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North East : New Delhi must take a fresh look at Naga truce

	June 28, 2004

The first round of peace talks between the Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre and the Naga militant outfit, NSCN(IM), began in Amsterdam on June 23.

Former Union Home Secretary K. Padmanabhaiah and Indian Intelligence Bureau chief K.P. Singh represented the Manmohan Singh Government at the talks. Isak Chisi Swu and T. Muivah, who have been spearheading the Naga movement for many years, participated in the three-day talks.

Observers, however, are not very optimistic about the outcome of the latest round at talks. Even though the United Progressive Alliance’s decision to break the 18-month lull is a positive sign, there are too many imponderables to overcome before getting down to brasstacks. The NSCN-IM leaders are already fuming over the UPA’s incorporating a commitment in its Common Minimum Programme that it will, while tackling insurgency, preserve the territorial integrity of North-east states. This is understandable because it puts paid to the demand for a single administrative unit, euphemism for Greater Nagaland, by integrating the contiguous Naga-inhabited areas of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Manipur.



Refusal to compromise

The meeting NDA leaders had with Isak Swu and Muivah for the first time in Delhi in January last year was significant but it ended with no agenda for the second round after the Naga leaders refused to compromise. Several visits abroad by Indian emissary Padmanabhaiah have since failed to cajole them.

For six years now, former Prime Minister Vajpayee gave the impression that he was sympathetic to the Naga cause. On 28 October last year, a well-attended meeting in Kohima that included Nagas from Manipur’s hills was eager to hear straight from the horse’s mouth that Nagas would have their homeland. But Vajpayee dropped a bombshell by leaving the contentious integration issue to be decided by a political consensus of the three states concerned, particularly Nagaland and Manipur, which, was a closed chapter, at least for now. Given the explosive nature of the issue, the hard-boiled politician in Vajpayee refused to commit himself.

Surprisingly, Muivah’s reaction came exactly a month later. “It remains highly questionable and unacceptable”, he said, and asserted that there was a consensus among Nagas and the insistence (on it) “is absolutely irrelevant, rather an attempt at shifting responsibility to switch the on-going process off track”.

The best the UPA can do is to keep the ceasefire alive as it is about the only substantive outcome of the peace process so far even if it is mired in controversy and is causing bad blood between Nagas and Manipuris. The rebel cadres are trying to widen their influence in Manipur hills in much the same manner they did in the aftermath of the September 1964 cease-fire Agreement between the underground and the Centre. Manipur was a mere spectator then because the truce, which covered three of its districts, was signed without the State Government being consulted. The resultant build-up later led to Naga-Kuki ethnic clashes in the mid-1990s. Against this background, the UPA needs to review the truce, particularly its terms and conditions, before it expires on 31 July.



BJP ‘duplicity’

The truce was brokered by former Prime Minister I.K. Gujral and he was not forthcoming while announcing it in Parliament on 25 July 1997. MPs wanted more information but they were told not to persist, giving rise to the suspicion that he was hiding something. Why else would he be so secretive about something the public had every right to know? The truth was out within days of the truce coming into force on 1 August 1997 when rebel Naga leaders claimed it was not confined to Nagaland and that New Delhi had agreed in principle to cover the contiguous Naga-inhabited areas of the three states. Manipuris were outraged, but timely assurance by the Centre that the State’s boundary would not be disturbed saved the situation.

When Vajpayee replaced Gujral, the Naga leaders were so determined to get a definite yes on the truce’s jurisdiction that they followed him to Paris in 1998 and, after a 15-minute meeting, announced that we have already received a clear assurance in this regard (extension of the truce). Unless Vajpayee gave the nod, would the Naga leaders have been so vocal on this issue time and again, much to the BJP leader’s embarrassment?

Vajpayee neither denied nor admitted having given such an assurance, but lawyer and former Mizoram Governor Swaraj Kaushal spilled the beans. Replacing Padmanabhaiah as chief negotiator following the Naga leaders’ refusal to talk to a bureaucrat, Kaushal held the post for only a few weeks and said after his resignation that Vajpayee had, in fact, reneged on his word on the truce’s extension.

The June 2001 Bangkok Agreement with the NSCN-IM on truce extension to three states without territorial limits once again exposed “saffron duplicity”. Eighteen Manipuri protesters were killed in police firing, the Assembly building was set on fire and government property worth lakhs of rupees was destroyed. The NDA backtracked soon enough, but the NSCN-IM did not. Before signing the agreement, the Vajpayee Government employed “devious” methods in that it ensured the collapse of the Samata Party-led coalition Government of Radhabinod Koijam and put Manipur under President’s rule.

The BJP realised rather too late that there could be no easy solution to the Naga problem, so it tried delaying tactics. It proposed setting up a Group of Ministers to look into the issue, but this proposal was not pushed, possibly because of the NSCN-IM objection.

Last year, the BJP came out with yet another “preposterous” idea, loosely called the Padmanabhaiah suggestion, to change Manipur’s map by excluding its Ukhrul and Senapati districts, perhaps as an answer to the Nagas’ demand. Ukhrul because it is Muivah’s home district, and Senapati because the NSCN draws a good number of its cadres from there. All this exemplified the BJP’s “bankruptcy of ideas” on the North-east.

The BJP recognised the uniqueness of the Naga demand purely for its own “selfish” political ends, the objective being to cultivate militants and so find entry into the Nagaland assembly. It did just that and with ease sending as many as seven members. Lest it deny the overt militant support, the NSCN-IM information and publicity wing is on record that it allowed the BJP to open an account in the hope it would take steps to solve their problems.



‘Looming mess’

In a way, the BJP must feel greatly relieved that it no longer has to deal with the NSCN-IM, and happy to have put the UPA in a “looming mess” of its creation. After Vajpayee’s October comment, the NSCN-IM no longer acknowledges the BJP’s “wisdom and sincerity”.

The role of the Naga Hoho (apex body of tribal chiefs), NGOs and church leaders in the peace profess has been far from satisfactory. Having proposed that all warring factions be involved for a meaningful dialogue, they should have stuck to it. The Hoho’s reconciliation drive has hit a wall, with the NSCN-IM showing little interest. It is clear that even if some understanding is reached with the NSCN-IM, the final settlement must be worked out with leaders of all groups. More priority must be accorded to unity and the form of government the NSCN-IM has in mind, instead of this obsession with integration first. A breakthrough is of the essence.

Many may support former Chief Minister Hokishe Sema’s views that integration should not be at the cost of disintegrating other communities and (creating) turmoil in the North-east. There obviously are greater risks of the North-east going up in flames if the Naga administrative set-up demand is accepted rather than keeping things on hold. But the overriding concern is one of peace and all good-intentioned groups must work to that end.