KKSuan Hausing Autonomyandtheterritorialmanagementofethnicconflictsin Northeast India

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Autonomy and the territorial management of ethnic conflicts in Northeast

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DOI: 10.1080/21622671.2021.1884591
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TERRITORY, POLITICS, GOVERNANCE
2022, VOL. 10, NO. 1, 120–143
https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2021.1884591
Autonomy and the territorial management of ethnic

conflicts in Northeast India
ABSTRACT
This article draws a typology of autonomy in the Northeast to examine how the Indian state territorially
manages ethnic conflicts in its periphery. The differential nature and history of conflicts, and timing and
mode of negotiation, are used as two broad explanatory variables to account for when, how and under
what circumstances the Indian state is likely to recognize and accommodate self-determination/self-rule
claims of territorially concentrated tribal groups, and simultaneously foster peace and stability. While
timely, yet partial, recognition and accommodation of self-determination/self-rule claims of the Naga,
Bodo and Manipur’s tribal groups are considered necessary to promote peace and stability, they are
found to be insufficient conditions to promote durable peace and stability unless they are supplemented
by robust identity-preserving powers over land and resources, on the one hand, and power-sharing not
only across India’s multilevel federal polity – Centre, State and sub-State – but also within and across
tribal/non-tribal groups, on the other hand. These findings have resonance in other deeply divided
places, inter alia, Cyprus and Iraq where the failure to simultaneously recognize self-determination claims
and envision robust power-sharing entail stalemated conflicts and instability.
KEYWORDS
autonomy; ethnic conflicts; Indian federalism; power-sharing; Northeast India; Naga; Bodo; tribes and
minority groups
HISTORY Received 2 October 2020; in revised form 22 January 2021
INTRODUCTION
Deeply divided societies around the world, including Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, India, Iraq and
Spain, have adopted various institutional devices and strategies to manage and accommodate
mobilized ethnic groups (Henders, 2010; Lacina, 2014, 2017; Lapidoth, 1997; Stepan et al.,
2011). Analytically labelled as ‘asymmetric autonomy’ they encompass both non-territorial and
territorial devices ranging from personal or corporate federalism, consociationalism, cantoniza-
tion, federacy, multiculturalism and power-sharing to various forms of federalism and territorial
pluralism (McGarry & O’Leary, 2015; Suksi, 2011; Weller & Nobbs, 2010). These institutional
devices are the product of negotiation and bargain between competing groups and polity levels.
The differential nature of conflicts and timing of negotiations, the extent to which these nego-
tiations concede autonomy, and the variegated nature of power and power-sharing which ensued
CONTACT
(Corresponding author) kksuanh@uohyd.ac.in
Department of Political Science, University of Hyderabad, PO Central University, Gachibowli, Hyderabad, India.
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
© 2021 Regional Studies Association

Autonomy and the territorial management of ethnic conflicts in Northeast India 121
from these accounts for the distinctive regional genealogies and outcomes of autonomy arrange-
ments in different parts of the world. The distinctive autonomy enjoyed by Quebec since the
British North America Act 1867, for example, on pension, education and language rights, has
been enlarged and consolidated by protracted negotiation and bargain over time to now include
greater ‘shared-rule’ provision by way of securing fixed representation to the Supreme Court, and
recognition of Quebecois as a ‘distinct society/nation’. While the Basques, Catalans and Gali-
cians in Spain were initially given a broad array of autonomy on similar lines since 1979, there
are parallel symmetrical attempts to neutralize their distinctive autonomy status by extending
similar autonomy to many more communities/provinces. Evidently, a combination of integra-
tionist and accommodationist impulses –, respectively, intended to obliterate differences and
thereby deny recognition/accommodation of territorially mobilized groups, on the one hand,
and to institutionally celebrate diversity, accord recognition and accommodation, on the other
hand – are embedded into autonomy arrangements. The nature and outcomes of autonomy
vary across states as a consequence.
The Indian experience is not an exception to this. Confronted with distinctive ethnolin-
guistic and armed tribal groups1 with demands ranging from outright secession and self-deter-
mination to internal autonomy, the Indian ‘state-nation’2 responded by envisioning a vast
array of autonomy arrangements. These have, in varying ways and consequences, simul-
taneously help recognize, negotiate and accommodate the ‘self-determination’3 claims of
territorially concentrated ethnolinguistic and tribal groups and share sovereignties with
the Indian ‘state-nation’ (Hausing, 2014; Rudolph & Rudolph, 2010; Stepan et al., 2011;
Taylor, 1994).
Previous studies on autonomy and conflict management in Northeast India have focused on a
set of analytical and descriptive single-case studies whereby insights from disparate case studies
are used to either apply or build broader theoretical explanations. Baruah’s (1999, 2003, 2005,
2020) magisterial studies and the works by Chaube (1999), Barbora (2005), Dasgupta (1997),
Lacina (2009), Mahanta (2013), Saikia et al. (2016), Samaddar (2005), Singh (2004), Sonntag
(1999) and Stuligross (1999), inter alia, belong to this category. Unlike this category, the second
category of works use paired-case analytical studies with an overarching theoretical framework to
explain differential outcomes of autonomy. The insightful comparative study of Hassan (2008) –
theoretically informed by Migdal’s (1988) ‘state–society’ relations – on explaining Manipur’s per-
sistent ‘breakdown’ and Mizoram’s durable ‘peace’ – and Bhaumik and Bhattacharya (2005) are
noted exemplars. A recent study by McDuie-Ra and Kikon (2016) on how the political economy
of coal mining impinges on, and is informed by, tribal autonomy in Meghalaya and Nagaland is
another exemplar of the second category. Although they have shed some important light on the
specificities of the cases at hand, they have not directly or sufficiently explained in a comparative
perspective the central research puzzle of this article, that is, when, how and under what circum-
stances asymmetric autonomy arrangements are likely to recognize, negotiate and accommodate
territorially concentrated tribal demands for self-rule and foster peace and stability4 in Northeast
India.
This article addresses this research puzzle and in doing so it contributes to the emerging lit-
erature on ‘autonomy’ which considers autonomy as a territorial device to manage ethnic con-
flicts. Drawing from Ghai (2000, p. 8) and other emerging literature on ‘autonomy’, this
article employs the term ‘autonomy’ in a generic sense to encompass a diverse array of insti-
tutional arrangements ‘to allow ethnic or other groups claiming a distinct identity to exercise
direct control over affairs of special concerns to them’ (Adeney, 2017; Anderson, 2016; Ghai,
2000, p. 8; Hannum, 1990; O’Leary, 2001; Palermo, 2015; Swenden, 2016).
The article is organized as follows. The next section fleshes out the methodology and the
definitions of terms used. The article then examines in elaborate detail the typology of auton-
omy in Northeast India to address the research puzzle. The final section concludes.

122 Kham Khan Suan Hausing
METHODOLOGY AND DEFINITIONS
This article employs the qualitative research method and the materials are drawn from the extant
literature on autonomy and the territorial management of ethnic conflicts, and on qualitative data
and insights gathered from holding more than 90 elite in-depth interviews in the three states of
Assam, Manipur and Nagaland for over two decades (2000–20) under different projects. These
elites comprised of armed rebels, bureaucrats, Civil Society Organization leaders, political and
tribe leaders. They are selected in ways diverse stakeholders of autonomy arrangements in the
three States are fairly represented. Based on these, a typology of autonomy in Northeast India
is drawn by examining three cases comparatively, namely, Bodoland Territorial Council
(BTC) in Assam, Manipur’s hill areas and Nagaland, which have distinctive territorial arrange-
ments under the Sixth Schedule, Article 371C and Article 371A of India’s Constitution, respect-
ively. These cases present three distinctive types of autonomy which, for the present analytical
purposes, may be categorized as decentralized autonomy, devolutionary autonomy and homeland
State autonomy, respectively, (Table 1).5
Table 1. Typology of autonomy in Northeast India.

Homeland State
autonomy Decentralized autonomy Devolutionary autonomy
Nagaland (Article 1952– 1950–85

371A) (1963–) 1. Karbi Anglong ADC (Assam) Tripura Tribal Areas
Mizoram (Article 2. North Cachar Hills (now Dima 1971–89, 2010–
371G) (1987–) Hisao) ADC (Assam) Six District Councils in Hill Areas of Manipurb
3. Khasi-Jaintia Hills ADC (Meghalaya)a 1995–
4. Garo Hills ADC (Meghalay) Six autonomous councils for Assam’s plain tribals
1966– (Deori, Mising, Rabha, Sonowal Kachari, Thengal
5. Jaintia Hills ADC (Meghalaya) Kachari and Tiwa)
1985–
6. Tripura Tribal ADC (Tripura)
1972–
7. 1950-87 Lushai Hills (changed to
Mizo hills in 1955)(disbanded since
1987)
8. Chakma ADC (Mizoram)
9. Lai ADC (Mizoram)
10. Mara ADC (Mizoram)
2003–
11. BTAD/BTC (Assam)
Notes: ADC, Autonomous District Council; BTAD, Bodoland Territorial Administration District, also known simply as the
Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC).
a
Jaintia Hills was carved out in 1966 to form a separate ADC, whereas Khasi Hills ADC continues till today.
b
The six district councils (DCs) in the Hill Areas of Manipur are: Chandel DC, Churachandpur DC, SADAR hill DC, Senapati DC,
Tamenglong DC and Ukhrul DC. One district each was carved out of the five hill districts of Manipur on 8 December 2017,
namely, Chandel, Churachandpur, Senapati, Tamenglong and Ukhrul. Except Senapati, which already has two DCs, the
implications of this recent decision on the creation of new DCs remains to be seen.
Source: Compiled from Government of India (2018, pp. 150–152, 156–157, 178–193).

The term ‘homeland State autonomy’ will be used to imply a form of autonomy that is
accorded to territorially concentrated tribal groups such as the Naga (and Mizo) who constitute
a majority in the State which they claim as their own ‘homeland’. An outcome of longstanding
and sustained popular movements, the recognition of tribal distinctive ethnicity, and not finan-
cial viability of the State engendered by this, drives autonomy. The powers and jurisdiction bilat-
erally negotiated between the Centre and State-level tribal groups as equals is entrenched in the
Constitution. It is specifically tailored to accommodate, not integrate,6 State-level tribal majority
groups’ sovereign claims by recognizing, negotiating and sharing their sovereign powers within
India’s constitution especially on, inter alia, identity preserving powers over land and resources,7
social and customary laws, and religious practices.
Unlike ‘homeland State autonomy’, ‘decentralized autonomy’ entails a more constricted rec-
ognition and accommodation, not integration, of distinctive tribal groups as they lack the plenary
power to legislate on identity preserving powers. Instead, their legislative power is constricted to
the actual use and ownership rights over land and property, social and customary laws, religious
practices, among others. In this sense, decentralized autonomy is intended to provide a limited
institutional architecture to accommodate and share sovereignty with tribal groups who consti-
tute either the majority or the dominant group(s) at the sub-State levels. The powers and juris-
diction of ‘decentralized autonomy’ are negotiated across three levels of a federal polity – federal,
State and sub-State – by means of multilevel contracts or agreements between unequals which are
entrenched in the federal constitution.
‘Devolutionary autonomy’ is a characteristic feature of devolution of powers in unitary (and
federal states) whereby power is devolved by a dominant Union/Centre to a State/provinces or
tribal minority groups who constitute a minority at the State-level but a majority at the sub-
State level. It involves a bilateral mode of power-sharing or power-dividing arrangement between
unequals either mostly through a process of top-down devolution or a bilateral agreement or
treaty (Suksi, 2011; Watts, 2008). Although the devolved powers are incorporated into statutes,
rules and laws of the State, they are not constitutionally entrenched and are intended as an inte-
grationist territorial strategy. Unlike ‘homeland State’ and ‘decentralized’ autonomy models,
devolutionary autonomy entails inconsequential advisory powers over identity preserving powers
especially on land and resources.
The three actually existing autonomy types in Northeast India share similar effects in so far as
they entail different degrees of conflict and instability. The partial recognition and accommo-
dation of Naga self-determination claim, and the inconsequential power-sharing arrangement
within Nagaland from 1963 to 1974 which was subsequently dissolved, do not augur well for
peace as enduring violent conflicts underpin homeland State autonomy. The recognition and
accommodation of politically dominant, yet minority Bodos by excluding non-Bodo majority
groups via the BTC unleash recurrent cycles of peace, instability and violent conflicts. The
weak recognition of tribal groups’ rights and identities, and integrationist impulse in Manipur’s
hills have spawned intermittent violent conflicts and instability (Table 2).
This study use four broad analytical variables to comprehensively draw this typology and
address the central research puzzle. The nature and history of conflicts, and the timing and
mode of negotiation, constitute the two key explanatory variables. These inform the powers
(identity-preserving powers such as land and resources) and power-sharing attributes of the var-
ious territorial arrangements and thus serve as key dependent variables.8
TYPOLOGY OF AUTONOMY IN NORTHEAST INDIA
This section examines and draws, for analytical purposes, three actually existing typologies of
autonomy in Northeast India to address the research puzzle.

124
Table 2. Summative features of the typology of autonomy in Northeast India.

Analytical
variable Homeland State autonomy Decentralized autonomy Devolutionary autonomy
Explanatory Nature and history of Sustained popular support for, and history Brief, but no sustained popular No history of popular and sustained
variables/causes conflict for self- of, self-determination/self-rule movement, movement for self-determination movement for self-determination
determination/self- and enduring conflict over sovereignty/self-
rule determination claims
Timing and mode of Timely negotiation of autonomy which Timely negotiation No negotiation
negotiation predates popular self-determination Multilateral/multilevel negotiation Autonomy devolved through a top-down
movementBilateral negotiation between the between the GoI (federal), State and devolution of powers between unequals
GoI and dominant tribal group as equals sub-State tribal dominant/majority
(the NNC and later the NSCN-IM) group(s) as unequals
Key features Powers Legislative, executive and judicial powers Legislative, executive, financial/ Advisory powers of the Hill Areas
(dependent over 62 subjects entrenched in the developmental and judicial powers on Committee (HAC) under Article 371C on
variables) Constitution 46 subjects listed and entrenched in the matters pertaining to tribal Hill Areas
Sovereign identity preserving powers on Sixth Schedule of India’s Constitution Limited executive, financial and judicial
land and resources; can veto on for BTC powers over 17 subjects under the 1971
parliamentary laws on land and resources, Limited judicial powers Act, increased to 26 in 2008 through top-
social and customary laws, religious Financially dependent on the Centre and down enacted State acts/statutes: four out
customs, etc. under Article 371A State of 17 subjects devolved in 1971 and 16 out
A more expansive financial powers including of the 26 subjects devolved under 2008
the power to constitute the State Finance Amendment Act never transferred
Commission Financially dependent on the Centre and
State
Power-sharing Internal power-sharing (regional committee, Very limited and weak power-sharing Very limited and weak power-sharing
1963–74 for the Tuensang region)
No formal power-sharing since 1974
Autonomy and the territorial management of ethnic conflicts in Northeast India
Effects Peace and stability Enduring violent conflicts, ceasefire Recurrent cycles of peace/stability and Intermittent violent conflict and instability
agreement since 1997 violent conflict since 1980s
Conflict management Accommodation Accommodation Integration
strategy
Note: BTC, Bodoland Territorial Council; GoI, Government of India; NNC, Naga National Council; NSCN-IM, National Socialist Council of Nagalim led by Isak Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah.
125
HISTORY AND NATURE OF CONFLICT

The first key explanatory and analytical variable used in this article to draw a typology of actually
existing autonomy in Northeast India and to explain the research puzzle of when, how and under
what circumstances asymmetric autonomy arrangements are likely to accommodate territorially
concentrated tribal minorities and foster peace and stability is the history and nature of conflict. If
autonomy stems from conflict around a longstanding history of self-determination claims by ter-
ritorially concentrated tribal groups backed up by sustained popular support, the nature and out-
come of autonomy negotiated tends to be more robust and is likely to be more capacious in
accommodating territorially concentrated tribal groups. While a more robust autonomy is a
necessary condition to accommodate them, it may not be sufficient to foster peace and stability
unless it is simultaneously capacious of negotiating their sovereignty/self-determination claims
especially over identity preserving powers such as land and resources, and ensure equal and effec-
tive political participation by envisioning power sharing within and across tribal groups at the
State and sub-State levels (Hausing, 2014; Wolff, 2009, 2011). Conversely, territorially concen-
trated tribal groups who are weaker in their self-determination claims and more amenable to
internal self-rule early on in their conflict with the Indian state are more likely to end up with
a weaker autonomy arrangement which is constrictive in outcome. In other words, the relative
strength of the position/claim on self-determination by tribal groups and the entrenched insti-
tutional provision and practice of power sharing within and across tribal groups influences the
nature of the autonomy arrangement and its capacity to foster peace and stability.
Seen from this analytical framework, ‘homeland State autonomy’ envisioned by Articles 371A
and 371G, respectively, for Nagaland and Mizoram can be located in a higher scale of autonomy,
followed in descending order by the ‘decentralized autonomy’ of the BTC (encompassing the
four districts of Assam: Baksa, Chirang, Kokrajhar and Udalguri) and 10 other autonomous dis-
trict councils (ADCs) under the Sixth Schedule, and the ‘devolutionary autonomy’ of
Manipur hill areas, Tripura tribal areas (1950–85), and the six plain autonomous councils in
Assam (Table 1).
Unlike the other two types of autonomy, ‘homeland State autonomy’ especially under Article
371A in Nagaland, stems from a protracted history of what is called here ‘meta-narrative dissen-
sus’, which is centred around conflicting self-determination claims and sustained by popular sup-
port. Drawing from Horowitz’s (1991, p. 2) idea of ‘meta-conflict’ that underpins conflicts about
the nature of conflicts in models of democracy in Apartheid South Africa, it is contended here
that a two-level ‘meta-narrative dissensus’ undergirds the history and nature of conflicts between
the Indian state and Naga nationalists (Hausing, 2014). At the first level of dissensus is the
enduring conflicts between the Indian state and the Naga independentists on Naga’s self-deter-
mination claim to sovereignty. The second level of dissensus is marked by a sharp conflict and
division among Naga nationalist ranks – ‘independentists’ and ‘accommodationists’ – on the
question of negotiating and sharing their sovereignty with the Indian state.
At the first level, the Indian state argues that as the legitimate inheritor of the British Raj
which already incorporated the Naga hills, the question of Naga’s self-determination right to
sovereignty and secede from India constitutes a legally untenable proposition at best, and can
at worst be seen as an outcome of ‘law and order’ problem. This position is vehemently contested
by independentists led by Angami Zapu Phizo and his Naga National Council (NNC) from the
1950s to the 1970s and subsequently by the National Socialist Council of Nagalim led by Isak
Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah (NSCN-IM) since the 1980s (Longkumer, 2018; Nag, 2002;
Yonuo, 1974). They contend that Naga hills had never being directly integrated into the British
Raj as it was administratively classified as an ‘excluded area’ and that the Indians and Nagas con-
stitute two distinct nations – racially and religiously; hence, they are entitled to separate sovereign
self-determination rights. The Nine-Point Agreement between the Indian state and the NNC in

June 1947 to recognize and accommodate Naga nationalist demands foundered on the conflict-
ing interpretation of Naga’s sovereign right to decide their political future after the lapse of 10
years during which the former exercised ‘guardian power’ over the latter.9
Although India’s founding father Mahatma Gandhi was favourable to the recognition and
accommodation of Naga’s self-determination claim, a position which he took when the NNC lea-
ders met him in his Bhangi colony residence on 19 July1947, post-independent Indian leaders,
including Jawaharlal Nehru, were agreeable to recognize and accommodate their right to internal
self-determination, but not sovereignty. That the view of Nehru and other integrationist Indian
leaders prevailed over Gandhi became apparent when a sub-Committee of the Constituent
Assembly’s Advisory Committee on Fundamental Rights and Minorities headed by Gopinath
Bordoloi, the then Premier of Assam, was appointed in early 1948 mainly as an attempt to
accommodate Naga’s self-determination demand. The two NNC delegates who were co-
opted as a part of the Bordoloi Committee eventually refused to endorse its final report as the
internal autonomy within Assam it envisaged was seen as inadequate to accommodate their
demand for self-determination.
Apparently, Nehru and other Indian national leaders of the time considered that economic
unviability apart conceding sovereignty demand by the Nagas would be ‘outlandish’ and unaccep-
table as it would leverage what Kuladhar Chaliha, in his intervention in the Constituent Assem-
bly Debates, calls the creation of a ‘Tribalstan or communistan’ (GoI, 1949, pp. 118–19). This
would, they felt, expose India geostrategically to the Chinese. Apart from this pragmatic pos-
ition, the reluctance to accommodate Naga’s self-determination claim is also considered to
have stemmed from what the noted political theorist Bhargava (2010) calls a ‘theoretical and con-
ceptual failure’ to recognize any other forms of nationalism in India including that of the Naga
which fall outside the two rubrics of ‘composite culture nationalism’ and ‘ethnic nationalism’.
The reluctance of the NNC to accept the Bordoloi report and its persistence on sovereignty
initially invited a veiled threat from Nehru that he would employ the full force at his command to
‘crush’ the Naga (Yonuo, 1974). This threat became a reality when Phizo’s NNC declared a
‘sovereign socialist Nagaland’ in 1953 as a sequel to the 1951 plebiscite it conducted where alleg-
edly 99.9% of the population in Naga Hills supported Naga independence. The Assam Dis-
turbed Area Act 1955 was invoked to quell the Naga ‘secessionists’ as a consequence. This
Act was subsequently replaced by a more draconian law infamously known as the Armed Forces
(Special Powers) Act 1958 which gives immense power to the Indian army to ‘kill’ with impunity
even on the mere pretext of ‘suspicion’.
A virulent armed campaign launched by the Indian state since 1955 has, far from subduing,
rather strengthened Phizo and other independentist Naga leaders’ resolve to fight for indepen-
dence. Subsequently, the independentists effectively harnessed the popular emotions unleashed
by the 1951 plebiscite towards Naga independence to sustain their popular support. Even as their
uncompromising stand on sovereignty and right to self-determination claim created an impasse
and spawned violent conflict between Naga independentists and the Indian state on the one hand
and Naga independentists and accommodationists on the other hand, accommodationist Naga
rallied under the Naga People’s Convention (NPC) to negotiate and share sovereignty with
the Indian state. This dissensus between the independentists and accommodationists marks
the second level of ‘meta-narrative dissensus’.
It was at this level of dissensus that accommodationists such as Imkongliba Ao, T. Sakrie
(until his assassination in 1957), P. Shilu Ao and S. C. Jamir worked out modalities of negotiat-
ing and sharing Naga’s sovereignty with the Indian state by convening three successive NPCs in
1957 at Ungma, 1958 in Kohima and 1959 in Mokokchung. The Sixteen Point Agreement
signed by the NPC and Government of India (GoI) in July 1960 was the outcome. This Agree-
ment becomes the precursor of Article 371A which forms what Jamir calls ‘the bedrock of Naga
society’ by recognizing and accommodating Naga nationalists demands such as integration of

Naga-inhabited territories, transfer of forest reserve in Sibsagar and Nowgong areas in Assam to
Nagaland, and the formation of Nagaland by endowing, inter alia, exceptional powers pertaining
to land and resources, social and religious practices, customary laws.
Although accommodationists are labelled as ‘stooges’ of the Indian state, leaders such as Jamir10
considered that Article 371A was the best possible outcome given the unprecedented climate of fear,
insecurity and conflict under which it was negotiated. Article 371A may not have succeeded in fully
recognizing and accommodating Naga nationalists’ self-determination demand such as sover-
eignty, yet the fact that it was negotiated under the shadow of a powerful and popular armed inde-
pendentist movement makes the Indian State amenable to granting more expansive autonomy. In
hindsight, the outbreak of the Indo-Chinese war in 1962 also hastened this. But because indepen-
dentists have refused to compromise on internal self-determination and persisted with sovereign
self-determination claims till today which the Indian state is not willing to accommodate, the
autonomy arrangement under Article 371A has not fostered durable peace and stability.
Nagaland’s case remains a distinctive one when compared with Mizoram under Article 371G,
11 ADCs which enjoy ‘decentralized autonomy’ under the Sixth Schedule and the six Auton-
omous Councils in Manipur’s hill areas and six plain districts of Assam which enjoy ‘devolution-
ary autonomy’. Like the Naga hills, the Lushai hills (Mizo hills since 1954) and the erstwhile
tribal areas in Assam including Karbi Anglong, and the Khasi, Jaintia, Garo and North Cachar
hills witnessed limited mobilization for self-rule, a point noted by the Bordoloi Committee in the
1940s. Unlike the Naga delegates, delegates from these areas, however, endorsed the committee’s
report. It is a different matter that the Mizo embarked upon zalenna (freedom) movement fol-
lowing Assam’s disastrous management of the Mautam famine in 1958–59 (Roluahpuia, 2018).
Unlike the Naga and Mizo, the hill and plain tribal groups in Assam, Manipur and Tripura
witnessed intermittent stirring for ‘self-rule’. With a minor exception of a Bodo armed group –
the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB)11 – no tribal group in these States has
embarked on a powerful armed movement to secure sovereignty for themselves. Although the
two major phases of the Bodoland movement were starkly different – the initial phase from
the late 1920s to mid-1980s was largely peaceful but became deadly violent since the latter
part of 1980s – the Bodo mainstream movement was never centred around sovereign self-deter-
mination claims but revolves around the protection and promotion of their ‘backward’ identity
and securing their land and socio-economic, cultural, linguistic and political development.
Even the NDFB finally gave up their sovereignty demand and signed an Accord with the GoI
and Assam on 27 January 2020. It became extremely difficult for the NDFB to sustain such a
demand against mainstream popular support for self-rule within Assam (not sovereignty).12
Indeed, the incipient mobilization of the Bodo in the 1920s under the banner of Dhubri Bodo
Jubak Sanmilani was centred around the demand for the enumeration of ‘Bodo’ as a language dis-
tinct from Assamese in the Census report and the representation of the community in the Assam
Legislative Council, a point underscored in their memorandum to the Simon Commission in
1929. In response to increasing attempts to impose the Assamese language and alienation of tribal
lands in the 1950s and 1960s, the Bodo’s counter-mobilization centred on the protection of their
culture, language, land and identity. The establishment of the Bodo Sahitya Sabha in 1952 and
the Assam Bodo Student’s Union (ABSU) in 1967 stemmed from this. Interestingly, Bodo mobil-
ization in the 1950s and 60s was confined to the elite segments and was never driven by an explicit
and popular statehood demand. Like the past their mobilization for ‘full autonomy within the
Constitution of India’ for the plain tribal areas of Assam in 1969 and subsequent demand for
Union Territory in the 1970s was spearheaded by a loose umbrella organization called the Plains
Tribals’ Council of Assam (PTCA), a forum formed in 1967 (Dasgupta, 1997; Saikia et al., 2016).
It was only since 1987 that the ABSU under the leadership of Upendranath Brahma
embarked upon an explicit statehood demand, a year which also coincided with increased ethnic
outbidding and violence among the Bodo in which they were pitched violently against non-Bodo

tribal and non-tribal groups. The three Bodo Accords signed in 1993, 2000 and 2020 marked a
compromise on their statehood demand. The powerful and popular armed movement launched
under the banner of the Bodo Security Force in 1986 and subsequently by the Bodo Liberation
Tiger (BLT) since 1996 ensured that the GoI made serious attempts to accommodate a more
expansive autonomy for the Bodo in comparison with their plain tribal counterparts in Assam
and their hill tribal counterparts in the States of Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura.
This is demonstrated by the fact that the three Accords signed by the GoI with Assam and
Bodo tribal groups envision an enlarged council with expansive powers to accommodate the
demand and aspirations centred around ‘infrastructural development’ and the fulfilment of ‘econ-
omic, educational and linguistic aspirations [as well as] the preservation of land-rights, socio-cul-
tural and ethnic identity of the Bodos’.
A protracted armed struggle backed up by popular support, and the overarching political con-
sensus to compromise on their statehood demand and settle for internal self-determination/self-
rule within Assam instead explains why the Bodo progressively succeeded in securing greater
autonomy than their tribal counterparts in Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura (1985 onwards)
under a form of ‘decentralized autonomy’ and the hill tribals of Manipur and Tripura (1950–
84) under ‘devolutionary autonomy’. Unlike the Bodo, the tribal groups in these areas never
embarked upon a powerful armed movement nor sustained popular mobilizations for Statehood
or self-rule. But because the three Bodo Accords were signed exclusively with Bodo organizations
and sidelined non-Bodo tribal/non-tribal majority groups in Bodoland means the three Accords
entailed inconsequential power-sharing arrangements with the latter (Bhattacharyya, 2019; Bhat-
tacharyya et al., 2017; Dasgupta, 1997; Mahanta, 2013; Saikia et al., 2016; Wilson, 2016). This
has not only unleashed insecurity and fear among the non-Bodo groups but also instability and
conflicts in Bodoland as non-Bodo groups began to politically assert and mobilize themselves.
TIMING AND MODE OF NEGOTIATION

The second explanatory and analytical variable to examine and draw a typology of autonomy in
Northeast India is the timing and mode of negotiation for autonomy. A timely negotiation of
autonomy which not only simultaneously and successfully negotiates and accommodates claims
to self-determination but also institutes power sharing within and across territorially concentrated
tribal minority groups before they take an irreversible independentist path is likely to foster peace
and stability (Sisk, 1996). Supplementing the above is the mode of negotiation of autonomy
which determines whether autonomy would be constitutionally entrenched or subjected to the
vagaries of the political will of the federal or State-level governments.
While ‘decentralized autonomy’ stems from, and involves, a multilevel negotiation between
federal/Union, State/provincial and sub-State levels as unequal partners in deciding the nature
of division of powers between the federal, State and sub-State levels, ‘devolutionary autonomy’
stems from unequal bilateral, and/or multilateral negotiations between disparate tribal groups
on the hand, and State governments on the other hand. The latter may, but need not always,
involve the federal government in deciding the nature of powers being devolved to the sub-
State level (Watts, 2008).
The negotiation modes which underpin both ‘decentralized autonomy’ and ‘devolutionary
autonomy’ precedes, Bodoland being an exception, popular and powerful mobilization of territo-
rially concentrated minority tribal groups for self-determination. In this sense the Bordoloi
Committee swiftly toured various hill tribal areas of the erstwhile Assam in the summer of
1948 and effectively co-opted two delegates each from the Khasi, Jaintia, Garo, Karbis, Dimasas
and Lushai (now Mizo) tribes. This considerably eased the Committee’s attempt to negotiate
and accommodate the terms of their ‘self-rule’ demands before they could take a separatist/inde-
pendentist turn. Timely negotiation leverages successful co-option, containment and control of
tribal groups.

Despite the fact that the federal government was involved in negotiating and finally devolving
powers to the sub-State autonomy structures in Tripura tribal areas (1950–85) and Manipur
(1971–89), the subsequent devolution of powers under the ‘devolutionary autonomy’ types in
Manipur and in the plain areas of Assam was negotiated between two unequal partners, dominated
as it were by the State governments with inconsequential involvement and participation of dispa-
rate tribal groups in the negotiation and decision-making process (Bhaumik & Bhattacharya,
2005). The antecedent history of division and conflicts within and between the four hill tribal con-
stellations of Naga, Kuki, Zomi and Hmar in Manipur weakened their bargaining and negotiating
power vis-à-vis the State. Not surprisingly, the various amendments passed by Manipur’s Assem-
bly to the Manipur District Councils (Hill Areas) Act 197113 in 2000, 2006 and 2008 effectively
sidestepped tribals’ demand for upgrading their autonomy to those of their tribal counterparts
under the Sixth Schedule (Hausing, 2015; Piang, 2019). Instead of entrenching their autonomy
in the federal constitution, the weak bargaining and negotiating power of the hill tribal groups in
Manipur ensures that the six ‘autonomous’ district councils continue to remain as mere subservient
local bodies which draw their power and legitimacy from the statutes and laws framed by the State
within a framework of a constrictive and top-down devolutionary model of autonomy. The six
plain autonomous councils established in Assam since 1995 for the Deori, Mising, Rabha,
Sonowal, Kachari, Thengal Kachari and Tiwa also bear this imprint.
In the case of Bodoland, the most highly ranked among the ‘decentralized’ types of autonomy
in Northeast India, the successive arrangements were negotiated by the federal and State govern-
ment of Assam with two frontal Bodo groups for the first time in 1993, five years after the BSF
launched a violent armed independentist movement and the ABSU also embarked upon sus-
tained and popular violent agitations. Sidelining the BSF with an avowed commitment to a
sovereign Bodoland, and a credible engagement to accommodate two non-armed, yet violent-
prone organizations with mainstream Bodo’s popular support such as the ABSU and Bodo
People’s Action Committee (BPAC) as unequal partners in the negotiating table by the GoI
and Assam government necessitated a constitutional entrenchment of autonomy provisions
under the Sixth Schedule of India’s Constitution. Again, because the negotiations of the first
Bodo Accord (1993) preceded popular mobilization of non-Bodo tribal and non-tribal groups
in Bodoland the autonomy arrangements finally negotiated leverage the Bodo’s dominant pos-
ition and monopoly of powers (Dasgupta, 1997). This negotiation mode which strengthened
Bodo’s dominance is continued by involving only the BLT in 2003 and the ABSU, United
Bodo Students’ Union and four factions of the NDFB in 2020. The inconsequential sharing
of power provision in the first two Accords and its conspicuous absence in 2020 Accord is
seen to sow seeds of discord and conflicts in Bodoland (Mahanta, 2013; Wilson, 2016).
Unlike the above, ‘homeland state autonomy’ is the outcome of bilateral negotiation between
the Indian state and Naga groups as equals, namely, between the NNC/NPC and the Indian state
during 1947 and 1975, and principally between the NSCN-IM and the Indian state since 199714
as well as between the Indian state and the Mizo National Front. While the first negotiation
between the GoI and the NNC on 26–28 June 1947 under the rubric of Nine-Point Agreement
preceded mobilized Naga self-determination claims and an open declaration of independence by
the NNC, respectively, on 14 August 1947, the second negotiation by the NNC with the Bordoloi
Committee in 1948 and between the NPC and the GoI in 1960 came, respectively, after the
NNC’s declaration of independence in 1947 and 1956. Interestingly, although the first nego-
tiation foundered on conflicting interpretations of the Naga’s right to decide their political ‘future’,
it laid the foundation of accommodating a Naga’s internal self-determination demand by conced-
ing sweeping judicial and legislative powers to the NNC pertaining to customary laws, religious
practices, land and resources, and to bring ‘all Nagas … under one administrative unit as far as
possible’. It was under this template that moderate and accommodationist Naga were weaned
away from the irreversibly violent path and independentist position taken by Phizo’s NNC in

1960 to sign the Sixteen Point Agreement with the GoI. This Agreement is considered by the
independentist NNC and the NSCN-IM till today as a ‘sell out’ of the Naga’s cause by ‘Indian
stooges’.
Proscribing individuals/groups which challenge India’s ‘sovereignty’ and ‘integrity’ via the
Constitution (Sixteenth Amendment) Act 1963 was used as an effective tool to sideline
armed independentist Naga group such as Phizo’s NNC from the negotiating table. The persist-
ent use of a virulent counter-insurgency law such as the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act to
browbeat independentist Naga, a refusal to accept their ‘resistance’ movement as a ‘political’ issue,
and considering it only as a ‘law and order’ problem may set the stage to wean away more accom-
modationist Naga group from the independentist group to accept a more expansive autonomy
arrangement. However, these entrench the ‘meta-narrative dissensus’ within the Naga and
with the Indian state (Hausing, 2014). As Kolas (2011) rightly pointed out, such negotiations
– or ‘ceasefire politics’ as she calls it – have not been very helpful in accommodating and resolving
contentious conflicts and have instead spawn ‘conflicts’ within the Naga society. The Shillong
Accord signed by a faction of the NNC to resolve the contentious Naga issue under the provision
of India’s Constitution in 1975, and the various ceasefire agreements signed by the GoI with var-
ious factions of the NSCN since 1997, have engendered stalemated conflict and intermittent
instability. The involvement of more rebel factions in the negotiation table to foster a compre-
hensive and inclusive solution have inadvertently transformed the nature of negotiation from
the bilateral mode to a more multilevel mode in which various Naga stakeholders participated.
However, such an inclusive multilevel negotiation mode simultaneously empowers hitherto
excluded segments in the peace process in as much as it underscores their participation in the
negotiating table not as equal partners but as unequal partners/stakeholders.
IDENTITY-PRESERVING POWERS
The history and nature of the conflict as well and the timing and mode of negotiation eventually
shape the autonomy arrangement, and with it its ability to foster stability and peace. This section
focuses on the extent to which said arrangement contains identity preserving powers linked to
land and resources. Unlike the ‘homeland state autonomy’ arrangement, the ‘decentralized auton-
omy’ arrangement in Bodoland and 10 other ADCs, and the ‘devolutionary autonomy’ arrange-
ments in the Tripura tribal areas (1950–85) and Manipur’s tribal hill areas (since 1971) have very
restrictive identity preserving powers over land and resources: namely the power to regulate the
actual use and ownership, but not the transfer of land and property. This was underscored by a
five-judge bench judgment of the Supreme Court of India headed by I. D. Dua on 25 August
1971 in the famous Sitimon Sawain case.15 In doing so the apex Court invested the State, not
ADCs, with the plenary power to legislate on ‘transfer’ of land, property.
Unlike the above, homeland State autonomy in Nagaland under Article 371A leverages
sovereign power over ‘land and resources’ as the Nagaland Assembly can make inapplicable
any law made by the Indian parliament on these. Mizoram also has considerable power over
land, but not on resources under Article 371G. Behind this is the centrality and reinforcing
nature of land as a source of Naga identity and sovereignty, which is captured in ‘ura uvie’
(meaning ‘our land is ours’), a vernacular axiom popularized by Phizo. For him (1951), the
idea of Naga as a ‘sovereign’ people is tied to their sovereign ownership over private property,
as he says:
land belongs to the people as private property, and every family possesses land. We uphold every person as
sovereign: men and women alike. Every family is a landlord; but, there is no landlordism in Nagaland …
land being so owned by the people who are in their person sovereign.

In this nationalist imagination and articulation of the Naga ‘self’ as a sovereign people, the ‘idea
of sovereignty itself was’ as Wouters (2017, p. 21) avers, ‘always less about state, courts, and a
Weberian monopoly on violence, but crucially hinged on Nagas’ unconditional ownership over
their land and its resources, cattle and other possessions, and communitarian ethics.’ That this
sovereignty is multilayered and complex is evident in the face of competing and overlapping
sovereign claims over land and resources, a point laid bare even as Nagaland and other tribal
areas are transformed into zones of extractive resources.
It is in these zones that private and community landowners negotiate and bargain with com-
peting actors – the state and armed groups – which exert overlapping sovereign powers and
claims. Kikon (2019) has demonstrated recently how the entry of ‘contractors’ from outside
Nagaland and the concomitant dispossession that accompany these, has made tribal land and
resource use very precarious (McDuie-Ra & Kikon, 2016). In fact, the recent attempt by the
Nagaland Assembly around 2010–12 to regulate natural gas and petroleum by drawing from
the special powers endowed by Article 371A over its ‘land and resources’ had exacerbated this
and exposed new fault lines of conflicts: firstly, between the GoI and Nagaland wherein the con-
stitutionality of this attempt was questioned by the former, and secondly, within and between
Naga tribes which have overlapping territorial claims (Hausing, 2014). What also becomes evi-
dent from this controversy is that the special autonomy enjoyed by Nagaland, and for that matter
any State in India, is not cast in stone especially given the centralizing thrust of the federal polity,
especially under conditions of one-party dominance.
Unlike the Naga, nationalist imagination and articulation of identity around land and
resources as the source of sovereign, self-determination claims have never been central to
Bodo or for that matter to other tribal mobilization in the areas encapsulated by ‘decentralized’
and ‘devolutionary’ autonomy. In fact, the conspicuous absence of identity preserving powers in
Bodoland become apparent in the 1930s and 1940s which underscored the need to secure ‘tribal
belts’ and ‘blocks’ from encroachment from outsiders. However, the insertion of chapter X for the
‘protection of backward classes’ in 1947 through an amendment to the Assam Land and Revenue
Regulation 1886 failed to forestall tribal land alienation. The sense of insecurity fuelled conflict
and instability between the Bodo and other groups (tribal and non-tribal) in Bodoland. A longi-
tudinal overview of Bodo political mobilization against this backdrop demonstrates that while
land provides an important motif of political mobilization, Bodo elites consider that access to
political power and using the lever of autonomy are central to securing socio-economic, edu-
cational, cultural and developmental interest of the Bodo, not vice versa.
Similar fragile identity preserving powers mark endogenous institutional arrangements in
Manipur’s hill areas. One source of friction emerges from the exclusion of the Hill areas from
the purview of land laws applicable to the valley areas via the Manipur Land Revenue and
Land Reforms Act 1960. This has been contested periodically by the majority valley community
dwellers and several attempts have been made to extend this Act to the hill areas, but so far to no
avail. Another source of friction results from the existence of disparate land-owning systems in
the hill tribal areas. Although the Naga-inhabited areas in the Manipur’s hills provide relative
security of land given the existence of more robust community land ownership and rights, the
Kuki-Zomi-Hmar-inhabited areas are marked by a mix of autocratic hereditary land ownership
under tribal Chieftainship and a more democratic ownership of land by the Chiefs who hold it as
custodians on behalf of the community. The ineffectual attempt to abolish Chieftainship in 1967
means that considerable tribal areas continue to come under the spell of autocratic Chiefs, many
of whom transfer de facto ownership to non-tribals in collusion with foxy tribals. This, in turn,
underscores the need to have robust autonomy and community control land.16 Over and above
this, investing mere advisory powers to the Hill Areas Committee (HAC) – constituted under
Article 371C, which is intended to secure hill tribal interest, on matters pertaining to the chiefs,
actual use and ownership of land and property and the Manipur District Councils Act 1971 –

implies that identity preserving powers of ‘devolutionary autonomy’ in Manipur’s hill areas con-
tinue to be weak.
POWER AND POWER-SHARING
The history and nature of the conflict, as well as the timing and mode of negotiation, apart from
influencing the identity-preserving quality of an autonomy arrangement also shape its power and
power-sharing attributes. Due to the sheer number of powers – legislative, executive and judiciary
– of the Nagaland and Mizoram Assembly, ‘homeland State autonomy’ is a more powerful ter-
ritorial arrangement than the other two types of autonomy. A quick perusal of the number and
content of powers devolved to the three types of autonomy bears this out. Nagaland and
Mizoram enjoy not only the special plenary legislative powers on transfer of land not devolved
to their counterparts, but also asymmetrical powers, respectively, under Article 371A and
371G on, inter alia, land (and resources), social and customary laws, and religious practices.
They also enjoy a further 62 broad powers listed in the ‘State subjects’ in line with other 26
other Indian States under the Seventh Schedule of India’s Constitution (GoI, 2018, pp. 198–
200). These include, among others, public order, police, public health and sanitation, markets,
land revenue, agriculture and agricultural tax.
Unlike the above, various ADCs under ‘decentralized autonomy’ and ‘devolutionary auton-
omy’ are envisioned as limited institutional architecture for protecting tribal identity, land,
social and religious practices, customary laws, and to cater to their developmental needs. Unlike
their ‘homeland State autonomy’ counterparts, they lack plenary legislative power on the trans-
fer of land, a key identity-preserving power. They are far less powerful both in terms of number
and content. While the aggregate number of subjects/powers devolved to the 11 ADCs under
‘decentralized autonomy’ is 28, ranging from 18 in Khasi, Jaintia and Garo hills to 48 in Tri-
pura Tribal Areas, the same add up to 30 across the ‘devolutionary autonomy’ arrangements,
ranging from 26 in the Manipur’s hill areas to 34 in Assam’s six plain areas (Table 3). Yet,
in terms of the content of powers devolved, the BTC ranks highest among the decentralized
and devolutionary autonomy types given that no other ADCs, except the BTC have the
power over municipal corporation, college education and public works department. The six dis-
trict councils in Manipur’s hill areas have largely inconsequential administrative powers as they
merely have the power to recommend on key matters such as appointments or the succession of
chiefs, inheritance of property, marriage and divorce and social customs. The State government
had never devolved four out of 17 subjects envisioned for them according to the 1971 Act,
namely; (1) management of forests not being a reserved forest; (2) public health and sanitation;
(3) initiation, inspection and control of relief works; and (4) allotment, occupation, or the use
or the setting apart of land, other than acquired for any public purpose of land which is a
reserved forest (Government of Manipur, 1976, p. 39; cf. Suan, 2009, p. 205).17 Although a
2008 amendment to the 1971 Act increased the number of subjects to 26, 16 of these are
yet to be devolved, making district councils in Manipur weak. These led a critic to consider
that the intent of local autonomy is ‘questionable’ and ‘pitiably touching’ (Kshetri, 2006,
p. 42).18 The six autonomous councils in Assam are also conspicuous by their lack of iden-
tity-preserving powers as their mandate was mainly to secure development and socio-economic,
cultural and educational interests of tribal groups. In short, the stark internal variation of
powers within and across each autonomy type implies that the rank order of their autonomy
may change, as Table 3 demonstrates.
A glaring similarity across autonomy types in Northeast India is their weak and inconsequen-
tial power-sharing arrangements which not only open up space for inter-tribe/ethnic outbidding
but also exacerbate conflict and instability. At the national level Nagaland and Bodoland are rep-
resented barely by one member each in the Lok Sabha (federal lower house) and Rajya Sabha

134
Table 3. Comparative overview of powers and power-sharing across types of autonomy in Northeast India.
Type of Sl. Year Elected Nominated Total Subjects
autonomy no. ADC established State/headquarters members members members devolved
Decentralized 1 Karbi Anglong ADC 1952 Assam/ 26 4 30 30d

autonomy 2 North Cachar Hills 1952 Assam/ 26 4 30 30d
ADC
3 Khasi Hills ADC 1952 Meghalaya/Shillong 29 1 30 18
4 Garo Hills ADC 1952 Meghalaya/Tura 29b 1 30b 18
c
5 Jaintia Hills 1966 Meghalaya/Jowai 29 1 30 18
6 Lai ADCf 1972 Mizoram/Lawngtlai 12 2 14 18 + 20e
7 Mara ADCf 1972 Mizoram/Saiha 9 1 10 18 + 20e
f
8 Chakma 1972 Mizoram/Chawngte 8 1 9 18 + 20e
10 Tripura Tribal Area 1985g Tripura/Khumulwung 28 2 30 48
ADC (TTAADC)
11 Bodoland Territorial 2003 Assam/Kokrajhar 40a 6 46a 40
ADC
Devolutionary 1–6 Manipur District 1971 Chandel, Churachandpur, 24 2 26 26
autonomy Councils (six) Kangpokpi, Ukhrul, Senapati,
Tamenglong,
7–12 Assam 1995 Marigoan, Goalpara, Lakhimpur, 18–36i 2–4i 18–36i 34
Autonomous Dhemaji, Titabor, and Dibrugarh
Councils (Six)
Autonomy and the territorial management of ethnic conflicts in Northeast India
Homeland State 1 Mizoram 1986 Aizawl 40 Nil 40 62h
autonomy 2 Nagaland 1962 Kohima 60 Nil 60 62h
Notes: Includes 30 seats reserved for STs, five for non-tribal communities and another five to be opened to all communities.
a
b
Since 1977.
c
Functional since 1 February 1967.
d
Including additional subjects devolved by the Assam State Government in 1995 following a memorandum of understanding signed between the Union Government, the State of Assam and
the Autonomous State Demand Committee.
e
Additional subjects entrusted by the Mizoram government.
f
Earlier known, respectively, as the Pawi (now Lai), Lakher (now Mara) and Chakma regional councils; they were upgraded to fully fledged ADC on 2 April 1972.
g
The TTAADC was established in 1979 under the Fifth Schedule. It has been under the Sixth Schedule since 1985.
h
Four out of the 66 powers have been transferred over time to the concurrent list under the Seventh Schedule of India’s Constitution.
i
Tiwa AC: 40 (36 elected, four nominated; 20 of 30 elected seats reserved for Tiwa, six reserved for women); Deori AC: 20 (18 elected, two nominated; 14 of 18 elected seats reserved for tribals,
three reserved for women); Mising AC: 40 (36 elected, four nominated; 25 of 36 elected seats reserved for STs, six reserved for women); Rabha Hasong AC: 30 (26 elected, four nominated; 15
of 30 reserved for Rabha tribes, three reserved for women); Sonowal Kachari: 30 (26 elected, four nominated; 20 of 26 elected reserved for STs, five reserved for women); and Thengal Kachari:
26 (22 elected, four nominated; 18 of 22 elected reserved for STs, three seats reserved for women and 1 for general community).
135
(second chamber), whereas Manipur’s tribal hill areas are represented by just one member in the
Lok Sabha only. They hardly matter in the 545 member-Lok Sabha and 250 member-Rajya
Sabha as a consequence.
At the State level, all the 60 seats in Nagaland Assembly are reserved for the 16 Naga tribes.
The six backward districts of Kiphire, Longleng, Mon, Phek, Noklak and Tuensang send 24
(40%) of the 60-member Nagaland Assembly. A separate Department of Under Developed
Area (DUDA) to cater to their special developmental needs was created in 2003. Bodoland
accounts for 12 (9.5%) of the 126 Assam Assembly’s members and Manipur’s hill areas account
for 20 (33.3%) of the 60 Assembly members. Given that these members are drawn from different
parties and tribes/sub-tribes, their internal dissensions along these lines means that they have not
been able to put up cohesive fronts and do not wield any decisive influence in decision-making
powers at the State-level.
This explains why and how such a precarious power-sharing arrangement is conveniently
used by majoritarian governments to by-pass the Hill Areas Committee (HAC). A constitutional
body constituted under Article 371C, the HAC comprises of 20 members of Manipur’s Assem-
bly from the tribal hill areas. The recent controversy over three bills passed in 2015 demonstrates
this very well, namely, The Manipur’s People Protection Bill, Manipur Land Revenue and Land
Reforms (Seventh Amendment) Bill, and the Manipur Shops and Establishment (Second
Amendment) Bill. On the pretext that these are ‘money bills’ that have no bearing on tribal iden-
tity and interests, they were hurriedly passed in the Assembly without routing it to the HAC as
constitutionally mandated under Article 371C.
At the sub-State level, Nagaland under Article 371A had envisioned a form of power-sharing
within and between Naga tribes by the creation of a 35-member regional council (RC) from 1963
to 1974 for the then-Tuensang district, which is the home of four of the nine backward Naga
tribes including Chang, Sangtam, Khiamniungan and Yimchunger. Voters from this district
initially elected six members to the Nagaland Assembly, which was raised to 12 in 1969. A min-
ister in charge of Tuensang district was appointed with cabinet rank. The Tuensang RC was an
internal asymmetrical arrangement to share power not only with sub-State regional elites but also
to ensure equitable allocation of money between the Tuensang district and the rest of Nagaland
and to filter legislation passed by the Nagaland Assembly by recommending it to make them
either applicable or inapplicable to the district.19 Similar formal power-sharing mechanisms
were institutionally envisaged for ADCs under the ‘decentralized autonomy’ type in the form
of RCs for territorially concentrated minority tribes.
While the dissolution of Nagaland’s RC system in 1974 marks the end of formal power-shar-
ing, RCs briefly worked for the Chakma, Lai and Mara in Mizoram between 1953 and 1971
before they were upgraded to ADCs. Thanks to the conspicuous absence of robust institutional
power-sharing, the five backward eastern Nagaland tribes had demanded a separate State called
‘Frontier Nagaland’ since 2010 to overcome their perceived political ‘marginalization’ and ‘dis-
crimination’ in the hands of the progressive tribes (Hausing, 2014; Wouters, 2018). In Mizoram,
the Chakma had particularly borne out the brunt of Mizo integrationist impulse in the hands of
MNF government, which introduced over a dozen bills to disband Chakma ADC on the con-
tention that they are ‘alien’ to Mizoram. The decentralized autonomy type encapsulated in the
BTC also envisions a very weak power-sharing system. Except the 2003 Bodo Accord, which
vaguely states that ‘adequate representation would be given to non-tribal groups’ in the 12-mem-
ber executive council, the 1993 and 2020 Accords were conspicuously silent on this crucial mat-
ter. With only five of the 40 elected seats in the territorial council reserved for non-Bodo, and just
six nominated members drawn from ‘unpresented’ tribe/communities, the 2003 Act does not very
much envision the Bodo Territorial Council as a power-sharing arrangement. Allowing Bodo
who constitute just over one-third of the Bodoland population to monopolize over 87% of all
seats surely is a recipe of ethnic conflict (Bhattacharyya et al., 2017). Interestingly, the six

autonomous councils in Assam’s plain areas provide a comparatively stronger power-sharing

arrangement by reserving between four and 15 seats to other communities (Table 3).
CONCLUSION
This article draws a typology of autonomy in Northeast India with the help of two key explana-
tory variables, namely, nature and history of conflicts, and timing and mode of negotiation.
While the variegated nature and history of conflicts, timing and mode of negotiation accounts
for variations across autonomy models, two dependent explanatory variables of identity preser-
ving powers (land and resources), and powers and power-sharing are employed to sharpen the
analytical distinctions. These variables are used to simultaneously draw a typology of autonomy
and to explain the central research puzzle of this article: when, how and under what circum-
stances autonomy arrangements are likely to recognize and accommodate territorially concen-
trated tribal groups and foster peace and stability. It is argued that autonomy arrangements
which stem from timely recognition and accommodation of prolonged and popularly sustained
self-determination claims of territorially concentrated tribal groups such as the homeland State
autonomy envisioned for the Naga and Mizo provide necessary but insufficient conditions to fos-
ter peace and stability. These, however, would need to be supplemented by envisioning robust
powers and power-sharing arrangements, respectively, within and across tribes and federal polity
if autonomy arrangements were to foster durable peace and stability in Northeast India and
beyond.
As the empirical data marshalled in this article demonstrate, despite timely and bilateral nego-
tiation with the Naga as equals, the failure of the Indian state to fully recognize and accommodate
their self-determination claims and the inconsequential provision of power-sharing arrange-
ments within Naga tribes and weak ‘shared-rule’20 perpetuate the meta-narrative dissensus
between the Naga and the Indian state, on the one hand, and within the Nagas, on the other
hand. The recent attempt by India’s dominant Centre to challenge Naga’s sovereign claims
over ‘land and resources’ by contending that ‘mines and mineral development’ including ‘natural
gas and petroleum’ constitute the ‘occupied field’ of the Union government has send tremors to
Nagaland’s special federal status and has opened up new faultlines of conflict not only between
Centre and Nagaland but also within and across Naga tribes which have overlapping claims over
land where natural gas and petroleum free float (Hausing, 2014). Given that diverse Naga tribes
have different customary laws governing their land and given the conflicting interests of individ-
uals and tribe communities over land ownership, conflict over land and resources is likely to be
complex and salient in the future. Clearly, this is an important research area beyond the remit of
this article which future research may like to take up.
This conflict also underscores how unlike other divided places such as Canada, Nigeria, Spain
and Sudan marked by resource conflicts, in Nagaland and other parts of Northeast India ‘land’ is
not merely seen as a container of resources but principally as a symbolic source of their identity
and sovereignty. Phizo’s articulation of a sovereign Naga ‘self’ alluded to earlier in the article, and
for that matter the Bodo and other tribal identities in Northeast India, stems principally from –
to wit Wouters (2017, p. 21) – ‘unconditional ownership over their land and its resources’.
Unlike the Nagas, land as a source of identity and self-determination claims had never been
central to the territorial mobilizations of the Bodo and Manipur’s hill tribal people although they
intermittently resort to these as rhetorical claims. The weak recognition and accommodation of
their identity and land stems from this. This is not to discount the powerful symbolic and
emotional appeal that land as a source of their identity could unleash in Bodoland and Manipur’s
hill areas. Indeed, the ‘decentralized’ and ‘devolutionary’ autonomy they, respectively, enjoy are
the outcomes of unequal bilateral and/or multilateral negotiation wherein a dominant Centre/
State decentralize/devolve powers top-down. The fact that they do not have plenary powers to

legislate on transfer of ownership of land entail fragile identity preserving powers. The limited
powers and weak power-sharing arrangements that their autonomy models envision for other tri-
bal and non-tribal groups on the one hand, and with the State and federal levels on the other
hand, reinforce their powerlessness and open up new faultiness of conflicts. The intermittent
integrationist impulse of the State, especially in Manipur, to erode extant legal protection of tri-
bal land and persistent de facto encroachments on their land by land-hungry ‘outsiders’ in collu-
sion with foxy tribal elites accentuate their insecurity and fear, which is not amenable to peace
and stability in these places.
Two consequences flow from the above: firstly, the fragile nature of autonomy unleashed by
the precarious relationship across India’s multilevel federal polity: between the Centre and the
States, and between the State(s) and sub-State(s). Given that Nagaland and Bodoland are barely
represented by one member each in both house of India’s parliament, they can be easily outvoted
under its single-member plurality system. While Nagaland may redeem its unequal relationship
with the Centre by reserving 59 out of its 60-member Assembly to the Naga tribes, the condition
of Bodoland and Manipur’s hill areas remain precarious as they can be outvoted at the Centre and
State levels given their inconsequential representation at the Centre and given that they, respect-
ively, account for 12 (9.5%) out of the 126, and 20 (33.3%) out of the 60-member State Assem-
blies. The division of tribal loyalties across different political parties accentuate their political
marginalization. Seen differently, this precarity is likely to strengthen the resolve of the State,
sub-State and tribal communities to zealously guard against encroachments on their autonomy
especially pertaining to their land and resources. Secondly, the uneasy and uneven relationship
between individuals and tribal communities over land ownership would require steely resolve
to reconcile tradition with modern laws under an inclusive democratic setting which caters to jus-
tice and fairness.
The dominant position of the Indian state on the one hand and a faction of Naga inde-
pendentist group in the negotiating table on the other hand has also inadvertently opened new
avenues of conflict where dominance is bitterly challenged and contested. Involving more par-
ties in the negotiating table may be useful for a comprehensive dialogue but it has inadver-
tently transformed the bilateral mode of negotiation to a multilevel negotiation mode
wherein hitherto equal partners of negotiation are now increasingly engaged in asymmetrical
power negotiation as unequals. This is likely to have important consequences on autonomy
outcomes in Nagaland, and this may not augur very well for durable peace and stability unless
it is conducted within a deeper accommodating spirit, something which, as the editors of this
special issues have argued, stands at odds with the Hindu nationalist ideology of the current
government.
If autonomy arrangements in deeply divided places such as Nagaland, Bodoland, Manipur
and beyond were to engender durable peace and stability they should not only simultaneously
recognize, negotiate and accommodate self-determination claims but also envision robust powers
and power-sharing mechanisms within and across groups on the one hand, and between different
levels of the polity on the other hand. The cases, especially the Naga case, presented in this article
resonates very well in other deeply divided states such as Cyprus and Iraq where popularly sus-
tained self-determination movement predates decentralization or devolution of powers. As
Cederman et al. (2015), drawing from larger data set around the world, pertinently underscore,
mere envisioning of autonomy for groups may be ‘too little, and too late’ without robust power-
sharing mechanism which simultaneously addresses their self-determination claims. McGarry
(2015) also underlines this point in the binational context of Cyprus where the Greek and Turk-
ish-speaking Cypriot nationalists are locked up in competing self-determination claims. The
conspicuous failure to share-power and give institutional accommodation to Sunni majority
groups in the 2005 Iraqi Constitution may have leveraged the minority-Shia community to exer-
cise preponderant power in Iraq. Yet, it has put them in perpetual gridlocks with both the Sunni

and Kurd nationalist groups, which makes the ‘adoptability’ and ‘functionality’ of the 2005 con-
stitution deeply problematic (McEvoy & Aboultaif, 2020).
Minority groups which are politically dominant, such as the Bodo in Bodoland may need to
learn from their proximate plain tribal counterparts such as the Rabha Hasong. Mindful of the
inter-mixing nature of the population of their areas, they have been more amenable to pro-
portional power sharing with other communities. In the end, autonomy as an institutional device
of territorial conflict management needs to creatively reinvent non-dominant models of accom-
modating self-determination claims and power-sharing in ways which promote durable peace
and stability in Northeast India and beyond (Young, 2005). This can be done, as Bachvarova
and Moore (2015, p. 27) remind us in a different context, by ensuring just structural relations
in which no agent/group is subjected to ‘arbitrary interference’ such that each retains its capacity
to exercise a right of self-determination right in their internal affairs.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This article is an outcome of my longstanding research on autonomy and the politics of accom-
modation in Northeast India. I gratefully acknowledge the intellectual mentorship of Balveer
Arora and Brendan O’Leary. I am also indebted to the following: the anonymous referees for
their very helpful comments and suggestions; Wilfried Swenden for his kind invitation to this
special issue and for involving me in the Leverhulme International Network project on ‘Conti-
nuity and Change in Indian Federalism’ (2013–14–2016–17); S. Thanglien Gangte and Tual
Khan Lal (my elder brother) in Manipur, Tarun Gogoi in Assam, and Lanusangla Tzudir and
Moamenla Amer in Nagaland for facilitating local contacts. I also thank all the respondents,
the librarians and staffs of State Assembly Libraries of Assam, Manipur and Nagaland for
their help.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
FUNDING
I gratefully acknowledge the generous funding provided by various agencies which made this
article possible, namely: the Indian Council of Social Science Research for its Impactful Policy
Research in Social Science project on ‘Asymmetric Autonomy and the Politics of Accommo-
dation in Northeast India’ [grant number IMPRESS/P1702/108/2018-19/ICSSR], The Lever-
hulme Trust for its International Network Project on ‘Continuity and Change in Indian
Federalism’ coordinated by Wilfried Swenden [grant number IN-2013-043], and the University
Grants Commission, New Delhi, for its Centre of Advanced Study’s individual project and for
the Junior Research Fellowship (2002–04).
NOTES
1. The South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), the most authoritative sources on armed conflicts in South Asia,
currently documents 145 armed groups in the eight Northeastern States of India, namely, Arunachal Pradesh,
Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura (www.satp.org) (accessed on 31 July
2020).
2. Following Stepan et al. (2011), ‘state-nation(s)’ is used in the same sense to refer to polities marked by insti-
tutional celebration of collective rights and identities alongside individual rights in contradiction to ‘nation-states’
which are driven by attempts to establish homogenous nations.

3. Taking a cue from the unsettled debate on ‘self-determination’, the term will be used broadly to refer to a vast
array of self-rule claims-making ranging from outright secession, independence, cantonization, federacy and
internal autonomy, which are now considered to be encapsulated by the term ‘territorial pluralism’. On this,
see McGarry and O’Leary (2009, 2015).
4. ‘Peace’ will be used not as a static state, but in the aspirational sense of ‘the absence of violence’ as a ‘complex
and difficult … social goal’ – to wit Galtung (1969, p. 167). ‘Stability’ is an outcome of a state of relative harmony
where in Huntington’s (1968, pp. 4–5) sense there is some semblance of equality of the level of political mobil-
ization and participation and political institutionalization. In this sense autonomy arrangements as forms of pol-
itical institutionalization have a causal relationship with peace and stability to the extent that they accommodate
territorially mobilized groups and ensure equality of opportunity for participation across and within individuals/
groups.
5. ‘State’ is used with an upper case ‘S’ to refer to subnational or provincial units of state; ‘state’ with a lower case
‘s’ is used to refer to sovereign/independent states.
6. Accommodation as a territorial strategy of managing ethnic conflicts institutionally recognize and celebrate
ethnic diversity or differences as values. On the other hand, integrationist attempt to assimilate and homogenize
ethnic diversity or differences. On this distinction see McGarry and O’Leary (2015).
7. Unlike the Naga under Article 371A, the Mizo merely have sovereign power on land but not on resources
under Article 371A.
8. Many thanks to Wilfried Swenden for drawing my attention to this distinction.
9. See clause nine of the Agreement.
10. Personal interview with S. C. Jamir at his residence, Chumukedima, Nagaland, 13 January 2020.
11. NDFB was originally started in 1986 as Bodo Security Force. Principally led and supported by Christian
Bodos, it subsequently changed to NDFB in 1994.
12. Interviews with Tarun Gogoi, Prafulla Mahanta – both former Chief Ministers of Assam, and Atul Bora,
Cabinet Minister, Government of Assam, respectively, in Guwahati, 11–18 May 2019, which confirmed this fact.
13. The 1971 Act was passed by Parliament as Manipur was a Union Territory.
14. The GoI, however, extended the negotiation to include NSCN-K (Khaplang) since 2001, and various fac-
tions of the NSCN since 2010. The seven various factions of NSCN have recently come under the rubric of Naga
National Political Groups (NNPG).
15. District Council of United Khasi & Jaintia Hills & Ors. Etc Vs. Miss Sitimon Sawian etc., 1972 AIR 787 1972
SCR (1) 398; cf. Suan (2009, p. 246).
16. Thanks to one of the referees for drawing my attention to this.
17. The number of subjects allocated to district councils in Manipur have since increased from 17 to 26.
18. This was also the common refrain of over 12 previous members of Manipur South District Councils whom I
interviewed over the years.
19. See Article 371A(1)(d)&(2)(a–c).
20. Nagaland is represented barely by one member each in both houses of Parliament. Needless to say, their par-
ticipation and say in decision-making process at the federal level is inconsequential.
ORCID
Kham Khan Suan Hausing http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3673-6995
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Autonomy and the territorial management of ethnic

HISTORY Received 2 October 2020; in revised form 22 January 2021

© 2021 Regional Studies Association

TERRITORY, POLITICS, GOVERNANCE

METHODOLOGY AND DEFINITIONS

Table 1. Typology of autonomy in Northeast India.

Nagaland (Article 1952– 1950–85

TERRITORY, POLITICS, GOVERNANCE

TYPOLOGY OF AUTONOMY IN NORTHEAST INDIA

TERRITORY, POLITICS, GOVERNANCE

Kham Khan Suan Hausing

HISTORY AND NATURE OF CONFLICT

TERRITORY, POLITICS, GOVERNANCE

TERRITORY, POLITICS, GOVERNANCE

TERRITORY, POLITICS, GOVERNANCE

TIMING AND MODE OF NEGOTIATION

TERRITORY, POLITICS, GOVERNANCE

TERRITORY, POLITICS, GOVERNANCE

TERRITORY, POLITICS, GOVERNANCE

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POWER AND POWER-SHARING

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Decentralized 1 Karbi Anglong ADC 1952 Assam/ 26 4 30 30d

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autonomous councils in Assam’s plain areas provide a comparatively stronger power-sharing

TERRITORY, POLITICS, GOVERNANCE

TERRITORY, POLITICS, GOVERNANCE

No potential conﬂict of interest was reported by the author.

TERRITORY, POLITICS, GOVERNANCE

Kham Khan Suan Hausing http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3673-6995

TERRITORY, POLITICS, GOVERNANCE

TERRITORY, POLITICS, GOVERNANCE

TERRITORY, POLITICS, GOVERNANCE

TERRITORY, POLITICS, GOVERNANCE

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