The single most important reason why all previous Naga deals failed was the lack of a sustained and sincere engagement by the Indian state. For the August 3 deal to succeed, this is where the Modi Government will have to do better
Almost after two decades of tense engagement and 80 rounds of talks later, the Union Government and the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) have agreed on the broad principles that will guide their future deliberations. This is the essence of the framework agreement that was signed on August 3, though the scope and content of the agreement is expected to be under wrap for several weeks.
The NSCN(IM) had abrogated its insistence on territorially sovereign independence for the Nagas in India and Myanmar almost a decade ago. The crux of the overall Naga movement rests now on the demand for territorial integration of the contiguous Naga areas within India. These comprise of present-day Nagaland, all hill districts of Manipur, 662.4 square kilometers in Assam and three districts in Arunachal Pradesh.
Congress Chief Ministers in the three latter States have welcomed the agreement, but conditional to the preservation of their territorial status-quos. Though Mr Neiphiu Rio, former Chief Minister of Nagaland, currently Member of Parliament, and one of the prime third-party facilitators of the agreement, insists that territorial jurisdiction over Nagas in adjoining States is yet not off-limits, the Union Home Minister has stated that the existing State boundaries will not be disturbed.
What then is so ‘historic’ about the agreementIJ This question reverberates across the board — from the many other Naga resistance groups (both underground and inactive), to significant voices in the Naga civil society, and by the Indian Army and intelligence personnel who were engaged fruitlessly in the Naga theatre.
In as much as the current agreement indicates an acceptance of the Indian Constitution and preservation of existing State borders, how is it different from the 1975 Shillong accordIJ What does the Union Government have to show for the additional decades of counter-insurgency operations in the region, and what does the NSCN(IM) have to show for the bloodshed and sacrifice made by the Naga populaceIJ
Much to the chagrin of fly-by-night experts, an honest answer cannot ignore the historical context of the many previous ‘deals’ made between the Union Government and the Nagas, or the reason why, they all failed to address Naga aspirations. The single most important road-block that shows up is not so much the contents of the agreements, but the lack of sustained, broad-based and sincere engagement on part of the Indian state when these agreements were made.
The trend begins from the Hydari agreement of June 1947. While agreeing on paper to a 10-year interim period for the Nagas to decide if they would integrate with the Indian Union, Assam Governor Akbar Hydari held out thinly-veiled threats of forced coercion. Alarmed by the increasingly agitated Naga leadership, the Union Government disowned the Hydari agreement in 1949. This initial insecurity dilemma, which would set the tone for all future interaction, was explained by BG Verghese: “Pressures to integrate were mistaken as steps towards annexation or forced assimilation. This was as far from the truth as differentiation, a holding out for time to consider and consult, was interpreted as separatist, or secessionist”.
The creation of the State of Nagaland too was similarly mired, this time in counter-insurgency tactics. The Naga National Council led by Angami Zapu Phizo, responded readily to the peace mission led by Jayaprakash Narayan and was eager to begin talks with the Government as early as 1960, but a section of the Indian intelligence wanted to first change the facts on the ground by carving out a small section of the total area that was infested with Naga armed resistance, and granting it Statehood. As a result, the first cease-fire and peace talks began in 1964, only after Nagaland — and with it a small section of Nagas beholden to the Government — came into existence. As a result, the best efforts of Nayaran and others failed to secure mutual trust.
In 1972, not only did the Indira Gandhi Government withdraw the token ceasefire, but also overthrew the democratically elected Nagaland State Government of the time. It was under conditions of Emergency throughout the Indian State, and severe clamp downs on not only the Naga resistance and Naga populace, but also those Nagas that participated in the Indian electoral process, that the Shillong Agreement was signed in November 1975.
Crucially, even the section of the Naga National Council that signed the agreement, and the United Democratic Front that supported it, did so only under the condition that the three clauses of the agreement be observed in toto. It meant that unless the third clause of formulating issues for a final settlement was not honoured, the first two clauses — of assenting to the Indian Constitution and the deposition of arms —would not be observed by the Nagas. After the accord was secured, the third clause was neither acknowledged nor honoured by the Union Government. This was the context in which the NSCN emerged and flourished.
It was only with the initiation of the ceasefire with the NSCN(IM) in 1997, and a recognition of the ‘unique history of the Nagas’ by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2003, that a beginning was made to put the ghost of the 1975 Shillong accord to rest. This process can be said to have culminated in the current agreement.
The fall-out of the contents of the agreement is still indecisive and the potential to agitate the many vested groups on both sides of the Naga/non-Naga divide is severe. Even then, and in contrast to the earlier ‘deals’, the Union Government-NSCN(IM) engagement is supported, however grudgingly, by the broadest and most diverse conglomeration of Naga interests. This is especially so, when considered against existing support for other Naga Armed-resistance groups.
Moreover, a stoic sense of shared future with India has never been more widespread among the Nagas. That alone makes the current framework agreement deeply significant and indeed historic.
(The writer is a PhD candidate at Jawaharlal Nehru University. She specialises in the Naga national movement)