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Step 2: In the <body>, place the 
The Naga Peace Deal: A Reconsideration
By Dhanajit Thongam
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 the 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 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 writer is a lecturer of English, Sangai Higher Secondary School, Mantripukhri, Imphal

(Courtesy: The Sangai Express)

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