The obvious answer will be in affirmative. However, this may not be so easy a question to answer in the Northeastern State of Nagaland.
A young Minister in the hilly State has recently invited the wrath of the extremists by describing the State as an integral part of India.One of the major insurgent groups of the State — National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) faction — which has been brokering peace with the Government of India since 1997, has slammed Nagaland Sports and Youth Resources Minister Merentoshi Jamir for making the comment and said that the Minister is not aware about Naga history.
The 32-year-old Minister while addressing a NCC camp recently had said, “I request you to carry forward the message that Nagaland, or for that matter the North-East, is an integral part of India.”
“In other parts of the country, North-easterners are considered as aliens. Such misconception brings sadness in our hearts,” Jamir had said in the camp and urged the participants, a large number of whom had come from beyond the region, to change that perception when they return home. Jamir, who is the youngest Minister in the State, had said this in the context of people’s perception, particularly those in the other parts of the country about the North-east and its people.
However, the Minister’s utterances have not gone down well with major Naga insurgent group NSCN(IM) slamming him for his alleged lack of knowledge about the history of Naga people.“He naively appealed to the students to spread the message that Nagaland is an integral part of India, forgetting that Nagas have their history and customary laws and therefore, we have our own political identity,” the outfit said in a statement. It said even the Government of India had acknowledged the history of the Nagas.
“As a novice in politics, he (Jamir) should have refrained from touching on the sensitive political issue. The occasion and his position as Minister must have carried him away but history is a living testimony that Nagaland was never an integral part of India,” the outfit said in the statement.Jamir, however, was not available for comments.
It may be mentioned here that the NSCN-IM had entered into a ceasefire with the Government in 1997. They have held over 60 rounds of peace talks both within and outside the country so far but a solution to the ‘political problem’ continues to elude them.