Kidnapping deepens RSS, Church rivalry

AGARTALA, August 22: The recent abduction of four Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) leaders by tribal insurgents has opened up another battle front for the church and the Sangh Parivar. But the event has a far reaching consequence in the Northeast where the church has been an important socio-political institution and the RSS gradually gaining ground. The authorities have been trying to say that the abduction of four RSS leaders from a remote area in North Tripura on August 6 was part of abduction menace indulged in by the insurgents. This claim has gained ground since the National Liberation Front of Twipra (NLFT), which claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, did not say a single word against the RSS nor did it utter a word against their activities. The fact that NLFT is a Christian cadre infested organisation and in past it threatened RSS units in hills is mainly responsible for levelling of the charges against Christian missionaries. The outlawed NLFT had placed "an impossible demand" before the state's CPI(M)-led Left Front government for safe release of hostages. The demand - disband paramilitary Tripura State Rifles (TSR) by August 18 last failing which the outfit would, it threatened, award death penalty to the hostages. With the state government's silence over the demand and expiry of the deadline, uncertainty looms large over the fate of the four kidnapped persons. The paramilitary force has failed to track them down so far. Well-wishers of the Sangh Parivar have launched an initiative to establish contact with the rebels and get the hostages released. Significantly the captors neither claimed ransom nor made a contact with concerned quarters as is the practice in other cases. The RSS in Tripura is mainly active in hills through frontal organisation first established in the state in 1979 apparently to resist the conversion of tribals into Christianity. During last two decades it spread over remote parts of the State and launched welfare activities similar to Christian missionaries. The umbrella Tripura Baptist Church Union (TBCU) has been active here since before independence. The TBCU is often blamed for maintaining link with rebels and fanning trouble in ethnically divided state.