Union Home Minister Amit Shah has managed to broker a temporary truce between Assam and Mizoram whose dispute over ownership of a forest took a violent turn early last week. Shah has also mooted the idea of using satellite imagery to demarcate the inter-state borders in the region.
The North Eastern Space Application Centre (NESAC), a joint venture of the Department of Space and the North Eastern Council (NEC), will be commissioned to provide accurate satellite imagery of the entire region.
It can be assumed that based on satellite images produced by NESAC, either that agency or some other government agency will produce detailed maps complete with all geographical and physical features. Based on these maps, the inter-state boundaries will be demarcated on the ground.
This physical demarcation based on satellite imagery will, the Union Government hopes, bring to an end all territorial disputes.
But that may be wishful thinking. While this exercise will resolve some boundary disputes in stretches that are not demarcated on the ground and two states dispute where the inter-state boundary runs through, it will not work in places where one state lays claim to territories lying within another state.
Ownership of tribal community land cannot be transferred without the consent of the community and, thus, the local tribals need to be involved in the negotiations. A top-down approach will not work here.
It is, thus, best to adopt a bottoms-up approach to solving the territorial disputes between the Northeastern states.
#AssamMizoram #BorderDispute #SatelliteMap
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