The northeast in India embraces Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya. The first three states are disturbed, Assam probably the worst. The army is combing the state which the militants, United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), have announced is meant only for the Assamese-speaking people.

ULFA is not a new phenomenon. New Delhi has lived with it for the last 30 years. At that time it signed an agreement with the All Assam Students Union (AASU), after a protracted agitation, to delete the names of foreigners, the Bangladeshis, from the electoral rolls and deport them to their country.

ULFA has since then raised the standard of independent Assam and taken to arms. Practically, no foreigner has been ousted. What has attracted the nation's attention at present is the indiscriminate killing of labourers from other parts of India, particularly Bihar, by ULFA.

Although the army is in the midst of flushing out ULFA cadres from Assam, the bomb blasts continue to kill a few here and there. Some say that ULFA is wreaking revenge for the attack that India had made two years ago on their camps in the foothills of Bhutan, with its king's cooperation. The captured diary by Hira Sarania, a battalion commander of ULFA's army, says: "We vowed that even if it takes 100 years, we will seek vengeance on India."

This may well be true. But there is also a suspicion that Bangladesh eggs ULFA on to make forays on the population in Assam to create confusion for easy assimilation of illegal migrants with the Bengalis living across the border.

Already, the Assamese-speaking population in the state has shrunk to nearly half, 37 percent. (Assam and other northeastern states have only a 21-kilometre border with the rest of India, as compared to 1,829 kilometres with Bangladeshis.)

No doubt, ULFA has irritated New Delhi so much that it has agreed to supply arms to even the much-hated military junta in Myanmar to bottle up the militants. A few years ago a similar joint operation was launched with limited results. ULFA has in Assam some firm supporters who enable the militants to go right up to Guwahati to carry out killings, even in daylight.

There is, however, something in the allegation that the Congress, which rules the state, has connived with ULFA's activities to repay for the help it rendered to the party during the last election.

Still, Assam is the last reliable post of India in the northeast. The state has not yet forgotten Jawaharlal Nehru's words during India's war with China in 1962 that: "My heart goes to the people of Assam." Yet they have kept their injured feelings aside to concentrate on development, which they realise they cannot have without the capital from the rest of India.

Even otherwise, ULFA has lost its substantial following after the repeated declarations to create a sovereign state, which the Assamese do not like. The Assamese generally suspect that ULFA has close connections with intelligence agencies of Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Manipur is primarily a victim of the army's excesses. The state also faces the problem of tribals returning to their lands in the plains from where they were evicted a few years ago. (Tripura could have faced the same problem, but the Bengali-speaking population which migrated from Bangladesh is in such a preponderant majority that others have no choice except to accept the reality).

Not long ago when I visited Manipur I could see the divide, the youth fuming with anger and discussing ways to retrieve the land. Alienation between indigenous people and the outsiders has resulted in clashes, even in large-scale killings.

However, the worst role is that of the army which is trying to maintain peace. In the name of curbing militancy it has killed many innocent people. Seldom has anyone from the force been hauled up, because it enjoys immunity under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958.

One woman activist, Sharmila, has been on a hunger strike since the massacre of innocent civilians by army personnel some time ago. The agitation is still going on. The army's powers have not been curtailed, and they include shooting to kill, searching property without the safeguards available in ordinary criminal law and arbitrary detentions used to "maintain public order" based on the "suspicion" of insurgent activity.

The central government appointed, early last year, a judicial commission headed by a retired Supreme Court judge to assess whether the special powers act was necessary, and was used for legitimate purposes.

On both grounds, the commission found the government wanting. It recommended the abolition of the act. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh promised to implement the commission's findings. But probably the army has had the last word because the act has stayed, with its injurious fallout.

The Nagas, although a divided house between the ruling Nagas and the hostile underground Nagas, are fired by the same ambition to have an independent Naga state. Their argument is that they were never part of British India, and enjoyed an independent existence.

New Delhi has been negotiating with the main faction, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), headed by T Muivah, for the last few years. But the talks have not

brought the government and the NSCN any closer.

The NSCN wants India to accept the sovereignty of Nagas, with a joint defence apparatus between them and the Indian army. The NSCN also wants greater Nagaland, embracing the Naga population in Assam and Manipur.

The government has reportedly offered a special Kashmir-type status within the Indian Union. The NSCN finds it "too little," but may come round to accept something like that. The renewal of the ceasefire, which is almost a decade old, hangs in the balance.

If not renewed, the army will have another problem on their hands: the hostile Nagas, apart from ULFA. What is, however, peculiar to the Nagaland, and the rest of states in the northeast, is that the people elect their governments every five years, and the voting percentage is around 60. Had there been a strong feeling of separation there would have been boycott of election, or some other way to register their protest against the present system.

It appears that people in the region ride two boats at the same time: raising their demand for autonomy and staking their claim to power through elections. The government is not unduly bothered so long as there is no ULFA-like disturbance.

Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian columnist.