Why is Bengali spoken by more than half of Tripura’s population?

Bengali is spoken by more than half of Tripura’s population primarily due to large-scale migration into the region over the 20th century. Following the partition of India in 1947, the 1965 India-Pakistan War, and the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, millions of refugees from the region—formerly East Bengal—migrated into northeastern India, including Tripura.1

This significant demographic shift fundamentally altered the state's linguistic composition. While Kokborok remains a vital indigenous language of the Tripuri people, Bengali has become the most widely spoken language and serves as one of the state's official languages alongside Kokborok. The historical influence of the Bengali language in the region is also long-standing; for instance, the Rajamala, a traditional chronicle of Tripura’s kings, was written in Bengali verse as early as the 15th century.23