Although the history of accords with disaffected groups in the country is patchy, the agreement signed on Monday between the Narendra Modi government and the Naga insurgents of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (I-M) faction, if successfully followed through, has the potential to influence the course of conversations with other insurgencies in the Northeast.
The accord reached with the group of which Thuingaleng Muivah is the effective leader, since the elderly Isak Chusi-Swu is in a serious condition in hospital, defines a broad framework of understanding, and the details are yet to be filled in. In fact, at the non-fussy signing ceremony in New Delhi, the Prime Minister spoke in effusive sweeps while Mr Muivah appeared restrained and referred to “many challenges” ahead.
He was being real. The happy part, however, is that Mr Muivah continues to abide by the understanding reached in 2012 with the previous Manmohan Singh government of acceding to the Constitution of India, thereby giving up his party’s earlier demand of a sovereign Nagaland which was modified to the demand for “Nagalim”, the accretion to the present state of Nagaland of Naga-predominant districts of the neighbouring Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam.
Such a demand is hardly expected to be accepted by the states concerned. Therefore, for some years, negotiators have been working on the idea of autonomy for the Nagas outside Nagaland, and it is to be seen how this pans out at the practical level since states are prone to resist any constitutional encroachments in their province. But the heartening aspect of the dialogue with the I-M faction is that it is no longer insistent on re-drawing state boundaries in the Northeast. Nevertheless, there is a lot of ground still to be covered.
Perhaps if the states abutting Nagaland are asked to accept a dilution of their powers in order to offer a measure of autonomy to the Naga communities residing within their boundaries, they may be sought to be compensated in some manner. NSCN (I-M) is the largest of the Naga militant groups active, and the acceptance by it of the framework agreement with the Union government does mark a transition, although in recent years the group has faced resistance from its smaller rivals and is no longer politically as influential as it was when talks with it first began when P.V. Narasimha Rao was Prime Minister. Nevertheless, its coming on board in a visible manner is a useful starting point.
The traditional idea of Nagaland has incorporated territories on both sides of the India-Myanmar border, and the NSCN (Khaplang), with which there have been military skirmishes in the recent months, operates from the Myanmar side. This must be sorted out for a stable understanding with the Nagas.
