MONIDEEPA BANERJIE
Manipur is simmering, with the Kuki-Zo tribe demanding autonomy from the Meiteis after 20 months of bloody conflict between the two ethnic groups. In Nagaland, 28-year-old talks with the NSCN-IM have hit rock bottom after premature celebrations over the much-touted Framework Agreement the Centre drew up in August 2015. It was so premature that the NSCN-IM supremo T Muivah is now accusing Delhi of “deceit” and threatening to return to the jungles.
At such a time, when these major conflicts in the northeast are begging resolution, the Centre has suddenly turned proactive on a demand that, in its latest avatar, is neither as old as the NSCN-IM nor as bloody as the Manipur conflict: the demand for Frontier Nagaland Territory (FNT) that envisages an autonomous region carved out of six of Nagaland’s 16 districts on the easternmost tip of the Indian map.
On 15 January, the Centre held talks in Dimapur with the state government and the Eastern Nagaland People’s Organisation (ENPO) on FNT, Delhi’s compromise formula for the original ENPO demand for a separate frontier state. The ENPO chief, A Chingmak Chak, emerged from the meeting with a mixed message. An understanding had been reached in principle, he said, but there was nothing on paper yet.
The whole situation begs two questions. Why is the Centre allowing old wounds to fester? Is it fanning new demands to divide and rule? Delhi has historically used ethnic and tribal identities to manipulate conflicts in the northeast and seems set to go down the tried and tested path once again instead of working out fair and sustainable solutions.
There is a third question: Is Delhi trying out a new autonomy formula in Nagaland that it may, in the future, apply to Manipur’s Kukis too?
FNT: From statehood to territory
The distance from Kohima, Nagaland’s capital, to Tuensang, the likely headquarters of FNT, is 226 km and, according to map apps, it takes 4 hours and 59 minutes to cover the distance in a car. Local people say that is very optimistic and that the roads are in such bad shape it could take a full six to seven hours.
This easternmost region of Nagaland sends 20 MLAs to the 60-member state Assembly but ENPO claims Kohima has been historically biased against the region in its fund disbursement and development. It is a grouse that scholars say is around a hundred years old.15 years ago, the ENPO took its dissatisfaction with the Nagaland government to the Centre and demanded afresh separate state comprising the districts of Kiphire, Longleng, Mon, Noklak, Shamator and Tuensang populated by at least half a dozen different tribes.
That demand has been hammered down to FNT – an autonomous territory but not statehood. The ENPO wants financial, legislative and executive autonomy. But will all of it be granted? Not clear at all. The ENPO chief himself said on 15 January, many of the agreements reached were in principle but only verbal. He had no document to show for it.
NSCN-IM
It is reminiscent of the shadowy circumstances in which the Framework Agreement was struck between the Centre and the NSCN-IM on 3 August 2015 in New Delhi. It was a bolt from the blue for many who were closely following developments for years, leaving many in the MHA and within NSCN-IM dumbfounded. The details of the agreement were never revealed except in dribs and drabs. In 2020, the NSCN-IM let some details leak to shore up its claim that the then interlocutor N Ravi had deleted a key word from a version that he had shared with some Naga groups.
Most contentious is this: did the Framework Agreement contain anything on NSCN-IM’s demand for a separate flag and a separate constitution? Silence from the government. But on 8 November 2024, supremo T Muivah decisively said yes, “in letter and spirit”. In a statement, Muivah said, “Nagalim and NSCN will not wait forever for GOI to honour the letter and spirit of the Framework Agreement of 3 August 2015. Neither shall we wait for the GOI to recognise Nagalim’s sovereign national flag and sovereign national constitution in the political agreement.” Nagalim is the name given by NSCN-IM to the territory that it considers the rightful homeland of the Nagas comprising parts of Assam, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and even Myanmar.
Calling it a betrayal, Muivah said NSCN-IM would protect and defend Nagalim by “whatever means, including armed struggle.”
This sentiment was repeated in January in an NSCN-IM statement that accused the government of India of “acts of deceit”, a far cry from what it said back on 3 august 2015 when it congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his “statesmanship and steely resolve” to solve the Naga problem.
Manipur
No such statecraft has been on display in Manipur, which has been swinging between horrific violence and less-horrific violence since 3 May 2023. The opposition has cried itself hoarse about how the prime minister has not visited the state even once, but those cries have fallen on deaf ears. And there is still no answer to the most frequently asked question: why hasn’t the BJP sacked the chief minister who has failed on the job so glaringly?
Three and a half decades ago, the Congress chief minister Raj Kumar Dorendra Singh, had been thrown out from his office by his own party after months of violence in 1992-93 between the Kukis and the Nagas in which hundreds were killed. That was followed by President’s Rule. Steps were taken to resolve the ethnic conflict, which many still say was the worst the state has ever seen. But in the last 20 months, there has been no action and the gaping wounds of Manipur continue to fester.
Chief minister Biren Singh’s new year apology was, at best, a non sequitur.
As Manipur and Nagaland oscillate between varying degrees of violence, the Centre has opened a new front: the FNT. No quarrel with what may be a genuine effort to nip a problem in the bud. But it is like attending to acne when you have a tumour in the brain or cancer in the liver.
The only way it might make sense is if the Centre is testing a new autonomy formula with FNT and, if it works, it will encourage the Kuki-Zo community to give it a shot instead of demanding statehood or a union territory of its own. That’s the only justification one can find for Delhi’s dalliance with FNT while Manipur burns and NSCN-IM, slowly but surely, puts Nagaland back on a powder keg.
SOURCE : theprint