1,318 sqkm forest reserve on border is bone of contention

The Assam-Mizoram border row that claimed the lives of six Assam policemen on Monday has its genesis in an 1875 Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation declaring 1,318 sq km of the stretch as an inner line forest reserve over which Assam claims its jurisdiction.

Mizoram shares a 164 km border with Assam which is the core of the unresolved border issue between the two States.

Several rounds of talks between the two States with facilitation from the Centre since 1995 have not yielded any result. Both sides have accused each other of transgressing their territories.

At the centre of the conflict is the 164.6-km inter-State border that separates Assam and Mizoram, with the three Assam districts of Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj sharing a border with Kolasib, Mamit and Aizawl districts of Mizoram.

Mizoram, earlier referred to as Lushai Hill, shares borders with three States of Tripura, Assam and Manipur besides a 722-km border with the neighbouring countries of Bangladesh and Myanmar.

The India-Myanmar border in Mizoram is open, and an unhindered movement of people from both sides has reportedly led to a spurt in cross-border smuggling. The Free Movement Regime between India and Myanmar allows people living along the border to travel 16 km into each other’s territory without visa.

Amid recurring claims and counterclaims, the region along the border between the two States has largely remained peaceful.

However, clashes in 1994, 2006, 2018, 2020 and the latest one on Monday at Lailapur, Cachar, between the two sides have flared up tensions in the area.

In 1994, tensions escalated in Vairengte, 130 km from Aizwal, Capital of Mizoram, when a skirmish broke out between the police personnel of the two States, but the crisis was averted with the intervention of the Union Home Ministry.

The North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act, 1971, provided for the creation of States of Manipur and Tripura and the formation of Meghalaya. The Act also provisioned the formation of the Union Territories of Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh - by the reorganisation of the then existing State of Assam.

The Barak Valley, comprising the Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj districts, is the southernmost tip of Assam. Cachar is surrounded on three sides by the hill ranges of Manipur, Mizoram and Meghalaya, and also shares an international boundary with Bangladesh.

Mizoram was originally a part of undivided Assam. It was first created as a Union Territory in January 1972 when it was separated from Assam, and later acquired statehood in 1987. The Mizo community is the dominant tribal community inhabiting Mizoram and covered under the Schedules Tribes.

Post-Independence, the border issue between Assam and Mizoram has existed for the last 50 years when the UT of Mizoram was formed in 1972. 

The Mizoram Peace Accord signed in June 1986, between the Centre and the Mizo National Front (MNF), ended the two decades long Mizo insurgency, leading to the grant of statehood to Mizoram. However, the boundary issues that remained suppressed earlier escalated into border disputes after the creation of a separate State of Mizoram.

While Assam recognises the map and boundary drawn by the Survey of India in 1933, both sides have attributed border skirmishes to perceptual differences over an imaginary line.

The boundary between Mizoram and Assam follows naturally occurring barriers of hills, valleys, rivers and forests, and people from both sides often cross over to either side for various purposes, without being clearly aware of the official border.