NEWS

Chief Ministers of Arunachal Pradesh and his Assam have decided to form district-level committees for settling their inter-state boundary disputes

DETAILS

THE DISPUTE

• Assam has had boundary disputes with all the north-eastern States that were carved out of it
• While Nagaland became a State in 1963, Meghalaya first became an Autonomous State in 1970 and a full-fledged State in 1972
• Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram were separated from Assam as Union Territories in 1972 and as States in 1987
• None of the new States accepted the “constitutional boundary” that they said was dictated by the partisan administration of undivided Assam without consulting the tribal stakeholders. They also claimed that the disputed areas were traditionally under the control of tribal chieftains before Assam, post-India’s independence, inherited the “imaginary boundaries” drawn during British rule
• The issue with Arunachal Pradesh has more to do with a 1951 report prepared by a sub-committee headed by Assam’s first Chief Minister, Gopinath Bordoloi.