 kilometres through mostly dirt tracks and poor apology of roads to reach Gajakami village which has a company of the Tripura State Rifles stationed in ramshackle barracks made of mud and bamboo walls.