UrraUvie: The Question of Naga-Land in Assam

Mazie Nakhro

In 1988, the State of Assam filed a suit against the State of Nagaland, asking the Supreme Court to recognize the present demarcations drawn by the British, or the so-called “constitutional boundary” of Assam, based on: (1) the Notification No. 3102R dated November 25, 1925, (2) the Naga Hills-Tuensang Act, 1957, and (3) the State of Nagaland Act, 1962. Recently, Ram Prasad Sharman, a BJP’s Member of Parliament, went a lot further. He is reported to have encouraged the government of Assam to take steps to claim even Dimapur and Merapani from Nagaland---even by using force. But despite all the unreasonable claims or aggressive push by their counterparts in Assam, most of our Naga politicians and bureaucrats, past and present, aren’t bothered about the possibility of losing our ancestral land to others, either due to utter ignorance or sheer negligence. To fight for our rights, we must, first of all, know that some of our fellow Nagas have been residing in their ancestral homeland for hundreds, if not thousands of years in certain parts of Assam. Since ancient times, the Naga-Ahom boundaries were determined in accordance with the various traditions, customs, and rituals prevailing at that point of time. It was only in the year 1858 that the Naga traditional boundaries were disturbed again when the Naga Hills District was formed by the British by way of the transfer of power from the East India Company to the Crown territories in India. Thereafter, various notifications were issued at different times to draw some arbitrary demarcations for limited purposes of economic and administrative convenience. Among these notifications, the most critical one is the Notification No. 3102R dated November 25, 1925, wherein the boundary of the Naga Hills District was amended again and some forest areas within the Naga traditional territories were taken out to be included as part of the Sibsagar and Nagaon Districts, possibly with the intent of exploiting the forest wealth and the mineral resources of the Nagas for their own economic interest. Thus, the British illegally transferred some of our Naga traditional territories out of the then Naga Hills District for their “administrative convenience,” which was done without the consent of the actual land-owners. But from the perspective of the Nagas, they had never given up their land-ownership rights to anyone else at any point in history. They had always been in possession of their own land. They had only allowed a non-possessory use (easement rights) to the British for their “administrative convenience.” Technically, this means that the validity of the easement rights of the British to the Naga lands ended when their need to use our lands for their “administrative convenience” ended. In other words, the British’s action of taking out certain Naga territories has no legal force right after they left. Therefore, the claim of the Assam Government that the present boundary lines (about 512 kms. in length) between the State of Assam and the State of Nagaland are the “constitutional boundaries” and are therefore legitimate must be questioned and challenged. The fact remains that even the demarcations of the Naga Hills Districts cannot be understood as final or absolute, because the Naga traditional areas are much beyond the purported Notification of 1925. As for the Naga Hills-Tuensang Area Act (NHTAA), all the areas under the Naga Hills District and the Tuensang Frontier Division (formerly called Naga Tribal Areas) were amalgamated through an act of the Indian Parliament on November 29, 1957, to provide for the formation of a new administrative unit within the State of Assam. In this case, the new independent India gladly took over the illegal demarcations drawn by the British and unilaterally made the decision to claim these Naga lands as part of the State of Assam. The question, however, is this: Is this action morally right or legally justifiable? From the perspective of the Nagas, this is certainly unacceptable as no Naga had ever agreed to be part of the new State of Assam, whether officially or unofficially, at that time. Now, what about the State of Nagaland Act, 1962, which was passed by the Indian Parliament and got the President’s assent on September 4, 1962? Section 3(1) of the said Act states, “There shall be formed a new State to be known as the State of Nagaland, comprising the territories which immediately before that day were comprised in the Naga Hills-Tuensang Area and thereupon the said territories shall cease to form part of the State of Assam.” Admittedly, certain sections of the Naga people opted to accept a separate statehood under the Indian Constitution. But even in this case, the acceptance of Nagaland as the sixteenth State within the Indian Union was based on the 16-Point Agreement, in which the amalgamation of all Naga areas was clearly stated and agreed upon. For example, the return of all previous Naga traditional territories to the new State of Nagaland was clearly spelt out in Point Nos. 12 and 13 of the 16-Point Agreement, which is really a reaffirmation of Point No. 6 of the Nine-Point Agreement of 1947. The reasons why the government of India agreed to this arrangement seem to be two-fold: (1) to set right what was wrongfully committed by the British Colonial Power which had arbitrarily taken portions of the Naga traditional territories out of the Naga Hills District, and (2) to use the promise of re-transferring these Naga traditional lands to the Naga people as a bargaining tool or concession on the condition that the Naga people would agree to be part of the Indian Union. After all, the Naga people did not ask for a separate statehood. Instead, it was India which only came up with this offer to the Naga people. Hence, the Assam-Nagaland border issue is much more than a border dispute between the two States. More accurately, it has a lot to do with a political agreement, which India has failed to fulfill so far. For that matter, the Government of Assam, under Sir Akbar Hydari, the Governor of Assam, was also a signatory of the Nine-Point Agreement in 1947, when it agreed: (1) “to bring back into the Naga Hills District all the forest transferred to Sibsagar and Nowong Districts in the past, and (2) to bring under one administrative unit as far as possible all Nagas …” (Point No. 6). This being the case, it is the Government of India (GoI) which should solve the Assam-Nagaland border issue rather than expecting the two state governments to resolve the problem between themselves. To be candidly self-critical, the Government of Nagaland (GoN) had erroneously opted for mutual settlement of the border dispute, although the Supreme Court had earlier directed the GoI to take the necessary steps to do so. But the resolution to the problem of the Naga traditional lands is something only the government of India, not even the Supreme Court, should undertake. Otherwise, the State of Nagaland will continue to be without a legally recognized and settled boundary. The GoN had, on various occasions, reminded the GoI that the ongoing Indo-Naga conflict today is due to the non-fulfilment of the commitment made by the GoI. Similarly, Dr. HokisheSema, a former Chief Minister of Nagaland and Governor of Himachal Pradesh, had confirmed that the GoI was well aware of this fact. As for the Nagas who have accepted the 16-Point Agreement, they have honored their word by physically and politically remaining with India for the last six decades. But what about the GoI? When will it honor all its commitments made to the Naga people as per the 16-Point Agreement?