- Saturday, April 27, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
OFFICIALS from both northeastern Indian states of Assam and Mizoram are at loggerheads over the ongoing violence at their border which even saw the police forces of both states firing at each other in which six personnel on the Assam side died.
It is not that the skirmishes have happened at the border between the two states for the first time since the problem is more than a century old. But in the recent past, the skirmishes have taken the shape of violence which has seen deaths on both sides. Chief ministers of both states and even parliamentarians have accused the other side for the riot-like situation. Even the central government’s intervention has failed to bring any solution so far.
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The border issue between Assam, which shares a border with each of the six other north-eastern states, is more than a century-and-half old. But unlike many other inter-state disputes in the region, that between Assam and Mizoram had not been as ugly as it did on Monday (26) when the policemen were killed in firing.
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The boundary between Assam and Mizoram, which runs for around 165 kilometres, has a history dating back to a time when Mizoram (then known as Lushai Hills) was a part of Assam. Boundary demarcations between the two states in 1875 and 1933, particularly the second one, are at the heart of the issue.
On August 20, 1875, a demarcation was made which was derived from the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation (BEFR) Act, 1873. Under it, the Lushai Hills were differentiated from the plains of Cachar in Assam’s Barak Valley. This was carried out after holding talks with the leaders in the then Mizoram and it formed the basis for the Inner Line Reserve Forest demarcation in the Gazette in 1875.
The 1933 demarcation, on the other hand, marked a boundary between Lushai Hills and Manipur (another northeastern state), beginning at the tri-junction of Lushai Hills, Cachar district and Manipur. But the Mizo people do not accept this demarcation saying their chiefs were not consulted when it was made.
The only boundary that the Mizo leaders find acceptable is the Inner Line of 1875 on the southern frontier of Cachar, notified under the 1873 Act. The Act was revised in 1878 as it wanted to demarcate the Lushai Hills frontier from the plains of Assam.
In 2018, political parties, non-governmental organisations and joint action committee on the border issue submitted to prime minister Narendra Modi a memorandum that said, “The present so-called boundary was arbitrarily made in 1930 and 1933 without the consent and approval of the competent authorities and the people of the Lushai Hills, now Mizoram, thereby unreasonably excluding some of the Lushai inhabited areas such as Cachar Zion, Tlangnuam, Lala Bazar and Banga Bazar.”
“It is to the Mizos no more than an imaginary line pushed farther and farther south of the Inner Line of 1875, depriving the Mizos of the gentle slopes and flat lands for the convenience of outside settlers (mainly Bangladeshees) brought by the British,” the memorandum read. They were talking about a time when Bangladesh was yet to be created.
The dispute has been simmering since Mizoram became a Union Territory in 1972 and then a state in the 1980s. It signed an agreement with Assam that status quo should be maintained at no-man’s land set up in the boundaries. But allegations of transgressions have yet come up and skirmishes have taken place more frequently in recent times.
While Assam says its claimed boundary has been violated, Mizoram says Assam has made unilateral moves inside its territory. In June last year, Mizoram accused Assam officials of entering its districts and miscreants of burning down two farm huts. There have also been instances of blockading the inter-state highway and national highway connecting the two states at Lailapur in Assam. Explosions also happened at a primary school in Mizoram and a peace meeting took place between the two states. Clashes between villagers of the border areas of the two states have also been reported.
Assam has in fact been involved in disputes with other northeastern states like Nagaland and Meghalaya besides Mizoram that have also been carved out of it. Violent clashes, even causing deaths, have taken place at the border of Assam and Nagaland that run for 500 kilometres in several phases since 1965.
With Arunachal Pradesh, northeastern India’s largest state, Assam has seen border clashes (800 kilometre long boundary) that were first reported in the early 1990s. Each state has accused the other of violating the boundary and encroaching illegally.
With Meghalaya, too, Assam has border (more than 800 kilometres) disputes and the chief ministers of the two states met in February and agreed on status quo and peace.
