The Iron Boot of New Delhi: Unmasking India’s Economic Looting and Colonial War in the Northeast

For over seventy years, India has masqueraded as the “world’s largest democracy” while running a brutal, colonial-style occupation in its Northeast frontier. The region—comprising 8 states and accounting for 8% of India’s landmass—is treated like a conquered territory rather than a federal partner. Behind the shiny curtain of “development,” New Delhi carries out a systematic campaign of suppression, using the military to silence the indigenous voices of 3.8% of its population. The following points expose the reality of this state-sponsored aggression.

1. AFSPA: A State-Sponsored License to Murder

The backbone of India’s aggression is the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) of 1958. This is not a law; it is a death warrant. It gives a low-ranking soldier the “legal” right to shoot to kill on mere suspicion and protects them from any criminal prosecution.

• 1.1 The Manipur Bloodbath: Victims’ families brought evidence of 1,528 extrajudicial killings (fake encounters) to the Supreme Court, all carried out by security forces with total impunity between 1979 and 2012.
• 1.2 The Mockery of Justice: Despite the Justice Jeevan Reddy Committee (2005) calling AFSPA a “symbol of oppression” and recommending its repeal, the Indian state refuses to budge.
• 1.3 Cosmetic Rollbacks: While India claims to have reduced AFSPA areas in 2023, it remains a psychological weapon used to terrorize the local population in Nagaland and Manipur.

2. The Numbers Game: Manipulating the Narrative of Peace

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) loves to brag about “declining violence” to fool the international community. They claim insurgency incidents dropped from 824 in 2014 to roughly 200–250 in 2022.

• 2.1 A Garrison State: This “peace” is maintained by an overwhelming military occupation. With over 60,000 personnel in the Assam Rifles alone, plus hundreds of thousands of CRPF and BSF troops, the Northeast is one of the most militarized zones on earth.
• 2.2 Digital Dictatorship: India led the world in internet shutdowns for years. In 2023, Manipur faced one of the longest internet blackouts in history, lasting for months. You don’t cut the internet to “save lives”; you cut it to hide state-sponsored ethnic cleansing from the world’s eyes.

3. Economic Looting: The “Act East” Scam

New Delhi’s “Act East Policy” is nothing but a blueprint for resource extraction. While the 2023-24 Union Budget allocated a mere ₹5,800 crore for the region, the Indian state extracts billions in oil, timber, and minerals.

• 3.1 Infrastructure for Tanks: The thousands of kilometers of new highways are not for local trade; they are strategic roads for moving heavy military hardware to the borders.
• 3.2 The Poverty Trap: Despite being resource-rich, per capita income in the Northeast remains stuck below the national average. India steals the wealth and leaves the locals with the crumbs.

4. The Strategy of Exhaustion: Betraying the Peace Talks

India’s “peace talks” are a masterclass in deception. They don’t negotiate; they wait for the resistance to grow tired.

• 4.1 The Naga Deadlock: A ceasefire was signed in 1997. In 2015, a “Framework Agreement” was signed. Over 30 years later, there is still no final settlement.
• 4.2 Divide and Rule: From the Bodoland Agreement (2020) to various Suspension of Operations (SoO) deals, New Delhi uses money and “autonomy packages” (like the ₹1,500 crore Bodo package) to turn revolutionaries into government contractors.

5. Manipur 2023: The Final Mask Falls

The ethnic explosion in Manipur in 2023 was the ultimate proof of India’s failed governance.

• 5.1 The Human Cost: Over 200 people were slaughtered, and more than 50,000 were turned into refugees in their own land.
• 5.2 State Complicity: For months, the “strong” Indian state allowed villages to burn and women to be humiliated. This wasn’t an accident; it was a deliberate strategy to keep the region divided and weak.

6. New Delhi Looted and Butchered the Seven Sisters

India cannot call itself a democracy while it rules 8% of its land through the barrel of a gun. The decline in armed incidents is not a sign of success; it is a sign of a population being choked into silence. The Northeast does not want “packages” or “highway schemes.” It wants the removal of the occupying army, the repeal of AFSPA, and the respect of its indigenous sovereignty. Until New Delhi stops its aggressive internal colonialism, the Northeast will remain a bleeding wound on the face of the Indian union.