Decode Politics: Why are anti-CAA protests confined to Assam, Tripura in Northeast

With the recent notification of rules for the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act or CAA — the passage of which had rocked the Northeast in 2019 — there are loud voices of dissent against it, but this time only in Assam and Tripura.

This is because nearly all areas of the Northeast, barring large swathes of these two states, have effectively been exempted from the provisions of the CAA, which enables easing of citizenship to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, who entered India before December 31, 2014.

The Act states that this provision shall not apply to “tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram or Tripura, as included in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, and the area covered under ‘The Inner Line’ notified under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873”.

An Inner Line Permit (ILP) regime is operational in the four Northeastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram and Manipur. The ILP is a special permit that residents of other parts of India need to apply for and receive, in order to enter and spend any duration of time in these states. Initially introduced by the British via the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation 1873 for the tribal hill areas of the region, the system continued into the post-Independence period with the stated aim “to prevent settlement of other Indian nationals, in order to protect the indigenous/tribal population”.

Significantly, this system was in place in only three states — Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram — with Manipur brought under its ambit only in January 2020, following protests in the state after the CAA was enacted.

In the Northeast, the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution provides