Tribal Terror

Bengalis are massacred

The jackal still wails in Tripura, but a hundred villages are silent. Ever since native tribesmen sacked scores of Bengali immigrant settlements in the northeastern Indian state a fortnight ago, the stench of dead bodies has filled the air. In the worst massacre, in the village of Mandai, the tribals first demanded money, then corralled the Bengalis in the village market. The horrified settlers were forced to watch while tribesmen armed with guns, spears and heavy scythes called daos put the torch to dwellings and butchered their occupants. "There was blood everywhere," says Haradhem Seal, 20, a Bengali barber whose entire family--parents, three brothers and three sisters --were murdered. "One man hacked at me with his dao. I collapsed, then several bodies fell on top of me. That was probably what saved me."

When Indian border forces arrived ten hours later, they found 350 bodies stacked in heaps along a narrow strip of road. It was one of the worst outbreaks of communal violence in a decade and another tragic demonstration of the strife that has long plagued India's northeast territories. The death toll from the massacres at Mandai and other villages is expected to reach at least 1,000.

Though their barbarity was shocking, the attacks had been foreshadowed.

Originally, the indigenous tribes had welcomed the Bengali Hindus when they fled across the border from predominantly Muslim Bangladesh in 1971. But they soon clashed. The tribals traditionally farm the land for a few seasons, then move on. The Bengalis stake out an area and work it continuously. Thus with 1.3 million Bengalis in Tripura, there was simply no longer enough land to go around. Moreover, while the Bengalis acquired increasing political and economic power, the tribesmen, outnumbered 2 to 1, seethed with frustration at becoming a minority in their own state.

Even before the Tripura massacre, similar troubles had erupted in the neighboring state of Assam. The native Assamese, afraid they might be outvoted by Bengali immigrants, forced the cancellation of elections in January. By April, agitation for the expulsion of all "foreigners" intensified. The movement spread to Tripura, where Bengali settlers opposed a measure aimed at returning disputed farm lands to the tribes.

The violence in Tripura has driven 243,000 into refugee camps. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's government is sending 5,000 tons of rice, but no one knows how to solve the basic problem of resettlement. Some Indians would like to try to ease the tensions by deporting immigrants who arrived after 1971. The cruel question: Where can they go?

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