Aditi Phadnis: Muivah's masterplan

PLAIN POLITICS

Even Thuingaleng Muivah won't find it easy to deliver a deal with Nagaland.

The vote of all Indians for the Indian of the Year must surely go to Thuingaleng Muivah, master politician of Nagaland, leader of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), currently in New Delhi for talks with the Government of India for a Nagalim (Greater Nagaland to be carved out of the present state, four districts of Manipur, and parts of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh).

Why Muivah? Here's why. How many leaders of subversive movements can control their party and organisation from the shores of another country? How many can keep a leadership challenge successfully at bay for at least two decades by manipulating the second rung leadership as consummately as Muivah has done? And how many leaders can threaten the Government of India with the theory that Nagalim is a viable homogeneous entity, successfully obfuscating the fact that all Naga tribes "" no matter how small in number "" are fiercely independent, deeply clannish and owe primary loyalty to their tribe?

Even as the groundwork is being done for Nagaland to be notified in the Constitution as a variant of Jammu and Kashmir through an arrangement where Nagaland will have special rights under Article 371(a), it is clear that only Muivah can deliver a deal with Nagaland. If India fails this time, the guns will begin booming again and this time, it will be in all North East. This is because though he may not admit it, things could be slipping out of Muivah's control.

When the legendary leader of the Naga Hill Districts, Zaphu Phizo, in 1956, declared his federal independent sovereign Government as the "de facto Government", war between India and Nagaland was inevitable. When leaders of the Phizo group signed the Shillong Peace Accord with the government in 1975, war between the groups was inevitable. 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. The Nagaland National Socialist Council (NSCN) was created in Burma in 1980 with the aim of fighting for an independent country of Nagaland.

The leadership of the NSCN at that time, more or less, reflected the dominant tribe mosaic of Nagaland "" SS Khaplang, belonging to the Burmese Homi tribe, was a colleague and Muivah was a Tangkhul from Manipur. So deep is inter-tribe animus in Nagaland that no two people walking on the street will look the other in the eye if they are from different tribes. So suspicions persisted. In 1988, Khaplang invited Muivah and his boys ostensibly to dinner but ambushed them, resulting in wiping out many of Muivah's military advisors including members of the family. Muivah's group retaliated. The movement split between the NSCN (Isaak-Muivah) and NSCN (Khaplang).

Territories also split. The more peaceable Naga tribes "" the Aos, the Angamis, the HoHo and the dominant Konyaks "" had taken to overground politics. But though they will never admit this, their strings were pulled either by the IM or the K group, who designated areas for themselves. The Central government, especially covert agencies, saw these IM and K as instruments to influence events both in India and abroad. At this point, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) is propping up the Muivah group while the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), which has assets abroad, is shoring up 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 loath to yield space. Another round of bloodletting followed, including an attempt on the life of SC Jamir, an Ao and at the time, 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 still out on the effect the ceasefire has had on the two NSCN groups. But in the bigger towns of Nagaland "" Mokokchung, Dimapur and Kohima "" the IM group became very strong. They also became undisciplined: kidnapping, extortion 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 (the IM had warned that anyone who didn't attend would be fined Rs 35 lakh). Never afraid to speak up, the elders confronted him with lists of wrongdoing by his boys. At this closed-doors meeting, he apologised to those the NSCN was supposed to govern and promised wrong-doings 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. The move has created its own tensions and if the NSCN splits again, one reason will be this.

Now he's in town again for a consolidation mission. In August this year, the Nagaland government passed an order permitting all schools in Manipur which wanted to be accredited to the Nagaland Secondary Education Board to be given this facility. Behind this seemingly innocent move there was a strategy "" to give substance to the notion of Nagalim. Schools in the four controversial districts of Manipur are in a quandary: if they refuse to be accredited, they stand to lose revenue; if they agree, the Manipuris will chase them with guns. Education and health are the two most deeply-felt deficits in Nagaland.

Muivah has to guard his flanks. Aspiring for his place are three of his commanders: "Gen" VS Atem, Emissary of Muivah in Nagaland, who till three years ago was the NSCN (IM)'s "Commander in Chief"; "Home Minister" Rai Singh, who is a Tangkhul like Muivah and a toughie if there ever was one; and Hansie Tangkhul, the present "Commander in Chief" of the NSCN (IM). He plays with them, and through them, with Nagaland society and politics.

It is still possible for the Centre to talk to Muivah. But it will be hard to hold a dialogue with the Khaplang group, which has the Home Ministry's tacit backing to put pressure on Muivah and speed up the talks. It will be harder still to get any of Muivah's lieutenants to listen. Peace and governance will take time to return to Nagaland. But the best time to put the process in motion is now.