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Abstract
The hypothesis about the relative success of India's ethno-federal model in the mainland of India seems well-established in the writings on Indian federalism and ethnic conflict management. It is argued here that while this model has been responsible for relative peace and political stability in the mainland, India's North East tells us an opposite story. In this article, the author uses the case of India's North East to show that federalism in the North East has remained problematic. In conclusion, the need for paying serious attention to the question of how best to address the question of relationship between ethnicity and territory amidst complex diversity for durable political order and stability is highlighted.
Acknowledgements
The author records his sincere thanks to the three anonymous reviewers who offered very useful comments and suggestions for improvement of the paper. The journal Editors, particularly Karl, deserve some special thanks. I also wish to thank my son Sahon for reading the draft for English.
Notes
1 See for the Indian example.
2 Brass pointed out that statehood has been conceded to if the movement for it has abjured violence and secessionism; and demonstrated wider mass following. In the case of North East, mass following was often compensated for by long periods of insurgency.
3 She did a detailed and admirable account of the political origins of the new States of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand in 2000 by the method of bifurcation but never questioned the legitimacy of the method when no particular criteria were followed apart from the elite conflicts and their power struggles involved. Anomalously, the state of Jharkhand was created out of Bihar but it can never be called the state of the tribals in the region.
4 There were voices of caution about not applying the so-called linguistic principle in reorganization in the North East but that was not heeded to by the central government (Dhar, Citation2011, pp. 282–304).
5 See, note under 9.
6 Ethnic insurgency in the region has been the main actor.
7 Singh (Citation2008) provides some inputs but his study lacks the detailed empirical study of the District Councils as promised.
8 These are Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland.
9 See 50th Report of the Commissioner of Linguistic Minorities in India (July 2012–June 2013) (Government of India, Citation2013) (www.nclm.in) accessed on 8/8/17.
10 The map of Nagalim, released by the NSCN-IM, includes the Karbi Anglong and North Cachar Hills District of Assam as well as parts of the districts of Golaghat, Sibasagar, Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, and Jorhat. The unresolved dispute is deeply rooted in the history of British colonialism in the region since the late ninetieth century.
11 It is learnt that many ‘informal’ meetings with the rebels have preceded the formal signing of the peace accords.
12 United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was a multiparty but Congress led Centre Left coalition government in India during 2004–2014.
13 National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is a multi-party Centre Right coalition government now in power in Delhi since 2014 (May) under the leadership of the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) which alone has a majority in Parliament. It has been returned for the second term in 2019.
14 Such a self-governing body known as the ADC (Tripura Tribal Autonomous District Council) has been in operation since 1985. Similar self-governing elected institutions are working in other parts of the region. The 6th schedule provides autonomy to territorially rooted tribal ethnic groups in India's North East.
15 This Article provides for special State rights for all States excluding Tripura. But then Tripura was a Special category States like the rest in the region, and within Tripura, there is provision under the Constitution of India, for Autonomous District Councils for the aboriginal peoples. Article 371-A provides, for instance, for semi-sovereign status to the State of Nagaland.
16 This a foreign policy of the Government of India adopted in 1992 towards South East Asia in which North East was considered as the land bridge for more commerce and investment in the region. The policy was re-christened Act East Policy after Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister in 2014. In a separate survey on the issue it was found out that the political elites, and the governments of the region were not taken into confidence in policy taking and implementation, if any.
17 The National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) was formed on 1 January 2015 as a policy think tank of the Government of India
18 The other such bodies brought under the control of this ministry include the North Eastern Development Finance Corporation, Sikkim Munising Corporation, North Eastern Regional Agricultural Marketing Corporation and so on.
19 Sikkim's ‘integration’ with the Union of India is a very different story altogether. Formerly a kingdom, it was incorporated into the Union of India in 1974 as an ‘associate state’ under circumstances which raised, legitimately, many eye-brows.
20 http://thenortheasttoday.com/5-times-president-rule-was-imposed-on-northeast-states (sighted on 6/1/18). See also http://thenortheasttoday.com/24times-when-president-rule-imposed-in-northeast/ (sighted on 7/1/18) Adeney (Citation2017, p. 135) has offered detailed data on the more recent years of violence in the region, and said that in most cases, it was inter-ethnic than secessionist.
21 In Jammu and Kashmir, the volume of deployment of security forces has remained very high: as of 2008, the ratio of security personnel to people here was 1 is to 13 (Vanaik, Citation2009, p. 145). The situation has not improved since.
22 Of late the AFSPA is being withdrawn from some States, and regions within the States. It was fully withdrawn from Tripura in 2015. From the sources of the Union Home Ministry it is learnt that the Act is effective in the whole of Nagaland, Assam and parts of Arunachal Pradesh. It has been withdrawn from 8 districts out of 16 in Arunachal Pradesh; and Meghalaya in which it was effective only in 20 km along the border with Assam.
23 This is treated in a separate paper based on the survey (in 2016–2017) of the regional elites in the North East.
24 The Prime Minister Narendra Modi signed the so-called Framework Agreement with the Nagas on 3 August 2015 to realize that without consulting the affected States’ Chief Ministers.
25 See Bhattacharyya and Mukherjee (Citation2018).
26 This is a Centre's gift to the States for specific reasons but this is not based on any formula but discretionary.
27 It is not always clear what he means by this apparently contradictory formulation. Apparently, he seeks to promote competition among the States, and cooperation between the Centre and the States in ensuring a better political collimate of for private investment.
28 The BJP's recent intrusion into the region has not helped the situation but added fuel to the injury. There is a strong charge against the BJP in the North East for its ‘lack of understanding of identity in the North East’---commented by Patricia Mukhim, a leading media person in the region (https://scroll.in/article/913449/citizenship-bill-made-it-clear-that-bjp-doesnt-understand-the-concept-of-identity-in-the-north-east) sightd on 2.3.19. One poster says as much: ‘Modi Sarka's Assault on Democracy and Constitution: Down Down’.