ABSTRACT
The region engulfs perhaps the most diverse communities of a most diverse country. Growing cultural consciousness threatened, therefore, to spill over into ethnic nationalism, and regional identity aspirations became somewhat of anathema to mainstream political parties in the North-Eastern2 region of India, which remained the proverbial area of underdevelopment even after more than half a century of independence. At present, the region is made up of seven states (Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Tripura), each with its own governor. Some areas of that region were never a part of the Maurya, Gupta or the Moghul Empires, and the British, who incorporated this region rather late, used cultural diversities as well as dualistic composition such as hill people and plains people or tribals and non-tribals, as a trapdoor of divide and rule.3 The colonial power pursued a policy of non-interference when the Naga National Council (NNC), the oldest movement of insurgency, raised the banner of independence in the mid-1940s.
Slippery Slope
