On Nagaland, there is at least an illusion of movement. The Centre, on Monday evening, claimed to have signed a “historic peace accord” that it said would end six decades of insurgency and solve the “Naga political issue”. The formal statement put out by the government spoke of "an honourable settlement" reached with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland’s Isak-Muivah faction within the terms of a "framework agreement", and added that its "details and execution plan will be released shortly."
The contours of the agreement are not yet clear, but surely the government is aware that any accord signed with just one faction of a long and variegated movement would mean an incomplete peace?
Naga nationalism, the animating impulse of one of the oldest insurgencies in the country, entered a new phase with the formation of the NSCN around 1980. It was meant to be a broad coalition of Naga groups united in their demand for “Nagalim” or “Greater Nagaland”. This was to be an ethnic homeland spread out over Naga-dominated regions in the surrounding states, Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, as well as parts of Myanmar.
But like other insurgencies in the North East, the Naga movement was volatile, challenged from within by clan rivalries and constantly splintering into new factions. In 1988, it split into the Khaplang and Isak-Muivah groups. In 2007, another group broke away from the NSCN (Isak-Muivah) to become the Unification faction. In 2011, the Khole-Kitovi group seceded from the Khaplang faction. In April this year, the Reformation faction was carved out of the Khaplang unit.
The elephant in the room: NSCN (Khaplang)
The Centre played to the implacable rivalries that exist between most groups, ignoring one and talking to the other. Over the last 18 years, successive governments have engaged with the Isak-Muivah faction, essentially a group of Tangkhul Nagas, under ceasefire since 1997. Anxious not to alienate this group, the Centre did not acknowledge the elephant in the room, NSCN (Khaplang), which had also signed a ceasefire in 2001.
Fourteen years of relative quiet were wasted by the Centre, as the Khaplang faction, smarting at the neglect and operating from Myanmar, drew closer to Naypyidaw. It signed a ceasefire with the Myanmar army, agreed not to support rebels outfits leading insurrections there and was even allowed to set up a government-in-exile. This April, SS Khaplang, leader of the faction, walked out of the ceasefire, refused to negotiate with the Indian government and took up arms again. A new cycle of violence has started in the North East since March, coming to a head with June’s deadly ambush, where militants of the NSCN (Khaplang) killed 18 army personnel in Manipur.
Perhaps goaded by such incidents, Modi-led National Democratic Alliance government has deepened the Centre’s schizophrenic approach to the Naga issue. In June, the army went all guns blazing into Myanmar to root out NSCN (Khaplang) camps there and send out the signal that it would “strike at a place and at a time of its choosing”. This muscular rhetoric is now accompanied by talks of a peace accord with the Isak-Muivah faction.
After the party
When it comes to the North East, the Narendra Modi government has been high on optics. The prime minister calls it a vital link to his foreign policy in the East, hoping to integrate it with the channels of trade and investment flowing in from that direction. When the agreement was announced on Monday, it was accompanied by warm accolades for Naga culture and resilience. For a region that has always felt its distance from Delhi, these overtures could be cause for a new optimism.
But unless the government broadens its engagement, such an agreement will mean little beyond the symbolism. The “Naga people” are not constituted by only the NSCN (Isak-Muivah) or even the just the many factions of the NSCN. They include a complex of voices, including civil society formations, student bodies, groups that found political expression through democratic processes and radical outfits that cannot reconcile with the state. Can the accord articulate the various impulses of all these strands to formulate an inclusive peace?
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The contours of the agreement are not yet clear, but surely the government is aware that any accord signed with just one faction of a long and variegated movement would mean an incomplete peace?
Naga nationalism, the animating impulse of one of the oldest insurgencies in the country, entered a new phase with the formation of the NSCN around 1980. It was meant to be a broad coalition of Naga groups united in their demand for “Nagalim” or “Greater Nagaland”. This was to be an ethnic homeland spread out over Naga-dominated regions in the surrounding states, Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, as well as parts of Myanmar.
But like other insurgencies in the North East, the Naga movement was volatile, challenged from within by clan rivalries and constantly splintering into new factions. In 1988, it split into the Khaplang and Isak-Muivah groups. In 2007, another group broke away from the NSCN (Isak-Muivah) to become the Unification faction. In 2011, the Khole-Kitovi group seceded from the Khaplang faction. In April this year, the Reformation faction was carved out of the Khaplang unit.
The elephant in the room: NSCN (Khaplang)
The Centre played to the implacable rivalries that exist between most groups, ignoring one and talking to the other. Over the last 18 years, successive governments have engaged with the Isak-Muivah faction, essentially a group of Tangkhul Nagas, under ceasefire since 1997. Anxious not to alienate this group, the Centre did not acknowledge the elephant in the room, NSCN (Khaplang), which had also signed a ceasefire in 2001.
Fourteen years of relative quiet were wasted by the Centre, as the Khaplang faction, smarting at the neglect and operating from Myanmar, drew closer to Naypyidaw. It signed a ceasefire with the Myanmar army, agreed not to support rebels outfits leading insurrections there and was even allowed to set up a government-in-exile. This April, SS Khaplang, leader of the faction, walked out of the ceasefire, refused to negotiate with the Indian government and took up arms again. A new cycle of violence has started in the North East since March, coming to a head with June’s deadly ambush, where militants of the NSCN (Khaplang) killed 18 army personnel in Manipur.
Perhaps goaded by such incidents, Modi-led National Democratic Alliance government has deepened the Centre’s schizophrenic approach to the Naga issue. In June, the army went all guns blazing into Myanmar to root out NSCN (Khaplang) camps there and send out the signal that it would “strike at a place and at a time of its choosing”. This muscular rhetoric is now accompanied by talks of a peace accord with the Isak-Muivah faction.
After the party
When it comes to the North East, the Narendra Modi government has been high on optics. The prime minister calls it a vital link to his foreign policy in the East, hoping to integrate it with the channels of trade and investment flowing in from that direction. When the agreement was announced on Monday, it was accompanied by warm accolades for Naga culture and resilience. For a region that has always felt its distance from Delhi, these overtures could be cause for a new optimism.
But unless the government broadens its engagement, such an agreement will mean little beyond the symbolism. The “Naga people” are not constituted by only the NSCN (Isak-Muivah) or even the just the many factions of the NSCN. They include a complex of voices, including civil society formations, student bodies, groups that found political expression through democratic processes and radical outfits that cannot reconcile with the state. Can the accord articulate the various impulses of all these strands to formulate an inclusive peace?
