DA Editorial Desk | Dhruba Deka
Promises made to a people are tested not on the day they are signed but on the day they are due. In March 2024, the Centre, the Tripura government and the Tipra Motha Party put their names to the Tiprasa Accord. It was presented as a path to a constitutional solution for the state’s indigenous communities. More than two and a half years later, that path has not been walked, and the patience of the hills is being tested.
The details of the accord’s provisions have not been laid out in public with the clarity that a document of this importance deserves. That is part of the problem. What is known is its purpose: to safeguard the interests of Tripura’s indigenous people, protect their land and constitutional rights, and address anxieties about demographic change along the border with Bangladesh. These are not abstract demands. In a state where tribal communities form a minority in their own homeland, questions of land and identity decide whether people feel secure.
The history of delay is plain. The accord was meant to be enforced within six months of signing. A year after it was signed, Pradyot Debbarma was already saying there had been no progress. In August this year, he drew a red line, declaring that Tipra Motha would not ally with the BJP unless the accord was implemented. “First give my people their rights and then we will talk,” he said. Now, after his party’s sweep of the Village Committee elections, he has returned to the same demand.
His latest appeal deserves attention for what it records. He says the Union Home Minister, Amit Shah, assured him in Delhi, with Chief Minister Manik Saha present, that implementation steps would begin after Durga Puja. He has asked the Centre to honour that commitment. He has also warned that the long wait has raised expectations, and that failure to deliver could affect his ability to seek the community’s support in the 2028 Assembly elections.
It is worth pausing on that warning. It comes from the leader of a party that governs the tribal council, sits in the state’s ruling coalition and has just won 3,428 of the Village Committee seats. This is not an opposition leader grandstanding. It is an ally saying, in measured terms, that its voters are running out of faith.
The timing adds urgency. Mr Debbarma has said he will leave active politics after next month, citing health reasons, while promising to remain a voice for the Tiprasa people. A founder who negotiated the accord may soon no longer be at the table. Unfinished business tends to become harder, not easier, when the person who carried it steps back. An accord that depends on one man’s persistence is an accord at risk.
The border question deepens the case. Tipra Motha has repeatedly raised concern about infiltration across Tripura’s 856-kilometre frontier with Bangladesh, and one of its leaders set out on a long march from Agartala towards Delhi last year to press for stricter controls. Whatever one’s view of the remedies, the anxiety is real and widely shared in the hills, and it will not fade by itself.
The Centre and the state have good reasons to act now. The elections have been held. The Supreme Court’s intervention cleared the way for polls that had been delayed for a decade, and the voters turned out in large numbers, with polling above 81 per cent. They placed their trust in the democratic process and in the parties they chose. To answer that trust with further delay would be a poor return.
There is also a larger principle. Agreements signed between governments and communities are the foundation of peace in the Northeast. When they are honoured, they bring lasting calm. When they are allowed to lapse, they leave behind bitterness that lingers for years. The region’s history offers enough examples of both.
None of this means that the accord must be implemented without care. Tripura is home to many communities, and Tipra Motha itself says it is not against any of them. Any measure must be lawful, carefully drafted and fair. But care is not a reason for silence. The government can publish a roadmap, name the officials responsible, set dates and report progress to the public. That alone would restore confidence.
The coming weeks matter. Durga Puja is close, and the assurance was that steps would begin once the festival is over. If they do, the ruling alliance can claim that a promise was kept at the right moment. If they do not, the question will be asked in every village the party has just won.
The people of the hills have voted. They have waited. They are now entitled to see the accord move from paper to practice.