Dear Sir,
Like all Bengalis, Rabindranath Tagore is dear to me. I relax listening to his songs, specially when I am stressed. Tithi Debbarma, who is like my sister, has given me all her CDs and I love listening to Tagore songs in her voice. I am proud of the fact that she sings so well. That brings us to the mute point that Tagore was so close to Tripura and immortalised our great state in his creations. Which is why I am upset that the controversy surrounding the naming of the Agartala airport is taking an ethnic turn -- as if Tagore belongs to Bengalis and Maharaja Bir Bikram belongs to the tribals. Nothing could be further from truth, nothing could be more unfortunate. It is true Tagore made our language known all over the world , so I am proud of speaking and writing in the same language as Kabiguru.

But much as I am proud of my Bengali identity, I am much more proud of my dominant identity of being someone from Tripura. I belong to Tripura and I am very proud of our great royal heritage. And without a shade of doubt , Maharaja Bir Bikram was the greatest ruler Tripura -- and perhaps the Northeast ever produced. Not only did he create vital infrastructure for education, transport and much else but he set an example of ethnic management and administrative fairness that has not been surpassed by anybody. And the Agartala airport at Singarbil that he started to construct during the World War 11 proved to be such a great blessing once the Partition severed all our surface transport links through East Bengal . In fact, without this airport, it would not have been easy to retain Tripura in India . My Tripura pride and sense of history makes me support the cause of naming of the Agartala airport after the great Maharaja Bir Bikram -- much as the college I studied in is named after him.  He was our Maharaja as much as he was the ruler of the tribals. I cannot accept a fractured identity for Tripura -- it belongs to me and Bengalis like me as much as it belongs to our tribal brothers and sisters.  Many buildings have been -- and can also be -- named after Kabiguru Rabindranath because he was so close to Tripura in many ways.

But the Agartala airport which is our most crucial link with the rest of the country should be named after the great Maharaja Bir Bikram , not the least because he started the construction of this airport . I know that some politicians and sitting legislators have taken the initiative to get the airport named after Tagore. I appeal to them to reconsider their decision and though many of them may have ideological reservations about monarchy -- and with good reason -- I would expect them to just consider Maharaja's great success of ethnic management and his role in protecting the Bengali refugees from riot-ravaged East Bengal while also creating the tribal reserve for protecting tribal lands and livelihood.

It is my conviction that we the people of Tripura can work towards a great future only if we hold each other's hands and co-exist in the spirit of our great king Bir Bikram.

SUBIR BHAUMIK, Journalist and author and a son of Tripura
Tagore and Maharaja Bir Bikram shared a great relationship. So these two personalities should not be dragged.

Yours sincerely,
Subir Bhaumik, 
BBC Correspondent and author of "Troubled Periphery: Crisis of India's Northeast" and "Insurgent Crossfire: Northeast India"Statement.