 "Striking the right chord with Nagaland")
It is being hailed as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Thuingaleng Muivah is being compared to Otto von Bismarck, Chairman Mao, Nelson Mandela, Jesus Christ and sundry other characters from history. After 60 years, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland is ready to rewrite the script for the northeast by signing an accord with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, say Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders severely, and we should not cavil at it. But what is the accord?
The text of the "historic" agreement between the government and the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland - Isak Muivah (NSCN-IM) is a heavily guarded secret. Minister of State for Internal Security Kieren Rijiju says it could take up to three months to make its terms public. Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh has made it clear his government will not accept the accord if it alters the boundaries of Manipur.
"We welcome the peace accord signed between the central government and the NSCN-IM but we will, under no circumstances, accept the peace accord if it disturbs the territorial integrity of Manipur," Singh said in Imphal. Congress President Sonia Gandhi has voiced suspicions of skulduggery and asked why Nagaland Chief Minister TR Zeliang wasn't kept in the loop.
In many ways, this is the crux of the problem. The tug of war over identity and land in the northeast can yield no winners. It can only yield losers.
Changing times
A few years ago, Muivah, when asked to comment on the disillusion of some Nagas with NSCN-IM, had said: "The adversaries would do their best to exploit the situation, to stamp out the revolution. But the people do not easily abandon the cause. India has left no stone unturned to wipe out the Nagas and the force of their nationalism. The policy they are now resorting to is to wear us out by protracted design. But the Nagas know that their salvation does not lie in India."
What has changed since? Very little, say experts. Caught in the midst of a parliamentary logjam, the government needed something, a policy coup it could use to derail a stultifying finger-pointing discourse that was going nowhere. And Muivah needed a political catalyst, given the changes that are taking place in the periphery of India's northeast: the rebalancing of political power in Myanmar, for instance, and in Bangladesh. The conjugation of the stars created a slipstream that both India and NSCN-IM identified accurately.
In the beginning, there was the legendary leader of the Naga Hill Districts, Angami Zapu Phizo. In 1956, he declared his federal independent sovereign government as the "de facto government". Naturally, war between India and Nagaland was inevitable. When leaders of the Phizo group signed the Shillong Peace Accord with the government in 1975, the chance of war grew even stronger.
At that time, two younger associates of Phizo, Isak Chisi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah, were in China, buying arms. When they returned, they denounced the "sellout" by the Phizo group. NSCN was created in Burma in 1980 with the aim of fighting for the independence of Nagaland.
From then on, Burma, now Myanmar, has been central to the politics of the Naga insurgency. The leadership of NSCN at that time, more or less, reflected the dominant tribe mosaic of Nagaland: S S Khaplang belonged to the Burmese Homi tribe, while Muivah was a Tangkhul from Manipur. So deep is inter-tribe animus in Nagaland that no two people walking on the street will look each other in the eye if they are from different tribes. So, suspicions persisted. In 1988, Khaplang and Muivah clashed in a gang war. The movement split between the NSCN-IM and NSCN (Khaplang).
Territories also split. The more peaceable Naga tribes - the Aos, Angamis and the dominant Konyaks - had taken to overground politics. But though they will never admit to this, their strings were pulled either by NSCN-IM or NSCN-K, who appropriated areas for themselves.
The central government, especially the covert agencies, saw these two factions as instruments to influence events both in India and abroad. The Intelligence Bureau (IB) developed links with the Muivah group, while the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), which has assets abroad, worked on the Khaplang group in order to keep tabs on Myanmar.
By 1997, both groups had conceded that the bloodletting was leading them nowhere. The government of India announced a ceasefire. This introduced a new dynamic. The Tangkhul Nagas, represented by Muivah, tried to come overground. They found politics was dominated by other tribes who were reluctant to yield space.
Another round of bloodletting followed, including an attempt on the life of S C Jamir, an Ao and at the time the chief minister of Nagaland, who had an interest in preventing the Tangkhul Nagas from coming overground and was thus supporting the Khaplang group.
The jury is out on the effect the ceasefire has had on the two groups. But in the bigger towns of Nagaland - Mokokchung, Dimapur and Kohima - NSCN-IM became very strong. It also became indisciplined: extortion was nothing new but kidnapping and molestation of women, hitherto unknown, became the order of the day. Complaints began to reach Muivah. Concerned, he visited Nagaland in 2004 and met with a hostile reception. He called a meeting of village elders (they were warned that anyone who didn't attend would be fined Rs 35 lakh).
Never afraid to speak up, the elders confronted Muivah with a list of wrongdoings by his boys. At this closed-door meeting, he apologised and promised the wrongdoings would not be repeated. He shuffled commanders around, and, significantly, took away fund collection duties from the military wing and transferred this power to the civil wing.
Meanwhile, the government continued to talk to him. One of the main interlocutors in this period was former Union home secretary Kantipudi Padmanabhaiah. He says the issue of sovereignty has been settled in the Naga mind but adds that the fine print of the accord needs to be studied. "For NSCN it has been a long war. Times have changed. Younger Naga people are now more integrated with the rest of India. They want the same things that young people elsewhere in India want."
The Myanmar factor
Other things have changed as well. With elections due in Myanmar in November, Aung San Suu Kyii is being wooed - not just by India but also by China. Although Myanmar is still a guided democracy with seats reserved in Parliament for the political party floated by the Army, Chinese backing to the Myanmar Army is undergoing a subtle recalibration.
Writing in the Communist Party of India (Marxist) organ, People's Democracy, retired diplomat M K Bhadrakumar noted: "Suu Kyi arrived in Beijing on June 10 (2015) on her first visit to China, a five-day visit, and by the second day, President Xi Jinping had received her at the Great Hall of the People. By that time, she had talked business with China's foreign policy focused State Councillor Yang Jiechi."
As a western report promptly took note, "That is the kind of all-star line-up usually lined up (by Beijing) for major national leaders, not opposition party figures." The angst is palpable in the western media: Suu Kyi is spinning out of western control.
In the run-up to her arrival in Beijing, the Chinese media had amply signalled that in the Chinese assessment, she is the life force of Myanmar's political future; she is no more to be perceived as a one-dimensional western plaything, and that Chinese diplomacy needs to urgently make the required adjustment to the advent of democratic rule in Myanmar that can be expected following the general election in November.
Obviously this new political dynamic in Myanmar means a recalibration of forces in the north east as well. Anxieties are growing. A new United Liberation Front of Western Southeast Asia has been floated. To be sure, this does not have the acceptability or experience of guerrilla tactics NSCN had. But Khaplang has a loose coalition with this group. How will he and his people be disciplined? Will they revert to the sell-out theme?
Will the Accord - whatever it is - make things better or worse for the northeast? At least there is a piece of paper now. Whether it will work depends on how it is translated on the ground.
The text of the "historic" agreement between the government and the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland - Isak Muivah (NSCN-IM) is a heavily guarded secret. Minister of State for Internal Security Kieren Rijiju says it could take up to three months to make its terms public. Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh has made it clear his government will not accept the accord if it alters the boundaries of Manipur.
"We welcome the peace accord signed between the central government and the NSCN-IM but we will, under no circumstances, accept the peace accord if it disturbs the territorial integrity of Manipur," Singh said in Imphal. Congress President Sonia Gandhi has voiced suspicions of skulduggery and asked why Nagaland Chief Minister TR Zeliang wasn't kept in the loop.
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Thokchom Meinya, Member of Parliament from the Inner Manipur constituency, says the BJP-led government and the NSCN-IM are in "a hurry to settle their problems without realising the harm caused" to other northeast states. "The way the government is trying to keep the content of the accord confidential clearly shows that it might have something that is not in favour of Nagaland's neighbouring states," Meinya says.
In many ways, this is the crux of the problem. The tug of war over identity and land in the northeast can yield no winners. It can only yield losers.
Changing times
A few years ago, Muivah, when asked to comment on the disillusion of some Nagas with NSCN-IM, had said: "The adversaries would do their best to exploit the situation, to stamp out the revolution. But the people do not easily abandon the cause. India has left no stone unturned to wipe out the Nagas and the force of their nationalism. The policy they are now resorting to is to wear us out by protracted design. But the Nagas know that their salvation does not lie in India."
What has changed since? Very little, say experts. Caught in the midst of a parliamentary logjam, the government needed something, a policy coup it could use to derail a stultifying finger-pointing discourse that was going nowhere. And Muivah needed a political catalyst, given the changes that are taking place in the periphery of India's northeast: the rebalancing of political power in Myanmar, for instance, and in Bangladesh. The conjugation of the stars created a slipstream that both India and NSCN-IM identified accurately.
In the beginning, there was the legendary leader of the Naga Hill Districts, Angami Zapu Phizo. In 1956, he declared his federal independent sovereign government as the "de facto government". Naturally, war between India and Nagaland was inevitable. When leaders of the Phizo group signed the Shillong Peace Accord with the government in 1975, the chance of war grew even stronger.
At that time, two younger associates of Phizo, Isak Chisi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah, were in China, buying arms. When they returned, they denounced the "sellout" by the Phizo group. NSCN was created in Burma in 1980 with the aim of fighting for the independence of Nagaland.
From then on, Burma, now Myanmar, has been central to the politics of the Naga insurgency. The leadership of NSCN at that time, more or less, reflected the dominant tribe mosaic of Nagaland: S S Khaplang belonged to the Burmese Homi tribe, while Muivah was a Tangkhul from Manipur. So deep is inter-tribe animus in Nagaland that no two people walking on the street will look each other in the eye if they are from different tribes. So, suspicions persisted. In 1988, Khaplang and Muivah clashed in a gang war. The movement split between the NSCN-IM and NSCN (Khaplang).
Territories also split. The more peaceable Naga tribes - the Aos, Angamis and the dominant Konyaks - had taken to overground politics. But though they will never admit to this, their strings were pulled either by NSCN-IM or NSCN-K, who appropriated areas for themselves.
The central government, especially the covert agencies, saw these two factions as instruments to influence events both in India and abroad. The Intelligence Bureau (IB) developed links with the Muivah group, while the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), which has assets abroad, worked on the Khaplang group in order to keep tabs on Myanmar.
By 1997, both groups had conceded that the bloodletting was leading them nowhere. The government of India announced a ceasefire. This introduced a new dynamic. The Tangkhul Nagas, represented by Muivah, tried to come overground. They found politics was dominated by other tribes who were reluctant to yield space.
Another round of bloodletting followed, including an attempt on the life of S C Jamir, an Ao and at the time the chief minister of Nagaland, who had an interest in preventing the Tangkhul Nagas from coming overground and was thus supporting the Khaplang group.
The jury is out on the effect the ceasefire has had on the two groups. But in the bigger towns of Nagaland - Mokokchung, Dimapur and Kohima - NSCN-IM became very strong. It also became indisciplined: extortion was nothing new but kidnapping and molestation of women, hitherto unknown, became the order of the day. Complaints began to reach Muivah. Concerned, he visited Nagaland in 2004 and met with a hostile reception. He called a meeting of village elders (they were warned that anyone who didn't attend would be fined Rs 35 lakh).
Never afraid to speak up, the elders confronted Muivah with a list of wrongdoings by his boys. At this closed-door meeting, he apologised and promised the wrongdoings would not be repeated. He shuffled commanders around, and, significantly, took away fund collection duties from the military wing and transferred this power to the civil wing.
Meanwhile, the government continued to talk to him. One of the main interlocutors in this period was former Union home secretary Kantipudi Padmanabhaiah. He says the issue of sovereignty has been settled in the Naga mind but adds that the fine print of the accord needs to be studied. "For NSCN it has been a long war. Times have changed. Younger Naga people are now more integrated with the rest of India. They want the same things that young people elsewhere in India want."
The Myanmar factor
Other things have changed as well. With elections due in Myanmar in November, Aung San Suu Kyii is being wooed - not just by India but also by China. Although Myanmar is still a guided democracy with seats reserved in Parliament for the political party floated by the Army, Chinese backing to the Myanmar Army is undergoing a subtle recalibration.
Writing in the Communist Party of India (Marxist) organ, People's Democracy, retired diplomat M K Bhadrakumar noted: "Suu Kyi arrived in Beijing on June 10 (2015) on her first visit to China, a five-day visit, and by the second day, President Xi Jinping had received her at the Great Hall of the People. By that time, she had talked business with China's foreign policy focused State Councillor Yang Jiechi."
As a western report promptly took note, "That is the kind of all-star line-up usually lined up (by Beijing) for major national leaders, not opposition party figures." The angst is palpable in the western media: Suu Kyi is spinning out of western control.
In the run-up to her arrival in Beijing, the Chinese media had amply signalled that in the Chinese assessment, she is the life force of Myanmar's political future; she is no more to be perceived as a one-dimensional western plaything, and that Chinese diplomacy needs to urgently make the required adjustment to the advent of democratic rule in Myanmar that can be expected following the general election in November.
Obviously this new political dynamic in Myanmar means a recalibration of forces in the north east as well. Anxieties are growing. A new United Liberation Front of Western Southeast Asia has been floated. To be sure, this does not have the acceptability or experience of guerrilla tactics NSCN had. But Khaplang has a loose coalition with this group. How will he and his people be disciplined? Will they revert to the sell-out theme?
Will the Accord - whatever it is - make things better or worse for the northeast? At least there is a piece of paper now. Whether it will work depends on how it is translated on the ground.