STATEHOOD IN THE NORTHEAST AND MANIPUR'S PATH

Could Manipur’s statehood history have taken a different trajectory? Would its protest culture be any different had it been given full statehood with honour in 1949 itself?

- PRADIP PHANJOUBAM

ON January 21, three Northeast states celebrated their statehood day. On this day in 1972, Meghalaya, Tripura and Manipur were incorporated as full-fledged states of the Indian Union. Two other states, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram, were also made Union Territories on that day, and they too ultimately came to be upgraded to full statehood 15 years later on 20 February 1987 after the Mizo Accord of 1986. Each had a unique path to statehood, some eventful, others routine.

Of these states, Tripura and Manipur were former Princely States, while Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram were part of undivided Assam. Though once part of a single British province, the colonial administration did treat these non-revenue hills differently from the revenue plains of Assam. Hence, by the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation 1873, an Inner Line was drawn to demarcate the “wild” hills from the “revenue” plains. The nomenclature Bengal is used in reference to Assam because after formal annexation in 1826, the latter was merged with the former. Only in 1874 was Assam made a separate chief commissioner’s province.

The territories beyond the Inner Line were generally treated as “unadministered”, though claimed as British possessions. By the Government of India Act, 1919, this nomenclature changed to “Backward Tracts” and by the Government of India Act, 1935, they came to be divided into “Excluded” and “Partially Excluded” areas. While the rest of the hills remained as “Excluded”, the territories that form today’s Meghalaya came to be classified as “Partially Excluded”.