A coordination body of non-Bru people in Tripura has opposed the large-scale settlement of Bru refugees across seven sites. The locations straddle two subdivisions of the State’s northern region adjoining Mizoram.
The Joint Movement Committee (JMC) comprising the Bengali-dominated Nagarik Suraksha Mancha and the Tripura Mizo Convention said the State government’s move to settle 4,900 Bru families in Kanchanpur and Panisagar subdivisions of North Tripura district would have “negative social, cultural, political, environmental and ecological impacts”.
Opposing the move, the committee said it would not deviate from its stand that Kanchanpur and Panisagar subdivisions can at most accommodate 500 Bru refugee families in areas the JMC had proposed for maintaining social balance. It demanded equitable distribution of the refugees across all districts of Tripura instead of turning North Tripura district into Bru ghettos.
The JMC made its position clear in a memorandum submitted to the State’s Chief Secretary Manoj Kumar via Chandni Chandran, the sub-divisional magistrate of Kanchanpur Subdivision on September 9.
“We would like to re-emphasise that in principle we are not against the quadrilateral Bru settlement agreement signed in New Delhi on January 16, 2020. However, we are still maintaining our logical stand that equitable distribution of families in all the districts and subdivisions (of Tripura) is critically important to avoid negative social, cultural, political, environmental and ecological impacts it can have on our Kanchanpur Subdivision,” JMC convenor Susanta Bikas Barua said.
“We, therefore, maintain our stand that a maximum of 500 families be settled in Kanchanpur and Panisagar Subdivisions in the specific places that we have mentioned in our previous proposal (on July 21),” JMC chairman Zairemthiama Pachuau said.
According to a July 31 memo issued by North Tripura District Magistrate Raval H. Kumar to the District Forest Officer, groups of 1,000 Bru families are to be settled in forest areas of Manu-Chailengta, Gachirampara, Anandabazar and Bhandarimpara-Pushparampara. Three other sites are to accommodate 300 families each.
More than 40,000 Brus — also called Reangs — have been living in relief camps in Tripura since 1997 after escaping ethnic violence in Mizoram. About 7,000 refugees returned to Mizoram in nine phases of repatriation till November 30, 2019.
The rest stayed, however, refused to move, citing security reasons. The repatriation stalemate was ended with the signing of the quadripartite agreement on January 16 among representatives of the Brus, Ministry of Home Affairs and the Tripura and Mizoram governments.
The agreement incorporated a proposal from Tripura Chief Minsiter Biplab Kumar Deb and the State’s royal scion Prodyot Manikya Debbarma for rehabilitating the Brus in Tripura instead of making them go back to Mizoram.
The Brus have been insisting on settling at least 500 of about 6,500 refugee families in one place. Local groups in Kanchanpur and Panisagar subdivisions of Tripura want them to be scattered so that other parts of the State can “absorb the load”.