Agrarian Transformation and Quality of Life in Highlands of Tripura

Tripura is a north-eastern state of India, which has been much less researched in the national and ­international policy studies or in terms of political economic aspects by social scientists outside Tripura. A few articles are available on Tripura’s socio-economic indicators but the number is much less than the research done on the economy of many other states of India. However, the state provided the opportunity of rese­arch to social scientists in the sense that Tripura underwent a massive social, political and economic transformation from 1983 onwards after the establishment of the left regime in the state. The story of the transformation was evident in several researches and reports done by established academic institutions and independent researchers.

A part of this work appeared as articles in research journals. The interesting part of the exi­sting research was that this was mostly evidence-based analysis. This shows that documentary evidences were coll­ected at various points of time in the process exploring the process of transformation. Secondary data in national- and state-level official statistics was also reflecting the story of transformation. In this context, the book Socio-economic Surveys of Three Villages in Tripura: A Study of Agrarian Relations edited by Madhura Swaminathan and Ranjini Basu is a contribution in the literature which was long awaited in sociopolitical and economic theory.