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Tuesday, May 10, 2005

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Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Naga talks: territory first, sovereignty later

M.S. Prabhakara

Integration of Naga-inhabited areas is at least in theory less problematic than concessions on the issue of Naga sovereignty.

ONE OF the positive features of the prolonged talks between the Government of India and the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN) currently going on in Delhi is that there has been a near-total media blackout on what is actually happening. Such a view may appear strange, coming from a mediaperson. However, one has only to consider the breathlessness of the Indian media in the reporting of conflicts inside the country, in particular of the visual media which is endlessly caught up in the frenzy of the search for higher and higher ratings. Given this tendency, the virtual blackout of the talks — whose outcome will affect millions of people in the northeastern region — by the participants on all sides, barring brief statements about "progress being made," suggests the dialogue is going on well.

The silence has been broken by the interview Thuingaleng Muivah, the NSCN general secretary, gave to BBC a few days ago. Mr. Muivah made some important points about the two crucial and interlinked issues — Naga national sovereignty and Naga territorial imperative. They are both equally compelling and causally related to the "uniqueness of Naga history and situation."

Uniqueness

They are, therefore, central to any settlement of the Naga political question. Indeed, this is a constant refrain in almost all the statements of the NSCN leaders: The Government of India should understand the "the uniqueness of Naga history and situation." Two aspects of this "uniqueness" are, one, that the Nagas were never defeated or conquered; and two, that the Nagas everywhere have always lived on their own land. What is historically Naga territory was cut up and parcelled out to neighbouring territories when the whole area was under colonial occupation.

While officially the area of Nagaland as it exists is 16,579 square kilometres, NSCN accounts of the history of Nagaland claim that "the present population of 3.5 million Nagas are spread out in several thousand villages over a 120,000 sq. km land area."

In other words, the construction of the history and territoriality of the people in their neighbourhood has involved, without the consent of the Naga people, a diminution of their own history and territory. Thus, in his speech made at the `Naga Consultative Conference' that preceded the formal talks in New Delhi, NSCN chairman Isak Swu did not even refer to the issue of sovereignty directly, though that issue still remains central.

"Unless the Nagas aspiration for unification of all Naga inhabited areas is fully realised no negotiated settlement with the Government of India is possible." "No permanent and honourable solution can be hammered out to the decades-old political conflict without bringing all Naga-inhabited areas of North East together."

On both these issues, Mr. Muivah is categorical and uncompromising. And yet, the interview also provides some tantalising glimpses of possible arrangements and compromises falling short of these objectives. Predictably, both the Khaplang faction of the NSCN and the Adino faction of the Phizoist Naga National Council have accused Mr. Muivah and other leaders of having already reached a tacit agreement on such a trade-off, diluting if not abandoning the more fundamental issue of Naga national sovereignty. This is not exactly the case.

However, it is also a matter of common knowledge and has been so for sometime that the NSCN leaders would agree, as part of a tactical incremental approach to securing a settlement with the Government of India, to something less than absolute national sovereignty as a first step if there were to be a firm commitment by the Government of India on the integration of all Naga-inhabited areas into Nagalim.

Viewed historically and in the context of the Indian political reality, Naga integration, though a highly complex issue necessitating the consent of the three States concerned as well as a national consensus, is at least in theory less problematic than concessions on the issue of Naga sovereignty. After all the Indian Constitution does provide for the redrawing of the boundaries of the constituent States.

Mr. Muivah also makes some distinctions on the nature of the Naga territorial imperative insofar as this would impinge on the territories of Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and Assam, as well as the opposition within these States to an enlarged Nagalim.

Possible compromises

Two passages in Mr. Muvah's interview are indicative of possible compromises, though these are all the time qualified. Even while ruling out that the envisaged Nagalim could be part of the Indian Union, Mr. Muivah also concedes that unqualified sovereignty could still allow for sharing, though not surrendering, control over crucial issues like defence, foreign affairs, currency and communications.

However, this admission about the possibility of a "shared sovereignty," a concept popularised and propagated by several "civil society" groups sympathetic to secessionist movements in third world countries, is immediately qualified. "It's in the process of being worked out. It may be a little bit too early on my part to make pronouncements on that," he said. This, in respect of external affairs and defence, is later clarified thus: "So far as our external affairs is concerned primarily [the] Government of India should have them. But whenever the interest of the Nagas is affected Nagas should also be represented." The joint defence arrangement envisaged by the NSCN would entail India defending Nagaland in the event of external threat ("because if Nagaland would be in danger naturally the security of India would also be threatened") but rules out Nagaland offering help were India to come under attack — this part almost certainly a tongue-in-cheek clarification.

Interesting nuances

However, on the issue of integration of the Naga-inhabited areas outside Nagaland into Nagalim, the interview is far less accommodating, though here too there are some interesting nuances. Mr. Muivah, who is not merely a Naga from Manipur but is a Tangkhul Naga, a people with historically shared links to some of the most intimate and profound aspects of Meitei culture and history, is surprisingly quite dismissive of the Manipur's opposition to Nagalim.

He even suggests that the violent repercussions in Imphal in June-July 2001 to the extension of the ceasefire to all Naga inhabited areas of the region was essentially manipulated by "Meiteis backed by the Indian Government." The fact, however, is that the Nagalim envisaged by NSCN includes four districts of Manipur constituting over three-fourths of the State's territory.

In the NSCN' s priorities in the matter of integration, Manipur comes first, followed by Arunachal Pradesh (Tirap and Changlang districts, which he believes the political leaders of Arunachal would be `willing to cede') and last, the areas on the Assam-Nagaland border. In the case of areas of Assam claimed for Nagalim, the ground reality is that a substantial part of this area is already under the effective occupation of Nagaland. The territorial imperative of the putative Nagalim of the NSCN neatly dovetails into the present reality of the encroachment, consolidation, and extension of such encroachment of the 11 reserve forests in Assam by the State of Nagaland.

Complex issues

Given the complexity of the issues involved and the prolong preparation that has preceded the formal talks, these are still early days. The States' positions (on both sides) need not necessarily be the final, take it or leave it, positions. And yet, if the NSCN general secretary has chosen to "put his cards on the table," it could be to emphasise both his understanding of the complexity of the issues involved and the urgency of arriving at a settlement.

Federalism and autonomy versus unqualified sovereignty; contending territorial imperatives; and a constantly fluid political situation from which no structure, not even the NSCN, can escape. The interview provides some glimpses of how at least a beginning could be made, if not in resolving at least in reconciling these contradictions in respect of sovereignty and territoriality.

But concepts like "shared sovereignty," or "cross territorial nationalism," while sounding profound, do not always work in societies that are driven by exclusivist nationalist passions. Naga history as articulated across the political spectrum by the Naga people, including interestingly by the State Government in Kohima that has a BJP component, provides a telling example of the strength of such nationalism.

Finally, and irrespective of the NSCN leadership's calculations, a settlement, or even a substantive progress towards a settlement, is unlikely with the present coalition in office in Delhi. The coalition headed by the `right wing Hindu nationalist' BJP would have had less problem making and selling a deal to its constituency than the United Progressive Alliance of "secular and progressive" parties. The various rebel groups in contention with the Indian state instinctively understand this seeming contradiction, at least in the northeast.

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