Conclusion of naga hills
Answers
Having failed to prevent the partition of the British India into India
and Pakistan in 1947, the Indian nationalist elite, who took over
political power from the British, aspired to build up a strong and
united nation-state in India. As a part of its nation-building effort,
the post-colonial Indian state sought to integrate even the
backward tribal communities living in the so-called ‘excluded’ and
‘partially excluded’ areas of British India into the Indian Union.1
Through a carrot and stick policy, the Indian state tried to ensure
that majority of indigenous ethnic communities living in the
Northeast join the Indian federation. The Nagas, considered by the
colonial rulers as backward tribes, however resisted the
assimilative policies of the Indian state. By invoking the right to
self-determination on the basis of their `distinct’ ethnic identity and
`unique’ history, the Nagas defied the Indian state that sought to
make them a constituent part of the post-colonial Indian Union.
Although they resorted to peaceful forms of protest initially, with
the increase in state repression, the Nagas gradually took to arms
to fight for independence from the Indian Union.
In the initial years the Indian political leaders expected that
the Naga revolt would be easily suppressed by the Indian armed
forces and that the Nagas, like other ethnic communities in the
Northeast, would accept India's sovereignty in course of time. But
contrary to expectations, the Naga struggle raged for more than
four decades, gradually miring the entire region in insurgency and
wars of identity. Realizing the limitations of their counter-
insurgency strategy in the Naga Hills, the Indian government
effected a major policy-shift towards the Naga insurgency in 1990s and made several attempts to negotiate peace with the insurgent
groups. It concluded cease-fire agreements with Isak-Muivah (IM)
faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN) in the
year 1997 and later negotiated a similar cease-fire agreement with
Khaplang faction of NSCN in 2001. At the time of writing this
paper, negotiations were taking place between the government of
India and the NSCN (IM) leadership to seek a mutually acceptable
solution to the decades-old Naga problem. At the background of
the negotiations, however, there simmers a lurking fear that the
talks may end up in a deadlock like they did before. Among others,
the continuation of inter-tribal and inter-group rivalries among the
Nagas and the hostile attitude of neighboring ethnic communities
and state governments in the region to the extension of Naga cease-
fire agreement to areas beyond Nagaland do pose challenges to the
peaceful resolution of the Naga problem. However, because of
major changes in some of the parameters that had adversely
affected the earlier peace efforts, the prospects of a pragmatic and
productive negotiation between the Indian government and the
Naga leaders appear to be brighter at the moment than anytime
before. The present paper examines the causes for the failure of
earlier initiatives and explores the possible solutions for resolving
the contentious issues that still stand in the way of a peaceful
settlement of the long-running ‘India-Naga’ problem.