"My grandmother reached out to Sardar Patel...": Tipra Motha chief Pradyot Manikya recalls Tripura's merger with India in 1949

New Delhi [India], September 18 (ANI): Tipra Motha chief Pradyot Bikram Manikya Debbarma has said that his grandmother Kanchan Prabha Devi was instrumental in Tripura, then a princely state, becoming a part of India after Partition and it was achieved with support of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel who also played a role in thwarting the Pakistani machinations.
In an interview with ANI, Pradyot Debbarma, scion of the erstwhile royal family of Tripura, recalled that there were efforts by then East Pakistan to send forces and counter measures were taken. He recounted the lesser known but very vital role played by his grandmother in the tumultuous times.
"My grandmother Kanchan Prabha Devi, she was the key person who ensured that we became a part of India. And thankfully we became a part of India because East Pakistan was on the verge of taking Tripura over when we signed the Instrument of Merger. My father was the ruling minor king that time. He was 14....We got to know about the East Pakistan troops moving in to Tripura. She got in touch with Sardar Patel. The person who was behind the conspiracy to make us a part of East Pakistan, he was arriving from London by ship in Mumbai. Sardar Patel ensured that he got arrested in the docks of Mumbai. And then my grandmother went, she was in Shillong, then car went through Sylhet right to Tripura. The merger was signed and then we became a part of India. It was a very difficult time for a widow who had just lost her husband, had a 14-year-old son and was signing the future of everyone into the hands of a new country emerging called India," Pradyot Debbarma said.
Answering a query, he said a possible reason of the stellar role of his grandmother not getting as much attention as the story of merger of some other erstwhile princely states is that Northeast has been "far removed from the conscience and the hearts of many people in the rest of India".
Answering a query, Pradyot Debbarma said his grandfather was the king and he passed away before India attained independence.
"My father was the ruling king. My grandmother was the regent queen. We merged in India in 1949 after my grandmother had direct communication with Sadar Patel. Before that also, my grandfather had... very good relationship with Mahatma Gandhi...She reached out to Sardar Patel because there was movement of East Pakistan troops in the border of Tripura and they wanted to take over Tripura and make it a part of East Pakistan," he said.
"And my grandmother took that decision and we became a part of India. Prior to that, there were a lot of riots which took place in Bengal. Undivided Bengal, then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. In Noakhali...Bandarban. And a lot of our Hindu, Bengalis, brothers and sisters, they were killed. Their properties were burnt. Their houses were burnt. Women were raped. Temples were burnt. So they all came over to Tripura. The tribal people of Tripura gave shelter. Because obviously, this was a crisis," he added.
Pradyot Debbarma said people who came to Tripura, they couldn't go back.
"Because there was such an anti-minority, anti-Buddhist, anti-Hindu, anti-Christian sentiment there. That these people... They couldn't even go home. So they stayed in Tripura. And because Tripura absorbed three times the population, the tribals became alienated. They became landless. Because it's obvious that so many people came....And it was exploited politically. Political parties exploited it. Foreign powers exploited it. Insurgency took place. Riots took place. What I feel today, I firmly believe, that if the tribals of Tripura and the Hindu minorities who have come from East Pakistan and Bangladesh, if we join our hands today, then we can teach Bangladesh a lesson," he said.
"That Bangladesh which took them out of their ancestors' land, burnt their temples, looted their property, killed them. And our old Tripura, which I call Greater Tipraland, where your Chittagong Hill tracks come, Cox Bazar comes, If we can actually reclaim that area, because even today, our people are in Bandarban area, in Khagrachhari, in Cox Bazar...the whole of Northeast, not just Tripura, the whole of Northeast will economically boom. We can trade freely, economic zone, to Indonesia, to Malaysia, to Thailand, to Singapore, to Australia. The Northeast's entire map will change. And we will no longer be landlocked," he added.
Answering a query, he said Chittagong and Cox Bazar areas should have been taken when India defeated Pakistan in the 1971 war.
"I think that when there were 90,000 Pakistan soldiers, at that time, if we had taken Chittagong and Cox Bazar, then today, our map, I mean, we would have been booming," he said. (ANI)