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Tirap aboriginals demand autonomous region

The long forgotten aboriginals of the Tirap, who occupy a contiguous area in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh which borders Myanmar, are clamouring for an autonomous area following decades of negligence and under development.

The Tirap Frontier Tract, one of the least populated areas in the tip of north eastern India, is inhabited by a number of small aboriginal groups which are on the verge of extinction over pressure from non-tribals.

Chao Prasanna Turung, the force behind the political mobilisation of these aboriginals, is apprehensive that at the rate at which their population is dwindling a number of sub clans would become extinct within the next decade.

He initiated the Tirap Autonomous District Council Demand Committee movement, which up to now has functioned in a low-key manner.

But rumblings in the otherwise picturesque and quiet Tirap valley, surrounded by the high mountains of Patkai, are beginning to be heard following a recent memorandum that was submitted to the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

The TADCDC has demanded creation of the autonomous region comprising the aboriginal-dominated areas that fall within the two assembly constituencies of Margherita and Digboi.

Once flourishing tribes, the aboriginals of the Tirap have now been reduced to a few clans.

According to Manjela Singpho, general secretary of the TADCDC, the Tirap tribals need to be urgently protected from the silent encroachment of immigrant Nepalese, Bangladeshi Muslims and other non-tribals.

Soon after Independence, the area began to be maintained as a centrally administered territory with a political officer as its administrator and with its headquarters at Margherita.

Thereafter there have been frequent changes in the status and even names of these areas: for instance it was first called the Sadia Frontier Tract, which subsequently changed to Lakhimpur Frontier Tract, then to Tirap Frontier Tract, Tirap Frontier Division and finally Margherita-Tirap Areas.

The TADCDC has demanded the reopening of the historic Stilwell Road, their cultural and ethnic link to the aboriginal people of Myanmar, Thailand and other South East Asian countries.

UNI

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