SHILLONG: The Meghalaya-Assam boundary dispute continues to be the hot topic in every election but none of the governments in the past or present have been able to resolve the dispute even though all the political parties blame all the governments for the delay in solving the issue.
The dispute is a bone of contention for decades but even after ages, the row continues to be one of the top unsolved issues of all times.
Congress governments, both in Assam and Meghalaya, earlier witnessed no breakthrough and similarly the current MDA regime, consisting of the BJP in the state and a BJP government in Assam, too seems to have hit a roadblock.
After all these years, the question is why has the dispute not been resolved all these years, whether due to lack of foresightedness, lack of political will or a deliberate attempt to keep it unsolved for political benefits. Or is it that the issue is too complicated to be solved?
Though there may be hundreds of reasons for not resolving the matter, but at the end of the day it is the border populace which is facing the heat time and again.
Senior Congress leader, Charles Pyngrope said, “We went wrong the very first day. ( Soon after attaining our statehood the priority of the government should have been demarcation”.
He observed that without proper demarcation, issues will always arise as there are claims and counter claims and encroachment will always be there.
Admitting that the issue is complex, Pyngrope suggested,” The only way out as I see it is through proper dialogues”.
“Give and take policy can also be applied where we take some and give them and vice-versa,” he added.
Acknowledging that not much headway has been made over the years, the senior leader still stressed that proper dialogue should be held to iron out the issue.
It may be mentioned that skirmishes along the interstate disputed areas have been a common occurrence.
Few lives have also been lost during such incidents.
Anytime such instances occur, civil society groups are quick to jump and raise the issue while the state government comes up with a statement that communication is being made with the counterpart at all levels to maintain restraint. All of this until such time when there is reoccurrence of the same and the same routine follows.
The long interstate boundary between both the states have 12 areas of difference.
