The Assam-Nagaland border dispute started some 84 years ago, in the year 1929, when Nagaland demanded Assam to give back their ancestral land. Naga Hills was a part of undivided Assam until 1957. However, the main dispute started after Nagaland attained statehood in the year 1963. The two states share a total area of 512.1 km, which lies in the districts of Sivsagar, Jorhat, Karbi Anglong, Dima Hasao and Golaghat districts of Assam. The whole stretch has been divided into 6 sectors and the border that falls in Golaghat District has always remained as disputed area. Each state has been accusing each other of encroachment and the area also comprises reserve forests. As per Assam, Nagaland has set up three civil subdivisions on the territory of Assam; whereas, Nagaland claims that more tracts under Assam “occupation” belongs to it.
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| Assam - Nagaland Border Dispute Needs to be Resolved Soon |
A number of efforts have been made since the early 70’s to resolve this issue. The Central Government appointed K V K Sundaram, who was the chairman of the Law Commission at that time, to inspect the matter and when he suggested joint survey, Nagaland disagreed. Following this, in 1972, the two states signed four interim agreements to maintain status quo. There have been a number of violent incidents in this border area and two major incidents that took place were in 1979 and 1985, killing over 100 people. Following these two major incidents, several meetings at different levels were held to resolve the issue. Since 1979, this disputed border belt has been under the Union Home Ministry and to maintain law and order in the area, Assam Rifles, a neutral force, was posted in the area by the Central Government. Assam had finally filed a petition in the year 1988 in the Supreme Court for settlement of the issue as Assam Government did not want any change in the present border area. However, Nagaland had been refusing to accept it and wants back the historical boundary, which was formed before the colonial rule. Although Supreme Court has intervened, the issues are not yet resolved.
Recently, there has been a huge conflict between the two states in the Golaghat district of Assam, which borders Nagaland. It is a 2 km stretch that has turned into a battlefield. It started on 12th August 2014 when misfeasor from Nagaland started firing on agitators outside the CRPF camp in the border. The agitation in the area started when the protestors demanded release of 2 students, who were suspected to have been abducted by a Naga insurgent. Owing to this, the Naga nefarious attacked the villages situated on the border. During the conflict in the border area, 9 Assamese people were killed. It was believed that they were killed by the insurgents from Nagaland. This mounted the tension and thousands of people came out on road to protest against it. The uproar on the disputed border came into limelight following the incident.
As per a statement made by the Chief Minister of Assam, Tarun Gogoi, Assam has maps and document to prove their claim that land under the disputed area belongs to Assam, while Nagaland claims it to be theirs on the basis of history. He said that “we refer to constitutional boundary and not history.” He is right on his part and Assam should not give even an inch of their constitutional boundary to any state. Moreover, both the state should also realize the fact that the territory belongs to India and hence, fighting over it is meaningless and this issue needs to be resolved soon as several innocent Assamese people have lost their lives in these border clashes that have been going on since last 50 years. Assam and Nagaland should now resolve it amicably and put an end to the on-going conflict that has cropped up because of this long persisting dispute.
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