Cultural Influences on the Demographic Trends in North-east India: Interpreting the Present in Light of the Past

Along with the socio-economic and political crises encountered by the people, a recent and rather disturbing event has been the stalling of fertility decline in the North-eastern Region of India (NER). NER comprising of eight states- Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura- is often perceived as an ethnically and culturally distinct component of the Indian subcontinent. Changes in the socio-cultural moorings of the tribes of India have been quite well documented and its repercussion on reproductive decision-making has been commented on. However, the much needed research on the effect of these changes on the fertility behaviour in the context of NER is pitifully rare, a gap which the proposed paper fills in. Perhaps even more interestingly (and importantly), this research attempts to illustrate how the seeds of recent demographic development might have indeed been sown in the past. Results from the statistical analysis of available data (ordinary least squares regression and panel data models have been employed) support the hypothesis of changing socio-cultural norms among tribes and protracted social and political turmoil in the region as possible factors behind the lagging demographic regime of NER.