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The Hindu (Clockwise from left) NSCN-IM cadres during the outfit's 33rd "Republic Day"celebration at its headquarters at Hebron camp, about 45 km away from Dimapur, on March 21, 2012; NSCN-IM leader Thuingaleng Muivah; Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio; and former Chief Minister S.C. Jamir. Photos: Ritu Raj Konwar, V. Sudershan, D. Krishnan -
Photo: Ritu Raj Konwar NSCN (IM) cadres during the outfits' 33rd Republic Day celebration at its headquarter at Hebron camp about 45km away from Dimapur town in Nagaland on March 21, 2012.
Delhi’s insistence on negotiating with only one entity in a process
that has many stakeholders has driven the wedges deeper in Nagaland
Come Assembly elections in Nagaland, orchestrated noises claiming that
peace is within reach are bound to get louder. Political actors know
that traumatised by decades of external and internal bloodletting, the
Naga craves nothing more than peace. The recent demonstrations of
competitive eagerness by Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio and Nagaland’s
legislators to support the ‘peace’ purportedly being cooked between
Delhi and the NSCN (IM) were nothing but drama. In a political two-step,
Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has assured the Nagas of a
‘peace’ gift before the elections early next year.
The Naga public, however, is all too familiar with this periodic show.
They know that peace is a distant dream — not inherently distant but
because Delhi, by design or default, makes it so. They know that by
ignoring the crucial stakeholders and pampering a set of gun-toting men
who have little resonance with the broad Naga family, Delhi might cobble
together a deal — one that will bring anything but peace.
The polemics of the fractious Naga politics have been rendered more
complex by Delhi’s reckless interventions. Instead of appreciating the
intricacies of the Naga polity — comprising over 25 tribes, each a proud
owner and inheritor of a distinct culture, language, tradition and
geography, espousing a distinct world view, falling within the broad
rubric of the Naga family — Delhi deals with it as if itwere a
homogenous collective with common aspirations. Thus it believes that
making a deal with one set would satisfy the rest. How else to explain
its abiding faith in the peace process with the NSCN (IM),
quintessentially an entity of Tangkhul tribes of Manipur, having little
resonance with other Nagas notwithstanding its pan-Naga rhetoric?
Powerful groups ignored
There are other potent Naga militias aligned along tribal lines not in
the orbit of the Centre’s peace enterprise. The NSCN (K) holds sway over
almost the entire eastern Nagaland — nearly half the State and its
people — and resonates well with the locals including the Konyaks, the
largest of Naga tribes.
The NSCN (KK) — essentially a militia of the Sumis, one of the larger
Naga tribes — control a large swathe of Nagaland adjoining Manipur and
also has heavy presence in Dimapur district. The Naga National Council
(NNC), the mother of all Naga militias though now a rump of its older
self, deeply resonates with the Angamis, the second largest Naga tribe,
and their kin tribes in Kohima and adjoining regions. Besides these
militias, the traditional bodies that carry much weight with their
respective tribes, are also not in the reckoning of Delhi’s peace
enterprise.
The peace project, thus severely truncated, got further undermined with
the exclusion of the Nagaland State government. I.K. Gujral, the Prime
Minister who presided over the formalisation of engagement with the NSCN
(IM) in 1997, decided to ignore the State government. He did it, in the
face of professional advice to the contrary, to placate the belligerent
Th. Muivah, the NSCN (IM) supremo. To Mr. Muivah, the popularly elected
Nagaland government was illegitimate and S.C. Jamir, the then Chief
Minister, was his bête noire. Nagaland and Delhi had different
political dispensations at the helm then, making it easier for Mr.
Gujral to ignore Mr. Jamir. Subsequent governments in Delhi preferred
not to rock the boat and nonchalantly carried on with the charade.
Having achieved exclusion of the State government from the process, Mr.
Muivah insisted on Mr. Jamir’s removal. He knew his biggest challenge
was not managing a distant Delhi but an inconvenient Naga government at
home. In the run-up to 2003 elections — the first after the ceasefire —
he threw tantrums seeking Mr. Jamir’s dismissal and holding elections
under President’s Rule. K. Padmanabhaiah, the Centre’s interlocutor,
played along and sought to influence L.K. Advani, the then Deputy Prime
Minister and Home Minister. Mr. Advani was not moved, but the Assam
Rifles — a Central force with the mandate to enforce the ceasefire rules
and ensure that armed NSCN (IM) cadres remained confined to designated
camps and did not interfere in the elections — turned a blind eye to
widespread violations by the outfit.
Tactical alliance
Mr. Muivah’s boys had the field to themselves. They targeted candidates
not aligned with the NSCN (IM). Popular cries for reining them in went
unheard. Mr. Muivah had propped up Neiphiu Rio, a renegade Congressman
turned acolyte who had forged a tactical electoral alliance with the
BJP, the ruling party in Delhi.
Mr. Rio came to power and his government became a proxy for the
Government of the People’s Republic of Nagalim (GPRN), of which Mr.
Muivah is the self-styled ‘prime minister’. Many a times it became
difficult to determine who ruled the State — Mr. Rio or Mr. Muivah.
With the State government’s backing, the NSCN (IM) sought to enlarge its
footprint in Nagaland. Its manoeuvres provoked a fierce backlash from
other Naga militias. Bloody clashes ensued. The State witnessed an
unprecedented spike in violence until the rivals undid the military
gains of the NSCN (IM) and restored the balance of power in their
favour. Over 800 people were killed in about 1,500 bloody clashes with
the NSCN (IM). Though constitutionally mandated to maintain public
order, Mr. Rio extricated himself from his responsibility on the plea
that the State government was not a party to the ‘peace process’ with
the militias and it was for the Centre to rein them in.
Excluded from the ‘peace-process’ and its obligations, Mr. Rio was free
to give currency to the ‘revolutionary’ vocabulary of ultra-Naga
nationalists. He reversed previous State governments’ policy of
‘equidistance’ from all militias and advocated a policy of
‘equi-closeness’. He debunked the 16-point agreement between the Centre
and the Naga People’s Convention in 1959 and called the Nagaland State,
its product, illegitimate. Indeed, he tried to turn the clock of Naga
history back to the 1950s, negating all the gains since then.
Misery in Manipur
Another crucial stakeholder excluded from the ongoing peace project is
the Manipur government. Delhi’s hush-hush deal with the NSCN (IM) has
devastated Manipur and brought untold miseries to its people. Since the
professed objective of the outfit is to dismember the State and take
away two-thirds of its territory, a protracted negotiation with it
without the Manipur government on board has given room for wild
speculations and stirred visceral existential fears among Manipuris. It
resurrected the Metei insurgency. It has turned neighbours — the
plainspeople and the hill people — into bitter enemies.
It is impossible to expect a sustainable peace from the ongoing process
between Delhi and the NSCN (IM). An endeavour for peace that excludes
crucial stakeholders is a travesty.
(R.N. Ravi is a retired Special Director, Intelligence Bureau. E-mail: ravindra.narayan.ravi@gmail.com.)