Examining State-led Development, Community and the State in Contemporary Tripura (Northeast India)

The article examines the impacts of state-led development on the Reang tribal community in Tripura (Northeast India). Development is used to civilise, formalise and empower marginalised communities, creating difficult encounters with modernity. Communities often resist or reject development, actions which have become the main focus in academic and policy writings. By analysing the Reang experience of development, this article challenges the commonly held notions of Reang homogeneity in resisting development interventions of the modern Indian state as well as examines the changing asymmetries within the community that is perceived as largely egalitarian. The article argues that state-led development is channelised through particular segments within the Reang community that creates complex fissures and ruptures and widens intra-group inequalities. This in turn affects ways in which different Reang subjects engage with the postcolonial state in intricate ways that calls for a much greater attention to minority experiences with development and their position within the modern state.