Tripura

Tripura is a small north-eastern state of about 10,500 sq km, almost entirely surrounded by Bangladesh — it shares a border with Assam and Mizoram on the Indian side but has roughly 850 km of border with Bangladesh, which wraps around it on three sides. The capital is Agartala.

The population is largely Bengali-speaking, a consequence of successive waves of migration from Bengal and, after 1947, from East Pakistan and later Bangladesh. The state is hilly in its interior, with valley land in the west, and livelihoods rest on rice, rubber, tea, bamboo and government employment. Tripura has one of the highest literacy rates in the north-east.

Tripura was a princely state that acceded to India in 1949 and became a full state in 1972. It experienced a long insurgency from the late 1970s, driven by indigenous communities’ objections to the scale of migration and land transfer, which was largely suppressed by the 2000s; an agreement with the main insurgent group was signed in 2020. The state’s geography has made it central to India’s plans for trade and transit with Bangladesh, including the use of the Chittagong and Mongla ports.