Understanding the ‘Outside’ on the Assam-Nagaland Border

Competition for land and resources among multi-ethnic groups in the Northeast is a natural phenomenon. One such contest is seen as an inter-state border dispute in the Assam-Nagaland foothills. With the reorganization of colonial Assam into separate states in 1963, the issue of inter-state border disputes has become one of the vexing issues in Northeast India.
The basis of the dispute between Assam and Nagaland lies in two notifications notified at different points in time in colonial Assam. Nagaland adopted the British 1866 notification while Assam stands by the 1925 notification. Finally demarcated the boundary between the Naga Hills district and its neighboring districts in Assam.
However, Nagaland does not follow the 1925 notification. This disagreement between Assam and Nagaland led to conflict that escalated into a bloody war in 1985, known as the “Meerapani War”. After the Mirapani War, the Daman border saw a new surge in migration patterns. At the same time, Assam was also witnessing one of the largest student movements of the century protesting the influx of “illegal” immigrants from Bangladesh into the state.
Thus, many atrocities were committed against Muslim settlers of Bangladeshi origin in different parts of Assam. A part of the population migrated to the foothills from different parts of the Brahmaputra valley and took shelter under Naga cultivators. Apart from the migrant Bangladeshi settlers who were locally known as “Miya”, there are many other groups such as Adivasis and Nepalese who migrated to the forest foothills. These migratory populations cleared forests and jungles and became sharecroppers with the Naga or Assamese cultivators.
Both states claim territoriality in the foothills, patronizing both indigenous populations from different parts of the states and migrant settlements from other parts of India and neighboring countries such as Nepal and Bangladesh. The existing ethnic fissures and multiplicity of identities in the Daman also sometimes fuel arbitrary border disputes.
Despite arbitrary border disputes and ethnic clashes, we witness the coexistence of different communities. In the vortex of ethnic differentiation, there are few working relationships between different ethnic identities. The interrelationships and conflicting loyalties associated with different ethnic groups foster socio-economic interdependence and enhance the locally contextualized forms of cultural adaptation necessary for peaceful relations between different foothill groups. .