Public consultation on Assam-Nagaland Border issues needed

Oken Jeet Sandham *

Of late, there have been criticisms against the remarks made by Nagaland Chief Minister TR Zeliang with regard to the chronic Assam-Nagaland border issues. The Chief Minister seemingly stated that Nagaland lacked documents to settle its protracted border row with neighboring Assam. His remarks soon drew flaks from various quarters.

In fact, soon after Zeliang’s remarks came up, the Assam media jumped over it and generated fair amount of news vindicating their claims, while many Nagas termed his controversial remarks as capitulating. The inability to resolve the border row between Assam and Nagaland over the years had cost hundreds of innocent lives, while the relationship between the two has been worsening and people living in either side of the borders feel insecure. The two Governments have miserably failed to instill a sense of security into the minds of their citizens living along the border areas.

As they kept dragging on the border problems with no solution at sight, the issues became more compounded for the simple fact that over the years, outsiders and illegal immigrants kept deluging in these vast border areas. Most of them are not indigenous people. Yet the Assam administration has allegedly provided these people with necessary papers making them as bonafide citizens of their State. This move has literally made Nagaland administration handicapped.

Comments and remarks by many Naga leaders including senior politicians after every unfortunate border clash have also become ritual because they would continue to insist on not holding talks with people living in Assam border. These people, they explained, were not real Assamese people.

Strangely, whenever such issues arose, the real Assamese people or any of their civil societies did not react. Their silence emboldened these people living in Assam border areas to go robust against Nagas living in Nagaland border areas.

Again, when there were any casualties due to border violence, the Assam Government would hurriedly announce ex-gratia for those who died in the unfortunate border clashes and also the injured. One such announcement was recently made by Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi when he visited affected villages in the border areas under Golaghat district of Assam bordering Nagaland’s Wokha district. Such move on the part of Assam is also a clear manifestation that whosoever living in Assam border areas are bonafide citizens of her state.

Looking at these prevailing peculiarities, can anyone confidently ask as to whether our attempts to justify the non-indigenous status of these people living in their (Assam) border areas carry any weight? Not at all, because the real Assamese people or for that matter the Government of Assam have silently accepted that these people are theirs.

It is worth mentioning that in July 1960, an Naga People’s Convention (NPC) delegation submitted a 16-Point Memorandum to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru reiterating the Nagas’ claim over the areas which they said were excluded from the erstwhile Naga Hills district by the British government in 1898, 1901 and 1918. The negotiations between the NPC and the Center led to the formation of Nagaland State in 1963.

Unfortunately, according to sources, the boundary dispute started in 1963 following the creation of Nagaland as the 16th State of the Indian Union. Assam insisted on retaining the constitutional boundaries that are defined by the 1962 State of Nagaland Act. It further explained that the boundaries of Nagaland comprise two units – the Naga Hills district of Assam created in 1866, whose boundaries were defined in precise terms through a notification of 1925, and the Tuensang areas as per the Naga Hills-Tuensang Areas Act, 1957. However, Nagaland insists on the restoration of the historical boundaries and demands re-transfer of 12,882 square kilometers of Assam’s land to Nagaland on the ground that the colonial government excluded these Naga areas from the erstwhile Naga Hills district “without the knowledge and much less the consent of the Nagas.”

An official account of the boundary dispute brought out by the Assam government in 1985, titled “Facts About The Assam-Nagaland Border” however, stated: Absolutely no commitment whatsoever was made to the Naga leaders in the 16-Point Agreement in respect of the reserved Forests falling within Assam according to [the] 1925 notification. Nor did the late Prime Minister indicate any commitment on the part of the Govt. of India while making a statement in the Lok Sabha on 1st August, 1960, regarding the Naga Hills-Tuensang Areas in the background of the 16-Point Agreement.”

Now, the only option to mitigate this unwanted border row with Assam is to settle the border row at the earliest and revoke the order of the Disputed Area Tag along the borders.

Several meetings were held between the two states but solution to border problems still remains elusive.

While border row was continuing, Assam, as early as 1988, went ahead and filed civil suit in the Supreme Court with a prayer to declare a) the boundary between Assam and Nagaland in terms of the Notification of 1925, the Naga Hills-Tuensang Areas Act, 1957, and the State of Nagaland Act, 1962; b) grant permanent injunction restraining Nagaland from encroaching into Assam; c) grant permanent injunction restraining Nagaland from setting up polling stations within Assam and enrolling the residents of Assam in their voters’ list; d) direct the Government of India to give effect to the Sundaram Report and implement the Shastri Commission Report for giving Assam full administrative control over areas within its constitutional boundaries.

However, the SC has recently issued interim injunction to Ministry of Home Affairs on 24th September, 2014 to see the two states mutually settle the issue.

The past historical accounts show very clearly that the people of Assam and Nagaland are one and they have been living together. However, as already stated, border dispute began after Nagaland state was created in 1963 but it was quite natural to have such boundary problem existed between the two because the whole Indian sub-continent was under the British Raj which made different acts with regard to boundaries of many areas.

From the civil suit filed by Assam, their extreme steps to settle border issues with Nagaland through the SC could be seen. Yet Nagaland still favors settlement out of the court as Zeliang himself also echoed along those lines.

It will also be unethical to defy the Court directives while we ourselves insisted on pursuing legal means to find our right delivered.

If we say that we lack documents to settle border row, then whatever Assam has been claiming over the years would be then right and we have to give them. Is this what we want for? It is very important for the Nagaland CM to think 100 times.

Whatsoever sensitive the issue may be, it has to be discussed and debated. The Nagaland CM, instead of making statements through media, should seriously engage himself in collecting all the necessary documents and with whatever documents the State already had with regard to the Assam-Nagaland border issues, a public consultative meet should be called for a brainstorming session. We should openly discuss whether we will be able to fight back in the court and if not, we can discuss another way out as to how we can go about to settle the border issue with Assam.