Ethnicity and Insurgency in North-East India: A Historical Perspective

Connected to the rest of the country by a narrow strip of land barely 22 kilometres wide at its slimmest point, North-East India is one of the most ethnically diverse regions on the planet. Home to over 200 distinct tribal communities, each with its own language, customs, and sense of identity, the region has experienced some of the longest-running insurgencies in modern history. Understanding why these conflicts emerged, and why some have been resolved while others persist, requires looking closely at the region’s unique history and the competing ways scholars have tried to explain its turbulence.

A region unlike any other 🔗

The eight states of North-East India, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, and Sikkim, do not fit neatly into the broader story of the Indian subcontinent. While caste has historically been the primary axis of social organisation in much of the country, here it is ethnicity and tribal identity that form the core of social and political life.

States like Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya, and Arunachal Pradesh have predominantly tribal populations, whereas Assam and Manipur contain a more complex mix of tribal and non-tribal communities living side by side. This diversity, combined with rugged terrain and geographical isolation, created conditions where a strong sense of distinct nationhood took root long before the conflicts of the post-independence decades.

Many of these communities had only loose ties to the rest of the subcontinent under British rule. Areas such as the Naga Hills and the Lushai Hills were administered as “excluded” or “partially excluded” areas under the Government of India Act, 1935, governed directly by the colonial administration and largely shielded from mainstream political currents. When India became independent in 1947, the integration of these territories into the new nation-state was, for many local communities, a contested and unwelcome event.

The Naga movement: the oldest insurgency 🔗

The Nagas were the first to challenge the authority of the Indian state. On 14 August 1947, a day before Indian independence, the Naga National Council (NNC) under Angami Zapu Phizo declared Naga independence. The belief that drove this movement was simple and powerful: the Naga people had never consented to becoming part of India, and their territory had been absorbed against their will.

In 1951, the NNC claimed to have conducted a referendum in which an overwhelming majority of Nagas supported sovereignty, a result the Indian government never accepted. As tensions escalated, the central government deployed the army in the mid-1950s to suppress what had become an armed rebellion. The conflict produced one of the most contentious pieces of legislation in independent India, discussed later in this post.

The creation of Nagaland as a separate state in 1963 was an attempt to address Naga aspirations through political accommodation. Yet it did not end the conflict. Internal splits within the movement led to the formation of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), which later fractured into rival factions that continued to demand greater autonomy or outright independence. The peace process between the government and NSCN factions, including a framework agreement signed in 2015, remains one of the longest-running negotiations of its kind anywhere in the world.

Why the Naga conflict has endured 🔗

One reason the Naga movement has been so difficult to resolve is the demand for a unified Naga homeland, often called “Greater Nagalim,” that would bring together Naga-inhabited areas across several states. This cuts directly against the territorial integrity of neighbouring states like Manipur, making any settlement politically explosive. The movement also struggled internally, with insurgent leaders at times suppressing minorities and political opposition within their own areas of influence.

The Mizo insurgency: from rebellion to reconciliation 🔗

The Mizo experience offers a striking contrast. The Mizo insurgency was triggered by a natural disaster combined with administrative neglect. The Mautam famine of 1959-60 was caused by the cyclical flowering of bamboo, which led to an explosion in the rat population and the destruction of crops. The Mizo people felt that the government’s response to their suffering was wholly inadequate.

Out of this anger emerged the Mizo National Front (MNF), led by Laldenga, which launched an armed struggle for independence in 1966. The insurgency triggered intense military operations through the 1960s and 1970s, including the controversial use of aerial action against civilian areas, an episode that left deep scars.

Yet the Mizo story ended very differently from the Naga one. The Mizo Accord, signed between the Union Government and the MNF in June 1986, brought Laldenga and his movement into mainstream politics. Mizoram was granted statehood, the MNF transformed into a political party, and Laldenga himself went on to become chief minister. Today Mizoram is one of the most peaceful and progressive states in the region, making the accord a frequently cited model of successful conflict resolution in India.

Two ways of understanding the conflicts 🔗

Scholars studying these conflicts have broadly approached them from two distinct perspectives. Each tells a different story about what went wrong and what might set things right.

The modernisation and nation-state building view 🔗

The first perspective sees ethnic conflict as part of a larger, almost inevitable process of building a modern nation-state out of a vast and varied population. From this viewpoint, the friction in the North-East is a symptom of integration: the meeting of traditional, community-based societies with a centralising modern state that seeks to extend uniform administration, citizenship, and development across its territory.

Supporters of this approach argue that India’s strategy combined two main tools. One was development, often described as developmentalism, the use of economic programmes and infrastructure to bind the region to the national mainstream. The other was the use of force where insurgency threatened state authority. In this reading, conflict is a transitional phase, and over time, exposure to democratic institutions, education, and economic opportunity is expected to dissolve separatist impulses.

Critics of this view, however, point out that nation-building in the region has often been unilateral, imposed from above without genuinely consulting the communities affected. Far from healing divisions, a top-down approach can deepen feelings of alienation when local customs, land rights, and identities are overridden in the name of national progress.

The federation-building perspective 🔗

The second perspective turns the spotlight on the structure of the Indian state itself. Federation-building theorists argue that the central government’s approach has been too rigid and uniform, failing to accommodate the region’s distinctive ethnic and cultural character. Where ethno-regional diversity is reinforced by distinctive religious or linguistic identity, as in the North-East, the ordinary federal framework has proven insufficient to absorb demands ranging from greater autonomy to outright separatism.

The remedy proposed here is genuine, and often asymmetric, federalism, in which different states and regions enjoy varying degrees of self-rule based on their specific circumstances. Advocates argue that a more flexible federal arrangement, granting a greater quantum of autonomy, can itself serve as a conflict-resolution mechanism. The success of the Mizo Accord, which combined statehood with political reintegration, is frequently cited as evidence that accommodation works better than coercion.

For a long-term solution, scholars in this tradition have argued for a federal state genuinely sensitive to the identities and aspirations of the various groups within it, rather than one that treats diversity as a problem to be managed away.

The constitutional toolkit: autonomy and its limits 🔗

India did not rely on force alone. The Constitution contains specific provisions designed to protect tribal self-governance, the most important being the Sixth Schedule.

The Sixth Schedule and autonomous councils 🔗

Drawing on the recommendations of the Bordoloi Committee in the Constituent Assembly, the Sixth Schedule, under Article 244, deals with the administration of tribal areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Mizoram. It establishes Autonomous District Councils and Regional Councils with legislative, judicial, executive, and financial powers, allowing tribal communities a degree of self-rule over matters such as land, forests, and the inheritance of property.

There are currently ten autonomous councils operating under the Sixth Schedule across these four states. The grant of such councils, along with arrangements like the Inner Line Permit system that restricts entry of outsiders, has helped reduce grievances in several areas and is widely seen as having contributed to stability.

Yet the implementation has been uneven. Powers devolved to different councils are not identical, and many communities argue that the autonomy on paper does not translate into meaningful control in practice. Granting special provisions to some groups has also generated fresh demands from others, occasionally creating new tensions rather than resolving old ones.

AFSPA: the controversial security response 🔗

On the coercive side of the ledger stands the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. Enacted in 1958 in response to the escalating Naga insurgency, AFSPA grants the armed forces sweeping powers in areas officially declared “disturbed”, including the authority to use lethal force, arrest without a warrant, and search premises without judicial authorisation. Crucially, it provides personnel with immunity from prosecution unless the central government sanctions it.

The Act has been one of the most heavily criticised laws in independent India. Human rights organisations and civil society groups argue that it has enabled abuses and eroded civilian trust in the state, while the prolonged deployment of the military raises deeper questions about governance. The government-appointed Jeevan Reddy Committee in 2005 recommended its repeal and replacement with a more humane framework, though successive governments have retained it, citing ongoing security concerns. AFSPA has been progressively withdrawn from areas where the security situation has improved, including parts of several states, even as it remains in force in others.

Lessons from the North-East 🔗

The contrasting fates of these movements offer real insight into how a diverse democracy can manage ethnic conflict. The Mizo Accord demonstrates that sustained dialogue and genuine accommodation can resolve even a long and violent insurgency. The relative calm in states that experienced smoother integration suggests that the right political processes can succeed.

At the same time, the persistence of conflict in parts of Nagaland and the recurring ethnic violence in Manipur, including the Meitei-Kuki clashes that erupted in 2023, show that one-size-fits-all approaches are inadequate. The region’s complexity demands nuanced, context-specific solutions that recognise the legitimate aspirations of its communities while preserving the integrity of the wider federation. Both the modernisation and federation-building perspectives capture part of the truth, and a durable peace likely requires drawing on the insights of each.

What do you think? Does genuine asymmetric federalism, granting different regions different degrees of autonomy, strengthen national unity or risk encouraging further fragmentation? And when, if ever, is a security-first response like AFSPA justified in a functioning democracy?

References

1. https://blog.upscgeeks.in/blog/general-studies-II/polity/sixth-schedule-indian-constitution-tribal-governance-northeast
2. https://www.satp.org/backgrounder/india-insurgencynortheast-nagaland
3. https://www.satp.org/Docs/Faultline/14_North-East–A-Comparative-Analysis-of-Naga–Mizo-and-Meitei-Insurgencies.pdf
4. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14631369.2018.1491788
5. https://www.studocu.com/in/document/university-of-mumbai/sociology/federalism-and-nation-building-in-india-analyzing-challenges-and-autonomy/116655364
6. https://ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in/socp4/chapter/nation-nationality-and-nation-building-in-india/
7. https://www.drishtiias.com/important-institutions/drishti-specials-important-institutions-national-institutions/autonomous-district-councils
8. https://india.mongabay.com/2024/05/what-is-the-sixth-schedule-why-is-ladakh-demanding-to-be-brought-under-it/
9. https://www.pmfias.com/afspa/
10. https://www.gatewayhouse.in/afspa-national-necessity-or-human-rights-violation/