A Counternarrative Novel

By the 1940s, communist ideology infiltrates the ancient hilly kingdom of Tripura, influences the autochthonous population to disdain the institution of kingship, and instigates the populace to work towards establishing a kingless, exploitation-free world. When a political tsunami devours their king, however, the tribespeople suddenly find themselves helpless and vulnerable before an overwhelming tide of refugees from the newly created country of Pakistan. Kingless, leaderless and utterly disorganised, Tripuris now had no one to turn to for keeping up their morale except the communist party, as their political supremacy, economic interests, even the land beneath their feet slips through their fingers. What follows is an atmosphere of intense ethnic animosity. Amidst the chaos, a Pakistani plane crashes into Longtharai, a steep hill in Tripura, and the primordial tribespeople living in the woods of the hill find, besides other things, a huge cache of gold bars strewn about the crash site. Crafty plains people and refugees invent stupendous ways to defraud the tribesmen of the gold in their possession. A fairly refined refugee woman employed to trap a gold-rich hillman is swept off her feet by the hillman’s wild passion and elopes with the very man she was supposed to ensnare…