Even after seven decades of independence, the citizens from the mainland India and the North Eastern India are maintaining rather an unusual distinction. The efforts are on at all levels by the Government of India and various state government level to bring the people from Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura along with Sikkim in the mainstream. The isolation needs to end. The Union government headed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) is making all out efforts for the political inroads and economic development of all the eight N-E states through the North-East Democratic Alliance(NEDA) headed by Himanta Biswa Sarma. Sarma had a long stint as a Congress Minister in Assam and is now the senior leader of BJP and a Minister in the Sarbanand Sonowal Ministry. The borders of the eight North Eastern states, seven sisters and Sikkim as the brother, are touching five countries i.e. China, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan; making them sensitive not only because of the border security but also due to militancy. The Indian National Congress ruled over the states for decades and gave birth to lot many amoeba regional parties with regional aspirations to rule over. These days out of the eight states, five are being ruled by BJP or BJP coalition partners in NEDA. They are Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Nagaland and Manipur.
Tripura has been under Communist rule since last more than two decades. Mizoram and Meghalaya have governments headed by Congress since last one decade. Of course, with BJP- Sangh Parivar trying to reach out aggressively, the three non-BJP coalition states are also likely to be in NEDA basket in early 2018 elections. The term “North East” was first used by the British rulers to identify a geographical area. Alexander Mackenzie was perhaps the first to use the term “North East Frontier” to identify Assam, including the adjoining hill areas and the princely states of Manipur and Tripura in his book in 1884. The British had the plan to merge Assam with Eastern Bengal and they referred it as the “North Eastern Frontier of Bengal”. It was to be protected and defended militarily. With the separation of Burma from the Indian sub-continent in 1937 and the Partition of 1947 virtually created what is now being called the “North East”. The North East India is a region of diverse geographical features with population characterized by diversity of ethnicity, language, culture., religion, social organization and levels of economic development. According to Sir J. B. Fuller, the Lt. Governor of the new province of Eastern Bengal who resigned in August 1906, “the province of Assam at the far northeastern corner of India is a museum of nationalities.”
At the time of independence “North East” basically meant Assam and the Princely States of Manipur and Tripura. In order to quell the various ethnic aspirations new states were carved out of Assam: Nagaland (1963), Meghalaya(1972), Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram(1987). Sikkim merged with India in 1975.
The North Eastern states are known to have three major Princely States: Ahom, Manipur and Tripura. Ahom Kings, having roots in Burma, ruled the present-day Assam for nearly six centuries. When Burmese invaded Assam and the King sought help from the British East India Company, the dynasty lost the kingdom to the British Company in 1826 vide Treaty of Yandabo following the two year long first Anglo Burmese War. The British annexation of Assam consolidated the Assamese nationalism and idea of Swadin Asom(independent Assam).Even the leading intellectuals of Assam favoured the contention that Kamrup (Ahom) was always a separate country. Manipur, the Princely State of Maharaja Bodh Chandra Singh , was opposed to merger with India following Partition of British India.The people’s movement under the banner of Praja Sangh, the leaders Irabot and Longjam Bimol, resisted the proposal of Sardar Patel to form the state of Purbanchal consisting of Manipur, Cachar, Lushi Hills(present Mizoram) and Tripura. One would be surprised to know that the first ever election of state assembly held in India based on adult franchise was in Manipur under the Manipur Constitution Act, 1947.
A coalition government was formed by parties other than the Congress. Since the Maharaja and the elected government were against joining the Indian Union, the Manipur Congress started a movement for the merger of Manipur with India. Tripura, a small tribal kingdom, was never part of India. Even during British rule, Tripura was never annexed to British India. Maharaja Bir Bikram, the last independent king, died on 17 May 1947. Three months later, when the British left India, the situation was fluid enough for India to annex the kingdom. To counter the conspiracy to annex Tripura to East Pakistan, the Queen of Tripura, Kanchanprabha Devi, was made to sign the Tripura Merger Agreement in September 1947, leading to its final integration with India as “Part-C state” on 15 October 1949. Tripura became Union Territory on 1 November 1956 and attained full statehood on 21 January 1972. To dislodge the CPM government in Tripura, the BJP is using the name of Maharaja Bir Bikram, proposing Bharat Ratna posthumously, but his grandson and the present “Maharaja” Pradyot Manikya Deb Burman heads the Tripura Pradesh Congress !
To assess the mood of the ruler of Manipur and that of people, Akbar Hydari, the Governor of Assam, visited Manipur. Dhabalo Singh, the President of the ruling party in Manipur, submitted a memorandum to the king on 17 December 1948, expressing desire to remain independent. The Maharaja was invited to Shillong in September 1949 for talks with regard to integration and Hydari placed before him the merger agreement to be signed. The Maharaja expressed inability to sign it without consulting his Council of Ministers. “At this juncture he was placed under house arrest and debarred from any communication with the outside world. Under such circumstances the Maharaja was forced to sign the Merger Agreement with India on 21 September 1949 and Manipur became “Part-C state” of the Indian Union.” A number of insurgent groups regarded the merger as “illegal and unconstitutional”.
B.G. Verghese, a leading Indian journalist who was born in Burma (now Myanmar), recognizes the North East India as “another India, the most diverse part of a most diverse country, very different, relatively little known and certainly not too well understood, once a coy but now turbulent and in transition within the Indian transition.” Most of the inhabitants consist of people who migrated from South West China or South East Asia via Burma at various points of history. The Indian authorities need to handle the North East with care. Any wrong step may lead to disastrous results.
Next Column: The Vision of Dr. K.B. Hedgewar and RSS
( The writer is a Socio-political Historian. E-mail : [email protected] )
