By Prof Mahmood Alam
Spearheaded by leaders such as Pradyot Debbarma, Conrad Sangma, Daniel Langthasa, and Mmhonimo Kikon, the recent political and civil mobilization around the idea of unity and fraternity amongst the indigenous and tribal populace marks a significant moment in the history of a region – India in the northeast. Articulated through a meeting, a press conference, and a public rally in November 2025, the political leaders from TIPRA Motha of Tripura, the National People’s Party of Meghalaya, and the People’s Party of Assam has recently proposed a pan-Northeast political platform under the banner of “One Northeast.”
The political leaders from Meghalaya, Tripura, Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim—and voices linked to Darjeeling—stood together, and announced a bold proposition: the resurrection of thansa—unity. It is a call to transcend fragmentation without denying diversity. The leaders announced the formation of a nine-member committee, tasked with drafting the proposed party constitution. Weeks later, a rally in Agartala signaled the political project’s outreach beyond the elites into the civil society.
The ambition, carrying the weight of histories, grievances, aspirations, and risks, is sweeping: to dissolve all long-standing political silos, merge regional parties, and create a single political platform. The message was unmistakable: political egos must be buried, old tribal-identities fractures healed, and regional political energies pooled. The platform insists on speaking with one voice and embraces one vision for the indigenous peoples and tribal populations of India in the northeast. It is a call for an outright merger of existing political parties, and not an alliance or the coalition.
The Northeast is no stranger to political coalitions. In 2016, the North Eastern Democratic Alliance (NEDA) emerged under the stewardship of the Bharatiya Janata Party. More recently, Assam saw the formation of the Asom Sonmilito Morcha (ASM) in 2025, an umbrella of regional parties aligned with the Indian National Congress. The architects of ONE, however, see these arrangements as half-measures. The existing alliances with the national parties, they argue, have delivered power to rule without protection of indigenous identities.
Despite years of participation in the ruling coalitions in all the federating states, the insecurities surrounding land, resources, language, and ethnic identity remain unresolved. The lived reality of the region, which is grounded in the history of a Diaspora—marked by constant internal migration between hills, plains, valleys, and towns, and by inflows from outside the region, has reduced identity politics to a blunt binary now: indigenous old settlers (Assamese and the tribes)versus non-indigenous new settlers (Bangleadeshis and Biharis).
Unlike alliances and coalitions in Assam, One Northeast explicitly disavows stewardship by national parties. It seeks not partnership but autonomy; not accommodation but negotiation from a position of collective strength. What ONE proposes is not another alliance but a full merger—a political unification with one flag, one constitution, one logo, and one philosophical compass. The idea is to fuse state-bound parties, pressure groups, and tribal fronts into a single negotiating force capable of exerting sustained pressure on New Delhi.
Every political idea and moment has a prehistory. The contemporaneous political and civil call for unity carries historical resonance. India in the northeast has never followed a uniform trajectory of development. Instead, it evolved through intersecting academic, constitutional, political, and economic interventions. Its progress has been uneven, shaped as much by history and geography as by governance.
Independent India’s response to this inherited complexity was neither assimilationist nor isolationist, but constitutional. The Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, shaped by the Bordoloi Sub-Committee, institutionalized the autonomous district and regional councils as instruments of self-governance for tribal populations.
This framework sought to reconcile democratic integration with protection of land, language, culture, and identity. For political decision-makers, the Sixth Schedule achieved three critical objectives: it legitimized ethnic difference, decentralized governance, and redirected identity-based mobilizations into constitutional channels. However, it also entrenched autonomy as the primary mode of political expression, making regional consolidation structurally difficult.
The advocates of the present unity movement call for solidarity amongst all – the hills, the plains and the valleys. In this sense, One Northeast is less a rupture than a reprise—a second attempt to do what history made difficult the first time around. What distinguishes the present call for Thansa from earlier movements is its scale and ambition.
For the first time, the unity being imagined is not sectional but comprehensive—encompassing plains tribes, hill tribes, valley communities, and other indigenous populations across state boundaries. The proposal seeks unity at three levels simultaneously: among political leaders, in negotiations with the Centre, and in the aspirations of ordinary people.
The novelty of present endeavors lies not in its diagnosis but in its prescription. The clarion call of One Northeast insists that diversity need not condemn the region to permanent disunity, and that fragmented voices, when braided together, may yet speak with moral and political force.
It seeks oneness at three levels: the political oneness—ending rivalries among regional leaders through an outright merger of parties, the strategic oneness—negotiating with the Centre as a unified bloc to secure land, resource, and cultural protections, and the aspirational oneness—forging a shared future for the masses across linguistic, religious, and cultural divides without reliance on national parties.
In political economy terms, the project imagines a single regional vanguard—something long desired but historically unattainable. For the first time, plains, hills, and valley tribes are being asked to see themselves as stakeholders in a common destiny rather than competitors for limited safeguards. Moreover, they are appealed to find the commonness rather than differences. It is an audacious recalibration of identity politics.
This is no small undertaking. India in the northeast is a mosaic of languages, religions, and historical experiences. To suggest that these can be harmonized under a single political platform doe invite a sort of skepticism. Skeptics may dismiss the present civil and political movement for fraternity as romantic or utopian. Supporters may however counter that ambition is not a flaw but a necessity in a region shaped by peripheral neglect. Yet the advocates of One Northeast argue that beneath these differences lies a shared condition: a sense of being peripheral to national priorities, of being seen but not heard, counted but not consulted.
History offers ample cautionary tales of regional unity foundering on local rivalries. Yet to do so would be to underestimate the depth of regional discontent and the maturity of its political articulation. This movement emerges not from youthful idealism but from accumulated disappointment—from accords partially implemented, promises selectively honoured, and protections unevenly enforced.
In that sense, One Northeast is not merely a political project. It is an attempt to heal historical wounds, to stitch together a fractured region, and to finally complete an unfinished chapter in the democratic journey of integration of India in the northeast – the solidarity amongst tribes.
The insistence on adherence to constitutional guarantees, including the Eighth Schedule’s recognition of linguistic diversity, signals that this is not a rebellion against the Indian state but a demand for its fuller realization. The movement insists on strict adherence to constitutional guarantees, including the protection of indigenous languages under the Eighth Schedule, and envisions contesting elections across all eight northeastern states—without alliances with national parties.
The movement seeks not separation but recalibration—a renegotiation of the terms of belonging. Whether this experiment matures into a durable political force remains to be seen. But as a narrative, it taps into a century-old yearning—for dignity, security, and voice of the periphery.
