ELECTION AND ETHNIC POLARIZATION IN NORTH EAST INDIA WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO TUJS (TRIPURA UPAJATI JUBA SAMITY), AN ETHNO-NATIONALISTIC POLITICAL PARTY IN TRIPURA*
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53555/sy3sy021Keywords:
Democracy, Ethnicity, Polarization, Voting Behaviour, North East India, Tripura, Electoral Politics, Tripura Upajati Yuba Samity (TUJS)Abstract
Pluralistic societies like India have multiple ethnic compositions. Election as a democratic exercise should not bother about the existing diversities like religion, caste, lingual identity, ethnic identity etc. But in the field of real politics, these identities affect the electoral participation and outcome. Ethnic, lingual, religious, caste etc. types of identities influence the structure of leadership, decisions taken, type of mobilizations done before, during and after the elections in India. Such extra-democratic mobilizations lead to polarization in politics. Such polarization is more visible in the states of the North Eastern Region of India where division of demography is distinctly visible on ethnic lines. This paper is an attempt to understand the role of ethnic polarization in elections in North East India with special reference to the background in which TUJS, the most influential ethno-nationalistic political party in Tripura in the 1970s to 1990s.
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