Guwahati: The Assam government has accused the Nagaland government of collaborating with Naga insurgents to encroach upon Assam’s territory. Gautam Roy, the Assam Border Area Development minister, asserted that the underlying motive behind the encroachments was the concept of “Greater Nagalim.”
Roy, responding to a query from Abdul Aziz of the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), highlighted that Nagaland has consistently refused to acknowledge the boundaries established by the Indian constitution since its creation in 1962. According to Roy, Nagaland has encroached upon 66,241 hectares of Assam’s land, with measures underway to prevent further encroachments.
The Assam government maintains that its constitutional boundaries are well-defined, but neighboring states such as Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, and Mizoram have unlawfully occupied Assam’s land under the pretext of history and tradition. Roy reiterated the official stance of the Assam government and its pursuit of legal recourse, citing a case filed against Nagaland in the Supreme Court in 1988, with the final judgment pending.
The Assam-Nagaland inter-state boundary, spanning 438 kilometers, has been marred by confrontations between the respective police forces for several decades. Additionally, there are ten reserve forests along the boundary in Golaghat, Jorhat, and Sibsagar districts.
The genesis of these territorial disputes can be traced back to the States Reorganization Commission report in 1955, which led to various ethnic groups in undivided Assam clamoring for separate states in the Northeast. Under the leadership of AZ Phizo, the demand for a separate entity for the Nagas gained momentum, eventually resulting in the creation of Nagaland as a separate state in 1963. This marked the onset of movements by Assam hill tribes for separate tribal states.
In subsequent years, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Arunachal Pradesh also attained statehood, while North Cachar and Karbi Anglong remained part of Assam. The Mizo hills district, which had been under Army control due to an armed uprising by the MNF, eventually became Mizoram, while the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA) evolved into Arunachal Pradesh.
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