Is the Assam-Meghalaya agreement a viable template for resolving North-East border disputes?

In Focus by The Hindu

In March this year, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and his counterpart from Meghalaya Conrad Sangma signed an agreement in New Delhi to partially resolve the 50-year-old border dispute between the two states. Reports indicate that matters have been resolved in six out of the 12 border locations that had disputes. At the same time, Home Minister Amit Shah has said that 70% of the border disputes between the two states have been resolved by this agreement. Subsequently, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam decided to form district-level committees for settling their boundary disputes.

There are now hopes that, following the ‘50-50’ model that Assam and Meghalaya followed, the disputes between Assam and Arunachal will also see resolution.

Assam has border disputes with most of its neigbouring states. But in this edition of InFocus, we take a closer look at the causes of its disputes with Meghalaya and Arunachal, and whether the Assam-Meghalaya agreement can serve as a template for resolving all the other border disputes in the North-East.

Guest: Patricia Mukhim, the editor of Shillong Times.

Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu

Edited by Reenu Cyriac