Namsai Declaration

It is good news that the Chief Ministers of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh on Friday signed what has been named as 'Namsai Declaration', under which the two states have agreed to resolve in principle the vexed inter-state boundary dispute. Though the Declaration signed by Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and his Arunachal Pradesh counterpart Pema Khandu only pertains to settling disputes at 37 locations out of 123 along the 804-km inter-state boundary, it must, however, be described as a very good beginning. The inter-state boundary problem between the two states is as old as the creation of Arunachal Pradesh, and no government in the past, whether in the two states or at the Centre, had ever taken such an initiative to resolve it. Rather, it will not be incorrect to say that successive governments in the past were apparently more inclined to keep the issue alive and burning for reasons best known to those who were at the helm of affairs then, be it in Dispur, Itanagar or Delhi. Both Sarma and Khandu have also mutually agreed to resolve the disputes at the remaining 86 border locations by assessing them through regional committees of both states and that a final resolution would be arrived at based on the reports of these committees. Border disputes and issues arising out of them had caused a lot of unnecessary tension, occasionally also leading to violent clashes. This is also true in the case of Assam's inter-state boundary disputes with Meghalaya, Nagaland and Mizoram. What is worth recalling is that while the Centre and the Supreme Court of India had also made important interventions towards putting the disputes at rest, what Sarma and Khandu have proved is that issues can be thrashed out better only at the ground level. The Namsai Declaration should now be considered a formula in order to put at rest the remaining inter-state boundary disputes.