Quest Journals Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Science Volume 9 ~ Issue 3 (2021)pp: 45-53 ISSN(Online):2321-9467 www.questjournals.org *Corresponding Author: Dr. Jashim Uddin 45 | Page Research Paper Political Participation of the Scheduled Caste Community in Tripura: A Case Study of Bagma- 30 Assembly Constituencies in Tripura. *Dr. Jashim Uddin *Guest Teacher, The ICFAI University, Agartala ABSTRACT Political participation refers to those voluntary activities by which members of a society show active interest and play a role in the selection of rulers. It includes voting, seeking information, discussing, attending meetings, contributing financially, and communicating with the representatives, enrolment in a party, canvassing and registering voters and working in campaigns. It is clear that the term political participation draws our attention to political activities rather than attitude and behaviour of private citizen to those who are professionally involved in public affairs. The constitution of India has assured equal political rights of political participation irrespective of caste, class, religion, gender and place of birth. However, the scheduled caste communities are lagging behind in respect of political participation. There are multiple factors are present in our society which threatening them in politics, and one of the factor is caste. In India, the scheduled caste communities have different sorts of disadvantage to affective political participation, in this paper, an attempt has been made to explore the level of political participation and political awareness of the SCs in Tripura. KEY WORDS: Scheduled Caste, Political participation, Political awareness, voting, public affairs, Received 16 Feb, 2021; Revised: 28 Feb, 2021; Accepted 02 Mar, 2021 © The author(s) 2021. Published with open access at www.questjournals.org I. INTRODUCTION Political participation refers to those voluntary activities by which members of a society show active interest and play a role in the selection of rulers. It includes voting, seeking information, discussing, attending meetings, contributing financially, and communicating with the representatives, enrolment in a party, canvassing and registering voters and working in campaigns. It is clear that the term political participation draws our attention to political activities rather than attitude and behaviour of private citizen to those who are professionally involved in public affairs. The constitution of India has assured equal political rights of political participation irrespective of caste, class, religion, gender and place of birth. However, the scheduled caste communities are lagging behind in respect of political participation. There are multiple factors are present in our society which threatening them in politics, and one of the factor is caste. In India, the scheduled caste communities have different sorts of disadvantage to affective political participation, in this paper, an attempt has been made to explore the level of political participation and political awareness of the SCs in Tripura. The purpose of this study is to examine the political activities and political participation of scheduled castes in Tripura. Since, independence, India has been making continuous efforts to develop its rural areas. The community development programme was the first to tackle the problems of rural India in a comprehensive manner. But the community development programme, as it has been observed by Balwant Rai Mehta committee could not deliver the desired results. Consequently Mehta committee reached the conclusion that unless people's own representatives at the local level are associated with the administration of community development programme and without people's enthusiasm and cooperation it would not be successful. The political participation of SCs is responsible for their caste development, village development, keeping the transformation of social and economic life of rural areas as its goal of development. It says that the rural progress depends entirely upon the existence of an active organisation in villages, which can bring all the people including the weaker sections into common programmes with the help of administration.