South Asia Terrorism Portal
Nagaland: A Very Long War Ends? Ajai Sahni Editor, SAIR; Executive Director, Institute for Conflict Management
"There will be no more fighting between Indians and Nagas". With these words, Isak Chisi Swu, the Chairman of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim - Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM), declared that India's longest insurgency - extending over five decades - was approaching an end, and that a 'peaceful settlement' of this thorny problem was within sight in the present phase of 'unconditional talks' at Delhi. The present negotiations are the first to be held on Indian soil in a peace process which commenced with the declaration of a ceasefire in 1997. While the hard core of negotiations on substantive issues will be addressed through the current week, the Delhi talks have already achieved much that was unprecedented. For one thing, the delegation of Naga rebels, including Swu and the NSCN-IM's General Secretary, Thuingaling Muivah, agreed to travel to India on Indian passports. After discussions with India's Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, as well as other leaders, both in the ruling coalition and the opposition parties, their public pronouncements have reflected little of the intransigence and hostility of the past, and Swu has emphasised the 'accommodative spirit' on both sides of the present negotiations. Significantly, the insurgent group has given an assurance that it would neither participate nor interfere in the impending Legislative Assembly elections in Nagaland, scheduled for February 26, 2003. Nevertheless, Swu has been explicit that the NSCN-IM has not abandoned its demand for 'self-determination', and has also reiterated the position that 'there is no greater or smaller Nagaland', and that Nagaland is 'the place of their (Nagas') natural habitation and they are asking for nothing more and nothing less.' This position is irreconcilable with that of the other States of India's Northeast that share boundaries with Nagaland, and who reject the redrawing of maps in the region, and any transfer of Naga majority areas to a 'greater' Nagaland. The June 14, 2001, decision on the extension of the ceasefire agreement between the NSCN-IM and the Government 'without geographical boundaries' had resulted in widespread protests and violence, because it raised apprehensions that this constituted an implicit recognition of a Naga title to contiguous areas in which they constituted a numerical majority. In Manipur, protestors against the extension of the ceasefire torched the Chief Minister's Office, the State Assembly, and a number of other Government buildings, and 18 demonstrators lost their lives in police firing in June 2001. The 'without geographical boundaries' clause was subsequently dropped on July 27, 2001, and, with status quo ante restored, the ceasefire remained effective within the State of Nagaland alone. The Government of India had prevailed on all other States to drop all charges against Swu and Muivah to facilitate their arrival in India for the current phase of talks, but has failed to convince the Manipur government to follow suit. Indeed, Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh has threatened to arrest the NSCN-IM leaders 'if they set foot on Manipur soil'. Singh blamed the insurgent group for 'large scale extortion, looting and other unlawful activities'. Manipur had issued an arrest warrant against Muivah in April 1994 and announced a cash reward of Rs. 300,000 for information leading to his capture, and the warrant is still in force. On their part, the NSCN-IM leaders have directed both their military and civil wings to 'be on full alert' in case of a breakdown of the ongoing peace process. It is, at this stage, premature to speculate on the outcome of the Delhi negotiations, beyond an assessment of these broad trends. It is useful, nonetheless, to consider the potential impact of a successful resolution of the complicated and intractable problem of the Naga rebellion. The Naga movement is often described as the 'mother of all insurgencies' in India's Northeast, not only because of the magnitude and persistence of violence, but because Naga factions have directly supported numerous other insurgent groups and violent formations operating in other States of the region by providing them arms, training, and temporary access to their camps and safe-havens in neighbouring countries. A multiplicity of terrorist and insurgent groups in the Northeast were thus nursed through their infancy by the Naga factions, and many of these still retain strong linkages with these groups. This is certainly the case with the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), Assam's largest insurgent group, which has had cooperative relations both with the NSCN-IM and its rival Khaplang faction, the NSCN-K. The NSCN-IM also currently extends its support to the Karbi National Volunteers (KNV) and the Dima Halim Daogah (DHD) in Assam; the Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF) in Mizoram; and the Achik National Volunteers Council (ANVC) in Meghalaya, among others. Evidently, if a peaceful resolution is arrived at on the Naga question, this would impact directly on the operational capabilities of these groups, which stand to lose the support of an extensive infrastructure of camps, cross-border safe havens, and supply routes for arms and ammunition, as well as the advantages of joint operations that have been undertaken in the past. A peaceful settlement would also have a strong demonstration effect on many of the groups that are currently in, or on the verge of entering into, a negotiation process with the Government of India. The NSCN-K, is already engaged in a peace process, and its chief, S.S. Khaplang, is asking for safe passage to India later this year to initiate talks. Khaplang is currently based in Myanmar. A ceasefire has been in place between the Union Government and the NSCN-K since April 29, 2001, though formal talks are yet to commence. The ANVC in Meghalaya is also due to commence negotiation with the Centre, and talks could commence as soon as early February, as the ANVC has expressed the desire to hold talks before the next Assembly Elections scheduled for February 26. The Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT), who operate in the Bodo dominated areas along the banks of the river Brahmaputra in Northwest Assam, are already negotiating the formation of a Bodo Territorial Council which would give them substantial autonomy for local self-governance in over 3,000 villages (the current number proposed for the BTC is 3,070 villages, but the BLT seeks the inclusion of another 93 villages). The DHD also declared a six month ceasefire, commencing January 1, 2003, to set the stage for a negotiated settlement on its demands and grievances, and the United People's Democratic Solidarity (UPDS), a formation that emerged out of the merger of the KNV and the Karbi People's Front (KPF), and which operates primarily in the Karbi Anglong district of Assam, has also come forward for talks. The most recalcitrant of extremist organisations in the Northeast are the ULFA and the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), the two groups that have been responsible for the largest number of killings in the region in recent years. The groups have a strong operational relationship, and have remained fairly inflexible on their separatist agenda. Nevertheless, both organisations have in the past, made conditional offers of talks with the Government. Positive signals from the Naga peace talks may well create conditions that push these groups into a peace process as well. There are, however, significant dangers. The insurgencies of India's Northeast now comprehend a wide range of violent and criminal activities that have become an integral part of the survival of the irregular armed forces that have sustained anti-state movements. The withdrawal of the NSCN-IM from the arena of anti-state violence could create a vacuum that any other opportunistic group or breakaway faction could seek to occupy - this was precisely what happened after the peace settlement of 1975 with the Naga National Council (NNC), at that time the dominant rebel Naga group, when the mantle of rebellion was seized by the breakaway NSCN, which rejected the settlement. Such a space could also be occupied by other existing insurgent groups - most prominently, ULFA - that have recently been seeking to create an umbrella organisation of all insurgent groups in the Northeast, such as the United Liberation Front of the Seven Sisters (ULFSS) that was formed in the context of the opposition to the NSCN-IM's quest for a 'greater Nagalim'. The success of the talks with the NSCN-IM leadership could, moreover, expose the state to a deeper and more insidious danger. There is an increasing trend of small, often obscure and politically unrepresentative groups resorting to brutal violence and terrorism, and, through this process, being thrust into the centrestage of democratic politics as the state engages with them towards a negotiated settlement. Indeed, there is a widespread sense today that the Indian Government only listens to the violent, and that if (and only if) you kill a sufficient number people, you will be invited to honourable negotiations with the highest offices of the land. If one insurgent group can create a pathway to power along this route (something that has already happened in Mizoram) there is significant probability of generating a rash of copycat aspirants who will come to regard the gun as a useful instrument to short circuit the tedious, uncertain, and often unrewarding processes of democratic selection. This dynamic will certainly, and already has, put democratic forces at a distinct disadvantage in the competition for political power.