What Shakespeare
once said that lift is a tale told by an
idiot full of sound and fury signifying
nothing has set in my mind one chilly
morning when I notice in the newspaper that
the NSCN (IM) leadership has set a deadline
to materialize the so-called Nagalim or to
put it in other words unification of Naga
inhabited areas under one administrative
unit. This decision has brought a tremor to
me and suddenly forced me to look at the
peace process afresh not as one who does not
belong to the community in question but as a
Manipuri who grew up in a multi-ethnic
society.
How it began:
One of the most interesting events in
North-East India in the last decade of the
last century is the sudden budding of the
Naga peace deal with the leadership of NSCN
(IM) coming to the negotiation table from
the nook and crannies of the jungles of the
region. The peace process began without
proper agenda being disclosed and the
sanctity of the process towards solving the
long outstanding issues has been thus
questioned from time to time since then. But
it continued and continued till date without
any positive result seen so far. And yet the
NSCN (IM) leadership has set the fifteenth
day of January or the month of January by
the latest to meet their demand of Nagalim
or greater Nagaland as we call it.
What the history says:
Uniqueness of Naga history and sovereignty
is the cliché of NSCN (IM) leaders. The
Nagas in the remote past lived in small
villages under their own administration with
a head of each village without any outside
force. True. But it is not for Nagas only;
there are other tribes who lived in the
similar tradition with the diaspora taking
place within Manipur with the passage of
time and the kings of Manipur losing
administrative control owing to lack of
administrative skills and the social
conditions then. Now the question is whether
a village or a group of villages in India
can claim sovereignty because its
administration was once carried out on its
own without any external force. Many more
such questions loom across one’s head the
moment he thinks of the Naga history and
sovereignty.
A demographic question:
What NSCN (IM) wants is, apart from
sovereignty, the unification of the Naga
inhabited areas under one administrative
unit. In such a case, what will be the fate
of those non-Naga tribes living in the four
hill districts of Manipur who share about
half the total land area of the districts in
question? What is a Naga inhabited area? Is
NSCN (IM) the sole authority that can
demarcate the areas of land that belong to
different communities in the hills of
Manipur?
Another unforgettable event that has
drastically changed the demography of
Manipur is the communal violence that burned
the hills of Manipur in the early nineties
of the last century which has forced many
communities to take the name ‘Naga’ only to
find shelter under one Naga outfit which is
and was, perhaps, the strongest one now and
then in the North-East. Only this outfit in
question may have the best statistical data
of the number of innocent people killed and
the houses burnt to debris. Many were forced
to leave their villages and the villages
thus left are now covered by the proposed
Nagalim. One may wonder whether the violence
was pre-planned. While thousands were killed
on one side of the effect, the other side
saw a mushrooming of smaller militant groups
to crisscross the already troubled State of
Manipur with demands like homeland,
autonomy, etc.
A political question:
Independence or sovereignty is such a
dynamic term that one may find its different
interpretations in different books according
to time, place and social set-up of the
state or country concerned. The NSCN (IM)
leadership, I think, has also learned it as
its think-tank has, in recent past, spelt it
out that sovereignty as the outfit demands
has to be looked into anew in the wake of
the political developments seen in India and
the world. It gives a green signal to the
possibility of a non-sovereign Nagalim State
within India. Once the sovereignty demand is
found missing in the agenda of the peace
talk, the demand for Nagalim will be
something that can be discussed within the
framework of Indian constitution.
Gain or loss:
In the event of the birth of a Nagalim
State, what the people of this state will
gain is only the name Nagalim — nothing more
nothing less. It will be too presumptuous to
think that a Nagalim State will bring
dignity and development within a fortnight
after its emergence. Look at the present
state of Nagaland which had got statehood a
decade before Manipur got the same place in
the political map of India. In education,
health, economy, communications, employment,
rural development, industry, public security
and even games and sports— what has this
state gained more than Manipur or any of the
sister States of the region? A Nagalim state
may give the seat of governance to the
leaders of the outfit while the general Naga
people will gain nothing but the name of a
new State which will remind one of the
saying — old wine in new bottle. Nagas will
lose nothing while living in Manipur nor
will they gain anything if they live in a
State called Nagalim.
Political poly tricks:
Along with all this that has brought us all
to reverie comes the power mania of the Naga
politicians which makes the voice of people
still before it reaches the political centre
stage of lndia. I remember a Naga MLA once
saying that he is a Naga first and an MLA of
Manipur second. The political mindset of
this MLA suggests that he will definitely
support to break Manipur if it serves the
cause of the Nagas. Indeed what has been
more interesting is the background of such
politicians who were not elected by the Naga
people but selected by some hidden
organizations by virtue of their having arms
to force the people to stay indoors on the
day of the elections. Those elected thus
have all become key players in giving a new
shape to the present Naga peace process
while sitting somewhere in Imphal or Delhi.
One may remember the memorandum of the Naga
MP’s and MLA’s of Manipur submitted to the
Prime Minister demanding unification of Naga
inhabited areas of Manipur. I suspect
whether what they are saying here and there
is first spelt out to them by the
organization which was instrumental in
giving their way to the State Assembly or
Parliament.
A humble prayer:
Now that we hear news of a possible deadlock
in the peace process here and there, yet our
humble prayer is that the dialogue process
continues at least to avoid another era of
violence. Let it be not a tale told by an
idiot as in the case of an overambitious
Shakespearean character called Macbeth.
*** The
Article was written during the earlier part
of 2006
*** The writer is a lecturer of English,
Sangai Higher Secondary School, Mantripukhri |
