Returning ‘alienated land’ key to border solution: UNTABA

Reacting to Nagaland chief minister T.R. Zeliang’s suggestion of converting the disputed boundaries with Assam as Line of Control (LoC) to ensure that no new settlement comes up there, United Naga Tribes Association of Border Areas (UNTABA) Friday said the only issue was “returning back those alienated land” of the Nagas to the rightful owner from Assam to Nagaland both of which were under the Union of India as different states.

In a press release, UNTABA chairman Hukavi T. Yepthomi and secretary Yanger Sangtam while lauding the chief minister’s initiative of meeting the Prime Minister and Union Home Minister on the border issue between the Nagaland and Assam, reminded that the alienated land of the Nagas that were arbitrarily transferred to Assam during British India starting from late 19th century onwards.

UNTABA said the land under dispute was not located in between Pakistan and India like Jammu & Kashmir that could be called LoC nor did it lie in between China and India to be called LAC as in Arunachal Pradesh.  The association emphasized on returning back the “alienated land” to Nagaland and said Nagas would never accept any initiative of “face-wash or half-baked arrangement” which would out rightly deny the rights of the people.

UNTABA said any initiative undertaken towards the solution of the border issue should cover returning those alienated lands based on the available historical records which was duly recognized in the 13th Amendment Act of the Indian Parliament during the establishment of Nagaland Statehood and that that the inter-state boundary could only be undertaken in accordance to Article 3 and 4 of the Constitution of India. UNTABA urged the state government to sincerely pursue the inter-state boundary issue between in accordance to the ‘Peoples’ Dialogue’ resolutions of August 9, 2014 instead of trying “some piece-meal solutions” for pacifying the recurrent border clashes. UNTABA said until and unless a clear cut inter-state boundary was demarcated by transferring back to Nagaland of those alienated Naga lands, no force on earth could prevent unwarranted clashes in the border areas between different communities of the two states and inadvertently allow the immigrant communities to ‘balkanize’ the region and become the master in “our traditional lands.”