It may be useful to look at the North-east from the perspective of how democracy is functioning there. The seven states together have 22 autonomous councils, which are run by elected local councillors. They are responsible for implementing schemes, which, in the normal course, is handled by the state itself or Panchayati raj institutions. Some of those have also raised the demand for a separate homeland. This unique feature merits a review from a geo-strategic perspective.

The region has been a veritable laboratory for political experiments ever since the Ahom kingdom came under the control of the British East India Company in 1826 following the signing of the Treaty of Yandaboo after the defeat of the Burmese King in the first Anglo Burmese war. A number of laws, like the Scheduled Districts Act, 1873, Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation Act, 1873, and much later instruments like the “Excluded” and “Partially Excluded” areas under the Government of India Act 1935, were created to ensure separate administrative arrangements for hill areas.

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If one looks at the abortive “Coupland Plan” (1947) of the British to create a “crown colony” comprising the hill areas of the region to be carved out of British India, there is reason to hold that the British had kept the option of separating at least some hill areas ever since the creation of Assam — much like the way Burma was made a part of India and then separated in 1937.The Inner Line Permit system under the Bengal Regulation, 1873, was designed to provide strategic space for such a move in the future.

In 1948, “tribal belts and blocks” were created in Assam in the areas inhabited by scheduled tribes (plains) under the Assam Land Revenue Regulation, 1886.The Sixth Schedule for the hill areas of Assam, had an uneasy start because the Assam governor’s notifications under Section 1(g) of the Schedule, defining the jurisdiction of the autonomous district councils in the Naga Hills district of Assam in Part A of the schedule and the areas under Part B — which constituted Arunachal Pradesh of today including the Naga tribal area — were never issued and therefore the Sixth Schedule was not extended to these areas. After the creation of Nagaland in 1963 and grant of statehood to Arunachal Pradesh, these tribal areas were deleted from the Sixth Schedule.

It is clear from the Bordoloi committee’s report that resulted in the Sixth Schedule and debates in the Constituent Assembly, that it was never the intention of the founding fathers of the Constitution to extend the Sixth Schedule to any other part of the country, and even in the plains tribes-inhabited areas of Assam. The schedule did not apply in Tripura and Manipur. This led to a view that possibly a major object of the Schedule was to preserve the integrity of Assam.

However, a departure from this rigid position was made when the Sixth Schedule was extended to Tripura tribal areas district following the Tripura Accord (12 August 1988) and the Constitution (Amendment) Act, 1988. This created a precedent and again, following the Bodo Accord of 10 February 2003, the provisions of the Sixth Schedule were extended to the Bodoland Territorial Council areas following the Constitution (Amendment) Act 2003.

It may be noted that the Bodos are plains and not hill tribes of Assam and the areas inhabited by them were put either in the Excluded or the Partially Excluded Areas under the Government of India Act, 1935. However, “tribal belts and blocks” of land were notified under chapter 10 of the Assam Land Revenue Regulation (1886) in 1948 to protect tribal lands from alienation. The Sixth Schedule has not been extended to any other part of the North-east after the 2003 Bodo Accord, which floundered.

This backdrop needs appreciation as it shaped the aspirations of the ethnic groups and political objects, as the Sixth Schedule is considered the benchmark and a kind of minimum object, which could be improved upon later. This approach resulted in the grant of sub-statehood to Meghalaya in 1969 within Assam, which, however, turned out to be temporary and not really a workable arrangement. Ironically, the continuation of the autonomous district councils in Meghalaya and Mizoram, even after attaining statehood, kept the concept alive in identity politics possibly because the word “autonomy” occurs in the Constitution only in respect of the institutions under the Sixth

Schedule.

Its subsequent extension to Tripura and Bodoland shows that the Centre still considers it as an option or a model for replication, contrary to the intention of the makers of the Constitution. Assam and Manipur took the Sixth Schedule as a framework and with some changes succeeded in putting in place “autonomous councils” to satisfy the identity assertion of certain ethnic groups.

Thus, six autonomous Tribal councils have emerged in Assam — they are for Tiwa tribals (Morigaon), Rabhas, (Goalpara), Deoris (Lakhimpur), Mishings (Dhemaji), Thenga Kacharis (Titabar) and Sonwal Kacharis (Dibrugarh). Finance for their development activities is provided by the state. The Centre at times chips in for implementation of schemes. However, the councils do not have any power to make laws, so these are a kind of tribal area-specific local self-governing institutions.

The six autonomous district councils in the hill areas of Manipur were constituted under altogether different circumstances. In 1971, during the process of grant of statehood and when Manipur was still a Union Territory, the government of India passed the Manipur Hill Areas District Councils Act, 1971, to safeguard interests of the hill tribes of Manipur by creating six autonomous district councils, which also meant creation of six districts.

This is a mix of the Fifth and Sixth Schedules though the councils do not enjoy the powers to make laws but are empowered to deal with subjects specified under the Act. Later, the Manipur Hill areas District Councils Rules were passed by the Manipur assembly under the Act by which the district councils are to be governed; and for this purpose Article 371 (c) of the Constitution was amended (27th constitutional amendment), which provided constitution of a committee of MLAs elected from the hill areas to ensure proper functioning of the councils.

However, this reform was a non- starter due to a trust deficit between the tribals and the Imphal valley-based Meitei leadership and the hill tribes’ demand for extension of the Sixth Schedule made the issue complicated and stalled elections for 21years. Though elections were held in 2010 and the councils formed, the misunderstanding continued and the councils complain that no real powers or funds have been devolved and that they are more like bodies subordinate to the district administration like the district rural development agency.

Moreover, 26 subjects, under the 2008 amendment to the aforementioned Act, which were to be transferred to the district councils, have not been done so far nor budget provisions enhanced. The 1971 Act also ensures that the panchayati raj institutions under the 73rd amendment to the Constitution cannot be extended to Manipur. Thus the local self-government institutions could not be established in the hills. This has widened the plains- hills divide in Manipur; because the hills region comprise 90 percent of the geographical area and the extension of the Sixth Schedule means a step towards separate statehood.

If one considers the fact that there are three autonomous district councils in Assam and three each in Meghalaya and Mizoram and one in Tripura under the Sixth Schedule and 12 councils in Assam and Manipur, the North-east emerges as the most fractured region in India with seven states (Sikkim is not included in this exercise for its very different history) , 10 sixth Schedule district councils and 12 autonomous councils — 29 administrative units in all having varied “representative” character covering a population of about 45 million; and that too in a border region.

From the geo-strategic perspective this arrangement is likely to make it susceptible to interference from across the border. And, evidently proliferation of democratic institutions did neither unite the diverse ethnic groups nor fulfill their aspirations; rather it fuelled aspirations of other groups for such dispensation and hence the unending “identity assertion” in the region and violent movements.

In this situation and keeping in mind the Act East Policy, a holistic study of how the states and other autonomous bodies are functioning seems timely as no coherent synergy to integrate the North-east to the Association of South East Asian  Nations’ economy can be developed without improvement in governance in the region. The fact that no such study has been conducted (and even the Vision 2020 Document of the North Eastern Council didn’t address this issue) perhaps explains why the North-east is seen always drifting. It is time to stop this trend.

The writer is a retired IAS officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre and has served as a scientific consultant in the office of the principal scientific advisor to the government of India