Muivah: No Compromise on Integration, Sovereignty

“India has realized that the Nagas can’t be suppressed”.

I genuinely believe such a decision should be taken after a thorough deliberation on the present development through a “Special Session of Nagaland Legislative Assembly”, so that it will be politically valid and logical.

“Are we also to realize that we can not chase out the Indian military from our land?”

The assertion, made when Muivah took the microphone for the second time to announce a couple of “important points” he had forgotten to mention in his speech, was clearly aimed at allaying misgivings among Nagas, if any, over the pact. “God is with us”, thundered a voice from behind a bulletproof glass enclosure.

The NSCN (IM), which signed a peace accord with the government of India on August 3 2015 says that it realizes that unless and until the Naga people do not unite there shall be no chance of peace. “I forgot to tell you that I have been hearing that people are spreading lies”.

He said the two core issues – sovereignty and integration of all Naga areas – would never be compromised. “We have understood that, and so we said we’ll try to find out an amicable solution”, he said.

Located at a distance of about 40km from the commercial town of Dimapur and connected by a rickety road, Camp Hebron wore a festive look.

In the atmosphere of acrimony and dissension that prevails on the political firmament today, the sudden signing of an accord between the Centre and the dominant insurgent group in Nagaland, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland- I-M is bound to raise hackles. Those from the NSCN IM later said they were overwhelmed by the numbers.

The chief ministers Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh have already raised concerns over the agreement fearing their territorial integrity might be affected. “I stay in Manipur but I am a Naga and I want to be under a Naga administration”, said S Seth Shatsang, newly-elected President of the All Naga Students’ Association of Manipur, which has about 2.5 lakh members. They also admitted they have their own difficulties and we have to appreciate that. Terms like “pride”, “prestige”, “honour” and “dignity” were used when Muivah spoke at the ceremony, indicating the deep-seated feeling of the Nagas and their larger stake in the political system that recognises their unique culture and history and protecting them from the integrating tendency of the nation-state. The “final agreement” with NSCN-IM would naturally and overwhelmingly favour this group and, at the same time, vacate a vast dissenting space which other groups – most significantly NSCN-K, but also the lesser formations, such as NSCN-Khole Kitovi, NSCN-Reformation, NSCN-Reunification, Naga National Council (NNC), Zeliangrong United Front and Zeliangrong Revolutionary Army, among others – will attempt to occupy.

“We are confident that the framework agreement signed on August 3 would provide for ensuring an inclusive peaceful coexistence of two entities”, he said, while describing the idea of a “shared sovereignty” between the Indians and the Nagas. David Joseph Schwartz, who was an American motivational writer and coach, best known for authoring The Magic of Thinking Big in 1959 said, “Where success is concerned, people are not measured in inches, or pounds, or college degrees, or family background; they are measured by the size of their thinking”. Life is not easy. In the changed context of relative Sino-Indian bonhomie, there was a crying need to appeal to Chinese self-interest on greater economic mutuality of interests and to get Beijing to stop fanning insurgency on the north-eastern borders of India.