ALL is not well with the seven states known as the seven sisters in Northeastern India. Inter-state clashes are anything but unusual. Tension has now escalated between the police forces of Assam and Mizoram. Armed personnel of both sides were deployed on disputed land at the inter-state border between Assam’s Haliakandi district and Mizoram’s Kolasib district. The dispute had kicked off after Assam Police and Forest department personnel along with a few locals dismantled the houses of some Mizo farmers. The Assam Police personnel had allegedly ordered the farmers to leave the area within three days as they claimed that the land belonged to Assam and was part of the state’s 21st IR battalion camp. They also said that the farmland occupied by Mizos was illegally built. The Mizoram police for their part lodged a case of dacoity. On Tuesday evening, armed personnel from both forces stood practically face to face with just a strip of farmland between them.
This may be an incident of trifling importance but such clashes definitely embitter relations between the Northeastern states. Assam has occasional friction with Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Mizoram. It is the largest state in the region with the highest level of industrial and agricultural growth in the Northeast. Yet it seems somewhat prone to border clashes especially over the land issue as it also has with neighbouring Bangladesh. Both Dispur and Aizawl have had Congress-led governments for successive terms and there are no political and ethnic clashes to speak of between the two states. Mizoram is essentially agricultural though it has a thriving handicraft industry. The standoff between the two states should soon melt away but such clashes do cast a shadow over Northeastern unity in diversity.
