ADSU Welcomes Hmar-Kuki Groups' Return to Mainstream but Firmly Opposes Parallel Development Councils

The All Dimasa Students' Union (ADSU), Dima Hasao District Committee, has responded to the recent peace development in the region with a message that balances goodwill with firm constitutional principle.

The union formally welcomed the decision by various Hmar and Kuki insurgent groups to renounce violence and return to the mainstream, calling it a positive step toward long-term stability and describing peace as a fundamental prerequisite for the collective growth of the region.

However, the welcome came with an equally firm condition attached.

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The ADSU was careful to frame its objections in non-communal terms, stating clearly that it holds no position against any community or their aspirations for development.

Its concern, the union said, is entirely with the administrative mechanism proposed in the Memorandum of Settlement (MoS) — specifically, the possibility that it could create governance structures that operate outside the existing constitutional framework of the district.

At the heart of ADSU's objection is the potential dilution of the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution of India — the provision that grants autonomous self-governance powers to tribal district councils in the Northeast.

The union pointed out that Dima Hasao is governed by the Dima Hasao Autonomous District Council (DHDAC), which it described as the supreme constitutional authority in the district.

Any arrangement that creates separate Development Councils functioning independently or in parallel to the DHDAC, the union argued, would directly undermine the administrative integrity and hard-won autonomy of the hills.

The ADSU's position on how ethnic group welfare should be handled is unambiguous.

All developmental and welfare initiatives for any ethnic community within the district's jurisdiction, it said, must be routed through the existing Autonomous Council — not through parallel bodies created outside that framework.

This, the union maintained, is not a matter of political competition but of constitutional consistency.

Closing its statement with a direct message to the authorities, the ADSU urged the government to ensure that the pursuit of peace does not come at the expense of the constitutional framework that protects the land and its governance.