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Editorials >> Aug 05

Internal affairs

A story in the Panchatantra goes something like this. “A farmer was in two minds over which task to take up first. Fencing his farm to keep off the stray cattle or clearing the weeds within which are threatening his standing crop. So he goes to a wise man who advised him to first fence his farm to keep out the stray cattle on the ground that keeping the external forces out of bay is more important because domestic problems can be solved only after ensuring that threat of the external enemy is effectively neutralized.”

While we understand the wisdom behind the advice of the wise man in the panchatantra it would also serve us right to remember that more often than not it is the elements within which have proved to be more lethal and more dangerous than the external adversaries. So from the Biblical Judas Iscariot to the Shakespearean Brutus to our Palace intrigues during the rule of the Maharajas, it is the internal issues which have proved more dangerous and more lethal.

It is this very factor that is haunting the Naga people today. So even as some of the Naga intellectuals see the joint communiqué issued and signed by the NSCN (IM) leadership and the Government emissary K Padmanabhaiah, as a major breakthrough in the peace process it is also to be seen that the growing polarization of views between the NSCN (IM) and NSCN (K) and the NNC may just prove to be the most difficult hurdle lying before the Naga society.

The NSCN (K) had even gone to the extent of stating that reconciliation amongst the Naga family can become a reality when a particular tribe from Manipur is expelled from the Naga family. Though the identity of the particular tribe was not mentioned in clear cut terms no one would have missed out which particular tribe the Khaplang faction was referring to. Again the NNC factor, now under the leadership of the daughter of the late AZ Phizo, Adino Phizo cannot be written away and with the daughter of the redoubtable pioneering leader of the Naga movement questioning the reconciliation movement spearheaded by the Naga Hoho, the task before the Naga people to chart out a formula acceptable to all is going to need some sincere, Herculean task.

Over the years, since the Naga rebels took up the bush war against the Indian authority demanding the inalienable rights, a lot of blood has been shed and it would not be exaggerating things to say that most of the blood were shed as a fall out amongst the Naga people. Since the Shillong Accord was signed in 1975, opposing viewpoints have gripped the Naga movement and matters took a turn for the worst when the undivided NSCN broke into two factions in 1988. The development since then is there for all to see and it is with the purpose to stop the internecine war between the warring groups that the apex body of the Naga people, the Naga Hoho, launched the reconciliation drive.

That the Naga Hoho is determined to organize a National Prayer on August 9 as part of its reconciliation drive is significant as the need to bridge the differences and end the hostilities between the NSCN (IM) and the NSCN (K) has never been so acutely felt as now. Whether the exercise of the Naga Hoho will prove fruitful or not is unclear but it is significant that at least the apex body of the Naga people has taken it upon themselves to give the clarion call for unity and an end to hostility and blood shed.

It is also our fervent hope that civil societies in Manipur also take up efforts in right earnest to restore the lost confidence between the hill and valley people. Such is the historical, social and political reality of the North-East, particularly Manipur, that no issue can be viewed in isolation. In addressing the internal issues of the Naga people, the interest and aspirations of the other communities of the North-East have to be taken into account. It is with this broader perspective and vision that the Naga Hoho should go about with their reconciliation efforts and only then will peace, that elusive word in this region, become a reality.  

(Courtesy: The Sangai Express)