'Civil society needs to play a crucial role'

Inter-State boundary dispute

BY OUR STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI, March 29: Scholar and intellectual Dr Chandan Kumar Sharma today said that the civil society groups will have to play a vital role in resolving  the inter-state border conflict. Addressing the media persons in a workshop organized by Actioid at Hotel Blue Moon here, Dr Sharma said, “Government never solve the border issues. We see a kind of indifference on the part of the State over the issue. So the civil society has to play a role . We will have to resolve it through dialogue among the members of the civil society groups.”

He maintained that boundary demarcation is a social issue, it’s not a judicial issue.

“There has to be a continuous engagement to resolve these issues,” observed the distinguished scholar .

Dr Sharma said that not the common people but the State has made the issue of border dispute complicated.

“Just to assert the rights on the land, the particular government has given settlement to the people in the forest land of the disputed areas along the border,” he pointed out.

Citing the examples of Assam—galand border conflict and Assam-Aruchal Pradesh border dispute, Sharma said that there was no animosity among the common people of the two states.

“The disputes have escalated when the concept of hard boundary emerged in place of soft boundary among the states,” he said.

Dr Sharma also elaborately described how the State adopts various tactics to expand their control over community resources or over a particular area.

Writer Kishor Kalita in his speech said that the indigenous people have gradually lost their rights on their tural resources in the me of development.

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