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The Indo - Naga Ceasefire Agreement
By Waikhom Damodar Singh
The cause of the prolonged ‘unrest’ in the North-eastern region, particularly in Manipur has been due to the ' Naga insurgency'. Insurgency is defined as politics with bloodshed.
The Nagas of Nagaland began their demand of a
sovereign independent state outside the dominion of India in a non-violent manner, but later turned it into a
bloody movement by taking up arms against the Government of Assam (under whom Nagaland was a mere district) and the Government of India as the last resort for achieving their avowed goal.
The ' cradle ' of their movement for independence may perhaps be traced to the old Naga club founded in Kohima and Mokokchung towns as far back as year 1918 which served initially only as a 'form' for 'social activities for the Naga community', particularly the Naga Government officials living in the above mentioned towns.
Then it was in the year 1945 that the then Deputy Commissioner of the Naga Hills District , Charles Pawsey , ICS had established a Tribal Council known as the Naga Hills Districts Tribal Council to unite the Nagas of the districts for the reconstruction works of the devastations left by World War II, particularly in Kohima town where one of the most severe of battles was fought between the columns of the Allied Forces of the 14th Army of General Slim under 33 Corp commanded by Lt. General MGN Stopford and of the Japanese of the 15th Army of General Mutaguchi under 31 Division commanded by Lt. General Sato who, at the end lost the battle.
This setting up of the Naga Hills District Council was , in fact the forerunner of the so called Naga National Council, which have been actually an organization converted from the Naga Club established earlier. It is this Naga political organization that had been finally converted into the set of an armed Revolutionary Government.
The primary objectives of the district tribal council so established by Pawsey were purely for the purpose of rendering some autonomy for the Naga hill district for the development of the welfare of the Nagas for whom he had great admiration. In fact, there has already been a secret plan worked out by the British Government known as ' Coupland Plan’ (worked out initially by Sir Reginald Coupland, a former Governor of erstwhile greater Assam) for carving out a separate area inhabited by the Naga tribes of India and adjoining areas of Burma which was to continue to be under the British rule even after India had attained her independence which they had no more illusions of denying it to the Indians , especially after the end of World War II. To have such a set up was very much desirable for the British as it would serve as a 'Buffer State' for the continuation of their foothold in the region.
Inspite of the simple objectives of the Naga Tribal Council , later on known as the Naga National Council , there came about a change in the attitudes of the Nagas as soon as A. Zaphu Phizo joined them , who was an Angami born in Khonoma village near Kohima ( called as Thibomei by the Meiteis earlier ) in the year 1900. He joined the Naga organization as an active leader in 1946 after having lived in Burma since 1933. While in Burma in 1942 he joined the Indian National Army under Subhas Chandra Bose as a corporal.
Leaning more towards the ' extremism' preferred by Phizo, the Nagas issued a bold declaration in June 1947 to the effect that the Naga Hills should cease to be a part of India on gaining her independence, perhaps fully aware of the secret plan brewing up by the British or even with their connivance and secret instigations, as there had already been, as described above, behind - the - scenes discussions and, on the part of the authorities (the British element in the Indian Government as well as the secretary of State for India in London), attempts to work out a future for the Nagas separate from India, as the British were always conscious of the Naga wishes, expressed as long ago as 1929 on the occasion of the visit to Kohima of the Simmon Commission, which had come to India to study the ground for the constitutional reforms which the Indian people had been demanding and the British had already decided to grant it soon. On that occasion the Nagas had asked that they should be excluded from the scope of the reforms and that they be kept under the direct British administration so that they may be saved from being submerged by the people of the plains - ' you are the only people who have ever conquered us and when you go we should not be left to the mercy of the Indian babus ' - these were the very words of strong sentiments expressed by the Naga leaders to the Simmon Commission.
Then in 1947 just on the eve of India getting her independence Phizo led a delegation to Delhi to propose an independent status for the Naga Hills. As a result of the visit the newly appointed first Indian Governor of Assam, Sir Akbar Hydari one of the most brilliant Muslims of the Indian Civil Service from a noble and distinguished Hyderabad family and a person hand-picked by the British to fill the Governor's seat visited Kohima and held discussions covering a week's period with the Nagas and with Pawsey and as an outcome of the negotiated deal, a 9-point memorandum which embodies the basic safeguard of the Nagas was drawn out but even this measure had failed to cool down the secessionist feelings of the Nagas. After Kohima Sir Akbar Hydari also visited Imphal as a most honored guest of the King of Manipur, Maharaj Bodhchandra Singh but, sadly enough, he died suddenly while halting at Waikhong Dak Bungalow in the late evening during a rural sight-seeing outing program from cardiac arrest and his cremation was carried out next day at the royal cremation premises in the present Fort Kangla with full State honors.
During the period between 1947 and 1956, Phizo tried several times to convince the Governments both in Assam and Delhi, of the earnestness of the Naga claim - to show genuineness of this. Phizo even conducted 'the unofficial plebiscite' by collecting signatures and thumb impressions house to house from May to August in 1951 and according to it he claimed that over 99% of the people of the Naga hills district voted for complete independence from India. However, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru did not at all approve the move of the Naga headed by Phizo. The Prime Minister declared his 'disapproval' in the Lok Sabha by describing that the Naga demand is 'unwise, impracticable and unacceptable'.
Thus having no other alternative the Nagas of the Naga Hills proclaimed their Federal Independent Sovereign Government as a 'de facto Government' at Phensinyu village in the Rengma Naga area on March 22, 1956 according to their own Constitution adopted and signed by the head of the State (Kedhage), the President and the Commander-in-Chief of the Army. Kilonsers (Ministers), Tatar (Member of Parliament- Tatars Hoho). Ahngs (Governors) etc. were appointed. The Naga Youth Movement Organization and the Naga Women's Society were activated. The Naga National Flag, bearing red, green and white color with three blue stars was hoisted with great traditional ceremony and feasting.
Then soon followed wide spread violence on a planned scale by the heavily armed Nagas of the so called Naga Army who later on came to be known as Naga Hostiles. In order to check the outburst of insurgency in an unassuming proportion, the Indian Army was immediately called in who appropriately dealt with the armed uprising and brought the situation under control. The stern action taken by the Indian Army forced many revolutionary Nagas to go underground, Phizo himself escaped through the Mikir Hills and Sylhet (erstwhile East Pakistan) and landed in London and lived under the care of one Reverend Michael Scott as an English citizen till he died there. Rev. Michael Scott, a Christian Missionary who was working in the Naga Hills took an active part in instigating the Nagas in demanding a separate independent State of their own.
The subversive activities of the Naga hostiles then spread in alarming proportion over the areas of the hill districts of Manipur, namely, Mao, Ukhrul, Tamenglong and later on of Assam and Arunachal. However, a change in the attitude of the Naga moderates led by Dr. Imkongliba Ao, P. Shilu Ao, Jasokie Angami etc. took place, in that, they preferred to resolve the issue in a peaceful manner by immediately giving up violent activities and their original plan and claim of secession from India, and therefore an agreement was soon arrived at in the larger interest of the Naga people of the Naga Hills who underwent many unimaginable and untold suffering brought by the insurgency.
The Government of India therefore granted the Naga Hills District to the status of another full -fledged State (the 16th) of the Union which came into existence wef December 1, 1963 as was inaugurated by SVP Radhakrishnan, the former President of India.
Thus, in due course of time the flame of insurgency in Nagaland had died down to some extent but it continued to burn rather more vigorously and on a much wider scale affecting large areas of the States of Manipur, Assam and Arunachal, particularly after the emergence of a new group of Naga insurgents under the name, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Nagalim), a group who dissented and opposed the Shillong peace-accord signed in the year 1970. The move for the truce was initiated by the then Governor of Assam, Manipur and Nagaland, Lalan Prasad Singh. The goal of determination of the new insurgent group was also to carry out armed activities till they achieve their independence as a fully independent Sovereign Naga State. Thus, hostilities between the new group of insurgents so formed under Isaac Chishi Swu, as its President and Thuingaleng Muivah as its General Secretary and the armed forces of the Government of India resumed and continued. In the meantime another faction of the NSCN under one Khaplang was also formed and their hostile activities continued against the Government for the same cause. In the valley areas of Manipur and Assam many insurgent groups also had been formed with the help of the NSCN, in particular the NSCN (IM).
However, a result of meetings having taken place between the former Prime Minister, Deve Gowda and Inder Kumar Gujral and Issak Swu and Th Muivah somewhere in Geneva in 1996 the hostilities between the Government of India and the NSCN (IM) group were suspended for a period of 4 years which commenced from January 1, 1997 to enable both the parties to have a peace-talk for settling the issue amicably. However nothing much moved ahead in this direction during the period though the term of the ceasefire had ended on July 31, 2001 and therefore a fresh term of truce to cover another period of one year from August 1, 2001, this time it being called as 'Indo- Naga Ceasefire Agreement without territorial limits' was signed at Bangkok (also called Krung Thep, pronounced as Kroong tepp), capital of Thailand by K. Padmanabhaiah, on behalf of the Government of India and Th Muivah, as the secretary of the NSCN (IM) on June 14, 2001. The sole aim of signing such a modified form of ceasefire agreement, as stated and strongly defended in its favor by LK Advani, the Union Home Minister of India, is to diffuse the unrest and to bring everlasting peace in the North-Eastern region. But quite the contrary to that, unrest of a more serious nature erupted immediately after the ceasefire agreement became known to the people by June 15, 2001, particularly in Imphal were violence of the most serious nature broke out on June 18, 2001 as a result of which lives of many precious young men were lost with many seriously injured including women due to firing by the CRPF.
Government properties including the State Assembly and many other buildings worth crores of rupees were also completely burnt down and reduced to ashes by the frenzied actions of the irate mobs who thronged in thousands from all the directions of the Imphal city overpowering the massive and well equipped police forces pasted at all the places to enforce prohibitory orders of section 144 CRPF issued previously. The most dreadful situation of the day was however brought under control but it had remained very tense on the following days and the people of the Imphal valley as a whole most stubbornly continued their demand for the immediate withdrawal of the ceasefire extension from the areas of Manipur by resorting to wide spread dharnas, hunger strikes, mass processions by all sections of the people, including even children and aged-ones who even defied the curfew imposed by the State Government both during the day and night.
The events which had happened in those tumultuous days in the valley areas of Manipur as a result of the declaration of the Indo-Naga ceasefire agreement without territorial limits as affected from June 14, 2001 have been and were really of most serious and unprecedented nature in the history of Manipur.
Why are the majority of the people of Manipur against the extension of the ceasefire in the four hill districts of Manipur viz, Tamenglong, Senapati, Ukhrul and Chandel? It is not that they are against the good spirit of the agreement aimed at establishing an everlasting peace in the areas but it is very much against the hidden and insincere 'motive' of the Naga parties for forcibly annexing a large chunk of the 'age-old' territories of Manipur thereby reducing her to a very diminutive State to which the Government of India, it appeared, have given, most unfortunately, their due approval secretly.
In this regard recall may be made of the decisions that had already been taken very firmly by the then Prime Minister of India, late Jawaharlal Nehru and conveyed to the Naga delegation who met him in 1960 and who had put great pressure on him for the inclusion of the four hill districts of Manipur as parts of Nagaland. Nehru strongly opposed the demand put up by the delegation by saying that though under Article 3 of the Indian Constitution the areas of two or more State or State may be altered i.e. either increased or diminished the Central Government is actually not in the position to favor any particular State or States in this matter unless the concerned or to be affected States (i.e. the Governments) 'mutually agree' to do so. Moreover, the sole basis of the reorganization of the territories of the State that may take place as permissible under the provision of Article 3 of the Constitution has to be purely on the basis of 'administrative convenience' and not 'merely' and 'whimsically' on 'communal or religious' basis.
The withdrawal of the ceasefire extension from the areas of Manipur done by the Government of India subsequently had somehow subsided the 'great turmoil' of unprecedented nature that took place in the Imphal valley last year but the people are still not completely free from being highly 'skeptical'. particularly in view of the presently going-on talks between the representatives of the Government of India and the NSCN (IM) at Bangkok for the extension of the ceasefire agreement for another term from August 01, 2002 as there has already come up some indications of some insincere moves again.
In the fitness of things a decision must now be, therefore, taken immediately in the Parliament and to incorporate, at least, in the provisions of the Constitution under Article 371, if Article 3 is not amended, to assure that under no circumstance should the Government of India take any step or hasty decision to disintegrate further the 'age-old' territories of Manipur which has, most unfortunately, already lost a very large chunk of it simply for the fulfillment of the appeasing policies adopted under duress and without any of her due consents.
(Courtesy: The Sangai Express)
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