ABSTRACT
There is little doubt that many of the nationalities, big and small, of North-East (NE) India, and of the rest of the country as well, deeply desire and are engaged in various forms of agitation, peaceful and constitutional as well as violent and extra-constitutional, to achieve the realization of an internally coherent ‘homeland’ where they, and only they, would ‘belong’. The dream of attaining ‘uncontaminated homelands’ is perhaps a universal phenomenon. For instance, consider the case of Mizoram, attained after a two-decade-long violent struggle, perhaps the most internally coherent political unit functioning in the NE region, where one ethnic group (Lushai/Mizo), one language (Mizo) and one religion (Christianity) overwhelmingly dominate all the rest. Put simply, no people in NE India (indeed in the rest of the country as well) can reasonably aspire for, let alone attain, an exclusive political space for an ‘uncontaminated homeland’ — short of engaging in ruthless ethnic cleansing.
