North East Frontier Agency
Border of the state of AssamIndian Union Territories of Nagaland , Manipur and Tripura , as well as State of Bihar (far left)
The North-East Frontier Agency ( NEFA , "Northeastern Border Authority") was 1951 to 1972 the name of an authority or the territory it manages in the northeast of India today . NEFA was formed in 1951 by renaming the North-East Frontier Tracts ( NEFT , " Northeastern Frontiers " ), which had been formed at the time of the British India in 1914. In 1972, NEFA was converted into a union territory with the new name " Arunachal Pradesh ". Arunachal Pradesh has had the status of an Indian state since 1987 . The status of the area under international law is still disputed today. thePeople's Republic of China lays claim to large parts of the territory.
story
At the time of British India 1914-1947
The border between British India and China was not regulated by treaty for a long time. Nor was there any compelling need for this, since the Himalayan mountain range formed a natural border line and the tribal peoples living in the mountain areas maintained a large degree of independence and neither the British nor the Chinese government showed any major interest in the inaccessible mountain regions. The age of imperialism in the late 19th century saw increasing tensions between the UK and Russia due to continued Russian expansion in Central Asia, Persia and China. In the Anglo-Russian Convention (1907) , a compromise was reached between the two powers over mutual interests in Tibet . Both contracting parties undertook to maintain the territorial status quo and to refrain from further territorial expansion. In 1912 the Chinese Empire became a republic . As a result, Tibet declared itself independent, although this was not recognized by China. At a conference at the British-Indian Viceroy's summer residence in Shimla , the UK, China and Tibet attempted to reach an agreement on Tibet's status. The draft treaty of this so-called Shimla Convention stipulated that "outer" Tibet (the Amdo region ) should remain part of China, while "central Tibet" (the Ü-Tsang region ) should be an independent state under Chinese sovereignty. The border between Tibet and British India was also defined for the first time. The boundary line ran much further north than before, along the so-called McMahon Line (after British Foreign Secretary Henry McMahon ) on the main Himalayan ridge. The draft treaty was signed on July 3, 1914 by the British and Tibetan but not by the Chinese plenipotentiary, who left the conference early.
Just weeks after the Shimla Accords, World War I broke out and the focus of world interest was shifted to other events. The problem of the north-eastern border of British India was largely forgotten. The British also did not officially publish the text of the incompletely ratified convention and the McMahon Line was not drawn on the maps of the Survey of India until the 1930s , probably out of consideration initially for Russia and later for China, which in turn included the map on its maps area largely marked as continuing to belong to China. The newly gained north-eastern border areas were loosely organized by the British colonial administration not as a full province ( province ), but only as areas ( tracts ) and the tribes living there were left with extensive self-government, similar to that of the North Western Frontier Agency (today in Pakistan: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ) was the case. Administratively, the region was further subdivided into the Balipara Frontier Tract , Sadiya Frontier Tract, and Tirap Frontier Tract administrative units .
The border with Tibet remained porous and Tibetan authorities continued to collect taxes and duties in Tawang County long after 1914. In 1938, the British published the details of the Shimla agreements officially for the first time, thus substantiating their claim. With the increasing expansion of Japan in East Asia and the associated threat to the British colonial possessions in South and Southeast Asia, the military-strategic importance of the region also grew and it was increasingly administratively developed , especially during the war years during the Japanese occupation of Burma .
In Independent India 1947–1972
After the independence of India, the territory of the NEFT first came to Assam . From 1947 to 1950 it was administered directly by the Governor of Assam. The constitution of the Republic of India , which came into force in 1950 , provided for a special administration for the tribal areas in north-western India. This was regulated in Appendix 6 of the Constitution. In 1951 the NEFT with the administrative units Balipara Frontier Tract , Abor Hills district , Mishmi Hills district ( the latter both arose from the division of the Sadiya Frontier Tract ), and the Naga tribal areas ( Naga Tribal Area ) further south became the North-East Frontier Agency ( NEFA) formed. The administration of NEFA was reorganized by the North East Frontier (Administration) Regulation, 1954 Act , which came into force on 19 January 1954. Arbor Hills District was renamed Siang Frontier Division , and Mishmi Hills District was renamed Lohit Frontier Division . The Naga Tribal Area was renamed the Tuensang Frontier Division , merged with the Naga Hills in 1957 , and became the new Union Territory of Nagaland . NEFA was directly subordinate to the Governor of Assam , who in turn was appointed by the Indian President . The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, not the Ministry of the Interior, was responsible for NEFA matters. The particular administrative structure was justified by the strategic importance of the region and also by the argument that the area would need to be developed before it could be fully integrated into 'more advanced' Assam.
The initially good diplomatic relations between the People's Republic of China , founded in 1949 and having occupied Tibet in 1950, and India deteriorated after China announced that it had built a road through Aksai Chin , which according to Indian interpretation belonged to India, and after Nehru granted political asylum to the Dalai Lama in India in 1959. In 1962, the Indo-Chinese Border War broke out, with a Chinese surprise attack also on NEFA territory. The Chinese People's Liberation Army soon conquered almost all of NEFA's territory, but soon withdrew behind the MacMahon Line.
In 1965, responsibilities for NEFA territories were shifted from the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Ministry of the Interior. In 1972, the government of Indira Gandhi reorganized the administrative conditions in north-eastern India. From Assam, the territories of Meghalaya, Mizoram and the territory of NEFA were detached and all three were made Union Territories. The territory of NEFA was named "Arunachal Pradesh" and gained state status on February 20, 1987.
itemizations
- ↑ JG Bartholomew: Eastern Bengal and Assam with Bhutan. In: Imperial gazetteer of India. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907-1909. volume 11
- ↑ Convention Between Great Britain, China, and Tibet (Simla Accord). (PDF) cfr.org, July 3, 1914, archived from the original on October 8, 2016 ; Retrieved 8 October 2016 (English).
- ^ a b Glimpses of Arunachal Pradesh part B. (PDF) Government of Arunachal Pradesh, archived from the original on November 16, 2010 ; Retrieved 8 October 2016 (English).
- ↑ Julie Marshall: Britain and Tibet 1765-1947: A Select Annotated Bibliography of British Relations with Tibet and the Himalayan States Including Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan. Routledge Chapman Hall; March 2005. ISBN 0-415-33647-3 . p. 537
- ↑ Suresh K. Sharma, Ushar Sharma (eds.): Documents on North-East India: An Exhaustive Survey , Volume 2 Arunachal Pradesh . Mittal Publications, New Delhi, 2006. ISBN 81-8324-088-7 . p. 113 ff
- ^ Hidayatullah, M., State Of Nagaland vs Ratan Singh, Etc. Supreme Court of India, March 6, 1966, accessed April 29, 2017 (English).
- ↑ Himansu Chandra Sadangi: Emergent North-East: A Way Forward. ISHA Books, Delhi, 2008. ISBN 81-8205-437-0 . p. 40
- ↑ Book Review of: A Philosophy jor NEFA. VERRIER ELWIN. (Second Edition) Shillong: North-East Frontier Agency, 1959. 296 pp. MORRIS E. OPLER, Cornell University. In: American Anthropologist [62, 1960] PDF
- ↑ Paul M McGarr, The Cold War in South Asia: Britain, the United States and the Indian Subcontinent, 1945-1965. Cambridge University Press, 2013. ISBN 1-107-00815-8 . Chapter: Allies of a kind: Britain, the United States and the 1962 Sino-Indoan War p. 149 ff
- ↑ Government. Government of Arunachal Pradesh Archived from the original on 2016 October 7 ; Retrieved 8 October 2016 (English).