In this chapter, I propose to give readers an overview of the effects of our foreign policy, power politics and events in the neighbouring countries, as they have had a profound effect on developments in the north-east.

Effects of Partition of India

The effects of the British policy of ‘Divide and Rule’ with reference to the Indian sub-continent's Hindus and Muslims are well-known and documented. Their consequent decision to partition the sub-continent into India, Pakistan and Myanmar and the way they drew up boundaries to do so, was perhaps one of the greatest blunders they committed throughout their colonial and imperial history. It resulted in anguish and massacres which had never been seen on the subcontinent, created millions of refugees fleeing to safety across artificially created boundaries, turmoil for people who had been split across these borders, and unrelenting hatred and distrust between India and Pakistan which continues till today. This is the backdrop to the foreign policies of both India and Pakistan since that fateful period of Partition and Independence.

The idea of creation of a homeland for the sub-continent's Muslims germinated in Bengal, arising out of the first Partition of Bengal by the British in 1919. After this, the so-called ‘Muslim Homeland’ was created through partition of the sub-continent by the British in 1947, in the form of East and West Pakistan. Whoever could have imagined that Pakistan would get balkanised in the fashion that occurred in 1971?