Northeast India has been an enigma for the nation. An area which has more than 2,000km of international border but is connected with India by a narrow 20km-wide corridor, the region’s tenuous geographical link makes it politically and economically volatile. On the other hand, the international border makes the area a playground of international politics, and what some analysts describe as “Great Game East”

The porous border between India and Bangladesh makes it simple for people from the neighbouring country make an easy entry. According to analyses, the continuous migration has altered the demography of several districts. Others deny this claim. They stress that the mobility between the states, and within the region, has been a part of history. They point out that it was but recently that Bangladesh became a separate, geographical entity. The issue of illegal migration is one of the contentious topics in Assam. It sparked a violent students’ movement in 1980s, which ended with the Assam Accord in 1985. The issue of illegal migration led to the birth of United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) in 1979—a separatist movement which demanded a separate country for the Assamese. Though the ULFA movement has died down, the demand for state cleansing remains potent in Assam. The state also has different tribes and groups who want their separate territories—a Bodoland is one such movement which has led to bloodshed. The Centre may have created the Bodo Autonomous Council, an autonomous region for the Bodos, but the problem is far from being solved. That points out how the pressure on land has made the indigenous tribe insecured in their area. Though in the collective mind, the conflict and largescale violence in western Assam was always between Bodos and Bangladeshi migrants, the ground reality indicates a spillover of politics of dominance. The Bodos want a complete political dominance in the autonomous region. One of the main reasons behind the continuing insurgencies is economic backwardness. Realising this, the Centre formulated a “Look East Policy” in 1990s to connect the Northeast with Southeast Asian countries and bring in economic reforms within the landlocked eastern frontier. The process has been slow, but it is yielding results. The Centre’s economic packages, coupled with the gradual decline in violence, has given a new hope. Nagaland, once a nervecentre of violence, is registering economic progress. Similarly, Mizoram, has been showing signs of change. In Bertil Lintner’s Great Game East, he states that the “Great Game” being played out at the eastern fringes of Indian between India and China is reminiscent of the battle between Great Britain and Russia for Central Asia supremacy. To discuss the Northeastern problem, DW got Lintner and Colonel Anil Bhat, a defence and strategic affairs analyst to speak on the Northeast issue.

Colonel Bhat// China has been making cartographic claims on Indian territory since 1950s. Till date, the country maintains its claim over Arunachal Pradesh. According to experts, our neighbour has made incursions as deep as 20km in parts of it. After the Naga Separatist Movement which it supported, China moved onto Meitei insurgents of Manipur. Since 2008, the country has been supporting the United Liberation Front of Asom’s (ULFA) anti-talks faction. As trade develops between India and China, at the latter’s advantage, the country will continue to meddle in India’s Northeast (NE). India has enunciated a Look East Policy, which if implemented, has great potential for development of India’s NE states and also the countries like Myanmar and Bangladesh. But that can only happen if India is able to neutralise China threat, and if its neighbours— especially Burma—ensure that their territory cannot be used by insurgent-terrorist groups. Bangladesh, under the regime of pro- Pakistan Bangladesh Nationalist Party, and Pakistan’s ISI, had also provided sanctuary to these groups for two decades. When Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League came back with a massive electoral mandate, it made these groups retreat to Burma. So far, to keep the NE together, India has periodically used the Army. What it needed to do was to exercise political will and undertake infrastructural development. Also, the Illegal Migration Determination by Tribunal (IMDT) Act, enacted by the ruling Congress in 1983, replacing the Foreigner’s Act of 1946, virtually regularised illegal migrants from Bangladesh upto March 1971. This Act made it impossible for a Bangladeshi migrant to be deported from Assam. Under the Act, the onus of establishing nationality rested not on the migrant or government, but on an individual who had to pay a fee to lodge a complaint to a stipulated jurisdiction. It took 22 years for the Supreme Court to repeal Act. Over and over again, India’s blindness to NE has led insurgents become conduits for ISI to enter India’s NE. ULFA became an effective tool of ISI for pursuing its aim of settling illegal Bangladeshi migrants in parts into Assam, raising new madarassas and controlling old ones and trying to convert ethnic Assamese Muslims to fundamentalism, creating communal tension, circulating fake Indian currency, trafficking arms and narcotics, sabotaging installations—particularly rail, oil and public services—assassinations and massacres. My book, Assam Terrorism and the Demographic Challenge (Centre for Land Warfare Studies-Knowledge World) assumes greater relevance in the light of the recent riots in Kokrajhar. It dwells on how the demographic pattern of at least eight districts in Assam got adversely altered over two decades of terrorism by ULFA, when its leaders were hiding in Bangladesh. By now, it is believed that 11 districts have been affected. The July and August 2012 riots between Bodos and non-Bodos in Kokrajhar, being referred to as “Bagladeshis or Mians” and its neighbouring districts left 77 killed and about 378,045 people rendered homeless. This being an official figure, no one knows how many more people took shelter in the safe zones. Out of the displaced, 266,700 are Muslims and 111,345 are Bodos. Assam is a serious case of demographic shifts, which have occurred due to votebank politics. Whereas unspecified crores of illegal migrants from Bangladesh have settled in Assam, it now comes to light that there are only 3,000-odd families have land holding records, while the rest were found without any land records. At this rate the future of the NE is far from bright and for Look East Policy with tremendous potential, much will have to be meaningfully done to keep this region secure and on the path of integration and progress.

Bertil Lintner // On the eastern fringes of the Indian subcontinent, the new rivalry between India and China grows warmer. When I say this is a ‘new’ rivalry, it is so only compared to the 19th century Great Game in the west. Indo-Chinese rivalry is not new in the modern sense—it goes back China’s invasion of Tibet in the early 1950s, the Lhasa uprising 1959, the 1962 border war, Chinese support for ethnic insurgents in Indias northeast, and the fact that the Dalai Lama’s movement in exile continued to be based in India. It is a regional rivalry between the two giants of Asia, and now, of course, it is also about China’s access (through Burma) to the Indian Ocean, which has added a new dimension to it. The question remains whether the region will be always disturbed, or is there a chance for economic prosperity and peace. That unfortunately is had to say. Peace is possible in Mizoram, and to some extent, in Nagaland. But Manipur remains a troubled area with more insurgent groups than in any other Northeastern state. And Manipur is crucial to New Delhi’s Look East Policy, as the state is India’s gateway to Southeast Asia. At the beginning of my book, I mention that, “The Great Game East is also about India’s struggle to keep its ethnically-diverse Northeastern states within the Union.” It is important to remember that there are insurgencies in the NE not only because Pakistan and China have supported those movements over the past few decades. There are genuine grievances as well; many Northeastern people do not rally they are Indians, and many “mainland” Indians are blissfully unaware of the NE problems. It is important, of course, that the various peoples of the NE have been granted statehood, but more has to be done to create a better understanding among the population. It is important to look closely at the issue of foreigners in Assam and the agitation against Bangladeshi settlers. It is a big problem because Bangladesh is underdeveloped, and Assam’s fertile plains are there to the north. Furthermore, the borders are porous and impossible to police. The presence of immigrants in Assam is both a destabilising factor, and an economic opportunity. The immigrants take the jobs which ordinary Assamese people do not, and they contribute to the economy. However, any kind of immigration has to be regulated, which has not been the case. The recent conflict between Bodo and Muslims was interpreted broadly as a conflict between local and foreigners. As I saw it, the strife was a fight over land and resources. The never-ending unrest in Manipur has been the most difficult issue to solve in the NE. It is not only local militants versus the Centre, but Nagas against Meiteis, and Kukis against Nagas. No single solution would satisfy aspirations of all nationalities in this multiethnic state. Carving it up into smaller entities would not be a solution; creating autonomous districts within the state, with more self-government than now, could be the way forward. Insurgency has always been a bane of the NE. Manipur is still the most volatile state in the region. However, the Naga problem seems to be reaching some kind of a stalemate. Naga leaders were the first one to reach China for training. It is hard to see what the Nagas could get which they don’t already have: their own state. And I cannot imagine that the Centre will agree to any solution which is not within the framework of the Constitution. To do anything otherwise could, and would, set a precedent for other ethnic conflicts in other parts of the country and as such be a threat to the unity of the entire Indian Union. With economic development, and more importantly, serious considerations for the ethnic aspirations of the peoples, the strifes and the economic problems could be solved. One cannot come without the other; and only economic development will not be enough. These are different cultures and traditions that we are talking about. These differences must be respected and safeguarded and not seen as a threat to India’s unity.