Assam-Arunachal agreement on border: the dispute and its resolution

CategoryPolity

Last Updated24/04/2023

Recently, Chief Ministers of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh signed an MoU over disputed areas along the roughly 800-km shared boundary.

Disputes over 34 of these villages stand resolved.
The disputes over 37 villages had been resolved through the Namsai Declaration of July 2022.
The state governments agree that no new claim area or village will be added in future beyond these 123 villages.
Both governments also agreed to effectively prevent any new encroachment in the border areas.

Arunachal Pradesh (earlier a part of Assam), shares a boundary of ~ 800 km with the state.
Dispute between the two states came to the fore after the establishment of Arunachal Pradesh as a Union Territory in 1972.
The dispute is over 123 villages that stretch across 12 districts of Arunachal Pradesh and eight of Assam.
Demarcation of the boundary between Assam and Arunachal started in 1972 and by 1979, 396 km of the boundary was demarcated.
However, disputes regarding the border surfaced during the survey.
As a result, the process of demarcation had to be suspended.

Origin dates back to colonial times, when the British in 1873 announced the inner line regulation.
This regulation demarcated an imaginary boundary between plains and the frontier hills.
This was later designated as the North East Frontier Tracts in 1915, which corresponds to the area that makes up present-day Arunachal Pradesh.
After Independence, the Assam government assumed administrative jurisdiction over the North East Frontier Tracts.
Later, it became the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA) in 1954, and finally, the Union Territory (UT) of Arunachal Pradesh in 1972. It gained statehood in 1987.

Before Arunachal Pradesh was carved out of Assam, a sub-committee headed by then Assam chief minister Gopinath Bordoloi submitted a report in 1951.
The report made some recommendations in relation to the administration of NEFA (under Assam).
Based on this report, around 3,648 sq km of the plain area of Balipara and Sadiya foothills was transferred from Arunachal Pradesh (then NEFA) to Assam’s then Darrang and Lakhimpur districts.
This remains the bone of contention as Arunachal Pradesh refuses to accept this notification as the basis of demarcation.

Arunachal Pradesh has long held that the transfer was done without the consultation of its people.
It was arbitrary, defective, and no tribal leader from Arunachal Pradesh was consulted before the land was transferred.
Arunachal had customary rights over these lands, considering the tribes living there would pay taxes to Ahom rulers.
After Arunachal Pradesh achieved statehood in 1987, a tripartite committee was appointed.
It recommended that certain territories be transferred from Assam to Arunachal. Assam contested this and the matter is in the Supreme Court.

1971 - 1974: There were multiple efforts to demarcate the boundary but it did not work out.
April 1979: A high-powered tripartite committee was constituted to delineate the boundary on the basis of Survey of India maps.
1983-84: 489 km out of the total 800 km mostly in the north bank of the Brahmaputra, were demarcated.
A further demarcation could not commence because Arunachal Pradesh did not accept the recommendations.
January 2022: Formal talks over the issue had begun between CMs of both the states.
Second meeting in April 2022: It was resolved to set up 12 district-level committees to undertake joint surveys in the disputed areas to find the solution.

1989: After Arunachal Pradesh did not accept the recommendations, Assam filed a case in the Supreme Court, highlighting an “encroachment” made by Arunachal Pradesh.
2006: The apex court-appointed a local boundary commission headed by a retired SC judge.
September 2014: Local commission submitted its report.
It was suggested that both states should arrive at a consensus through discussions. However, nothing came of it.