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A
welcome respite in India's bloody
northeast
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - At last, there seems a glimmer of
hope in India's northeast. With the lifting of the ban
on the National Socialist Council of Nagalim
(Isak-Muivah) (NSCN (I-M)), the stage has been set for
direct talks in New Delhi between the hitherto outlawed
insurgent group and the government of India.
The
talks, scheduled to start in the Indian capital in
mid-December, represent an important step forward in the
quest for a negotiated settlement to the decades-long
Naga insurgency. The de-proscription of the NSCN (I-M)
will enable its top leaders Thuingaleng Muivah and Isak
Chisi Swu to return to India. The two have been living
in self-imposed exile for the last 37 years and while
they did visit Nagaland in 1999, their visit to Delhi
for the talks will be an official one.
The NSCN
(I-M) has agreed to come to the negotiating table after
Delhi decided to meet two conditions it laid down. One
was the lifting of the ban on the organization and the
other, the direct involvement of Indian Prime Minister
Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister Lal
Krishna Advani in the forthcoming talks. It is with
government representatives that the NSCN leaders have
been talking to so far, although Vajpayee (as well as
his predecessors Narasimha Rao and H D Deve Gowda) met
them in September 1998 in Paris and again in December
last year in Osaka. Direct talks at the highest level
signal that the negotiations have made significant
progress in addressing the "Naga problem", as it is
known.
Naga separatism predates Indian
independence. The Naga National Council (NNC) pledged in
1950 to establish a sovereign Naga state and assumed the
form of an armed struggle by 1952. Since then, the
insurgency has gathered a ferocity that Delhi has found
hard to tackle.
In 1975, the NNC leader Angami
Zapu Phizo signed an accord with Delhi under which the
NNC accepted the Indian Constitution and agreed to come
overground and surrender its weapons. A faction within
the NNC that included Muivah, Swu and S S Khaplang,
rejected the accord and broke away to form the NSCN in
1980. Further inter-tribal rivalry within the NSCN led
to its split in 1988, with the NSCN (I-M) emerging the
dominant faction. The ferocity with which the various
insurgent groups have battled each other has in fact
been far more serious than their battle against the
Indian security forces.
It was only in the
mid-1990s that Delhi seriously resumed the dialogue
process with the Nagas. Several rounds of talks with the
NSCN (I-M) leaders resulted in a ceasefire agreement
being signed in 1997. While the ceasefire has held,
progress on the negotiations front was slow, with
analysts frequently dismissing the peace process as a
non-starter. The announcement of talks in Delhi signals
that what was believed to be a deadlocked dialogue
process that was dragging on inconclusively is still
very much alive and raised hopes of a political solution
to the Naga insurgency. However, the process is fraught
with difficulties.
While the lifting of the ban
on the NSCN (I-M) has been welcomed by the Naga Hoho -
an apex body of the Nagas -- and a number of civil
society groups, powerful factions remain unhappy with
Delhi’s decision. The NSCN (Khaplang), which has been
locked in bloody warfare with the NSCN (I-M), is opposed
to Delhi negotiating with its rival. Although India has
been engaging in a parallel peace process with the NSCN
(Khaplang), the faction that is led by Muivah and Swu is
taken more seriously by the government.
Elected
representatives too pose a threat to the peace process.
Nagaland’s Chief Minister S C Jamir is regarded by the
NSCN (I-M) as the main roadblock. Jamir has said that he
is not opposed to a negotiated settlement with the NSCN
(I-M) and has even revoked the arrest warrants against
Muivah and Swu. However, he is said to be close to the
NSCN (Khaplang). It is believed that he is not averse to
using it to undermine the NSCN (I-M).
Jamir
insists that his government, church leaders, the Naga
Hoho, village councils and all factions of the
underground must be included in the talks. "While this
is desirable, it is not workable at this point,"
responded an official in the Indian Ministry of Home
Affairs.
For many politicians, a political
settlement of the Naga problem would erode their
influence. Keeping the problem festering ensures more
funds from the central government. Politicians also fear
that once the insurgents come overground and should they
enter the electoral arena, they (the politicians) will
be sidelined.
New Delhi will have to keep in
mind the sensitivities of sections beyond Nagaland’s
geographic boundaries. The NSCN (I-M) is firm that all
Naga-dominated areas that are contiguous to the present
boundaries of Nagaland, which were demarcated when it
became a state in 1963, be added to the state. The
problem is that these Naga-dominated areas include four
northern districts of neighboring Manipur, parts of
Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
Last year, Manipur
witnessed violent protests when Delhi extended its
ceasefire with the NSCN (I-M) beyond Nagaland to include
the Naga-dominated areas in the neighboring states. The
Manipur government has already announced that it would
not withdraw arrest warrants it issued against Muivah
and Isak. This means the two leaders cannot safely visit
Manipur, two-thirds of which is inhabited by Nagas. The
talks with the NSCN (I-M) will be closely watched in
Manipur and any decision that impacts on Manipur’s
territorial integrity or the interests of its majority
Meitei community is sure to evoke a violent response.
However, it is the extent to which Delhi and the
NSCN (I-M) can find common ground that will determine
whether the talks will lead to a lasting solution. The
NSCN (I-M) continues to maintain that the Naga region
was never a part of India. In fact, its leaders
frequently point out that they are not fighting for
secession, as they have never been a part of the Indian
union. They maintain that they are fighting for
independence from "Indian occupation" and harken back to
a 1951 plebiscite in Naga-dominated areas, in which
people overwhelmingly voted for independence from India.
Yet, Swu and Muivah have been making
conciliatory noises of late. "We do not demand
sovereignty, what we expect is the recognition of the
rights of the Nagas," says Swu. This position brightens
prospects for a political settlement. But how this will
play out with the NSCN (I-M) cadres remains to be seen.
The cadres have been indoctrinated for years to believe
that nothing short of independence is acceptable.
Besides, there is the second-rung of leaders who -
unlike Swu and Muivah, who are in their 70s - are
middle-aged and have many years of fighting left in
them. They could challenge the leadership should it
reach a compromise with Delhi.
In 1975, when
Phizo signed the Shillong Accord with Delhi, he was
challenged by Swu and Muivah, who returned to the
jungles to resume the armed struggle against the Indian
security forces. For years since then, it was these two
who kept the Naga insurgency alive. The question is
whether history will repeat itself. Will the second rung
challenge Swu and Muivah now if they reach a compromise
deal with Delhi? Much will depend on the extent to which
they control the cadres.
A lot has changed in
Nagaland since 1975. While alienation from India is
still acute, there is extreme fatigue with the fighting
and the thirst for peace in Nagaland is acute. The
conflict has taken a heavy toll in terms of lives and
development of the area. Civil society groups have come
out in support of the talks. Muivah and Swu seem to have
realized that violent struggle has gotten them nowhere.
They recognize that the forthcoming talks have opened up
a window of opportunity. And with Delhi now determined
to find a political solution to the Naga problem, they
know that this is an opportune time to reach a
settlement.
While this might call for optimism
over the future of the talks, the process could unravel
easily. The situation has never been more fragile.
Successful talks with the NSCN (I-M) could prompt other
insurgent groups in the northeast to consider the talks
option. At the same time, even one wrong decision by
Delhi could trigger off a fresh round of bloodletting -
not just in Nagaland, but across the region as well.
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