On Wednesday, Mizoram Home Minister K Sapdanga reiterated the government’s position that the 1875 notification serves as the basis for its border with Assam. Days after new tensions on the border between Mizoram and Assam, the statement was made.
The regions marked in the ‘Inner Line on the Southern Frontier of the District of Cachar’, which was notified on August 20, 1875, as the state’s true boundary with Assam, were approved by the Mizoram administration, Sapdanga told the assembly on the opening day of the monsoon session. However, Assam maintains that its constitutional boundary with Mizoram is the one shown on a map created by the Survey of India in 1933.
However, Assam maintains that its constitutional boundary with Mizoram is the one shown on a map created by the Survey of India in 1933. The home minister claims that since 1988, Mizoram and Assam have had more than ten meetings to try to settle their contentious border conflict. He stated that in an effort to find a peaceful resolution to the long-running conflict, the two states had their most recent formal-level dialogue on the boundary issue in Guwahati on April 25.
The next round of official-level negotiations has been suggested to take place in Mizoram, although the precise date has not yet been decided, according to Sapdanga. In addition to discussions at the ministerial and official levels, he said the two states are resolving the conflict by exchanging crucial documents pertaining to the border.
According to the home minister, a study team was established by the Mizoram administration to gather crucial records to support the state’s position. Along the state boundary with Assam, border roads have been built and maintained by the state government, according to Sapdanga.
However, because it can lead to a violation of the status quo and an agreement reached by the two governments in earlier negotiations, it has ceased maintaining or utilizing certain of those highways. According to reports, on August 15, Assamese police and forest department representatives broke into Saikhawthlir hamlet in the Mamit district of west Mizoram and destroyed about 290 rubber plants that the residents were growing. Both states made claims to the region.
After a discussion between district officials and police officers from the two northeastern neighbors, tensions near the interstate border were quickly reduced. According to Mizoram Chief Minister Lalduhoma, he spoke with his colleague from Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma, and the two decided to keep the status quo in place on the disputed territories along the interstate border.
The districts of Aizawl, Kolasib, and Mamit in Mizoram share a 164.6-kilometer boundary with the districts of Cachar, Sribhumi, and Hailakandi in Assam. A long-standing issue that has not yet been resolved is the border dispute between the two northeastern states, which mostly arose from two opposing colonial-era demarcations: one from 1933 and one from 1875 under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation.
There were multiple instances where the argument turned violent. Seven individuals, including six Assamese police officers, were killed in a fight between the two states’ police forces on July 26, 2021, close to the village of Vairengte in Mizoram.
In addition to official-level negotiations and virtual sessions, the two Northeastern nations have engaged in four rounds of ministerial-level talks since August 2021 to settle the long-standing border conflict. Both governments agreed to preserve the status quo along the disputed areas and to respond to Mizoram’s claims as soon as possible at the most recent official-level negotiations, which took place in Guwahati in April.
