Solve Border Disputes In The North-East Urgently
By A Special Correspondent
First publised on 2020-10-21 10:31:01
About the Author
There was a flare-up at the Assam-Mizoram border last Saturday. Reports confirm that authorities from Mizoram set up a Covid screening camp inside Assam in Layalpur to screen truckers entering Mizoram. When the Assam administration objected to this and asked them to set up the camp in their own territory, some Mizo youths created disturbances, including damaging trucks and setting shops and houses on fire. The situation was brought under control but tensions are simmering in the area.
Assam and Mizram share a nearly 165 kilometer border. Mizoram has always contended that a large part of its territory is occupied by Assam. The main problem is in the Lushai Hills area. Although the area belongs to Mizoram as per the division of states in 1972, both states have laid claims to a particular stretch. Apart from this, Mizoram claims that the border was not properly demarcated since the beginning and disputed have not been solved in all these years.
Smaller states were carved out of Assam from 1962. Mizoram was first made a Union Territory in 1972 and then accorded statehood in 1987. There were many attempts to resolve the border dispute in the 1990s. The 1993 Inner Line of Lushai Hills Notification and the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation formed the basis on which these border talks were held. But the states could not come to an understanding, letting the dispute hang fire.
These periodic flare-ups will continue to spoil the relations between the two states. It is required that not only Assam and Mizoram, the entire border between the states of the entire North-East must be demarcated properly and a lasting solution be found to this vexed problem. When states fight over land, the unpleasantness seeps down to the people and cross-border enmity gives rise to clashes. This can lead to renewed insurgency and armed struggle. Hence, the Centre must look into this and form a committee to solve the border disputes among north-eastern states at the earliest.
