Will the New Year see the dawn of Naga peace?

The Assembly elections in Nagaland in March 2023 may be the next possible deadline for a positive outcome on the Naga Constitution

Th. Muivah, General Secretary of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) or NSCN (IM), will leave Delhi this weekend a disappointed man. He had come to Delhi from Camp Hebron near Dimapur, hoping for an appointment with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. For six weeks, he cooled his heels in the national capital, in vain.

He and his delegation have had several rounds of formal and informal talks with the Centre's Interlocutor for the Naga Peace talks, former Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer A K Mishra. However, it seems that India's political leadership may be unprepared to evolve a political solution.

Hopes were ignited that a Naga settlement was near at hand when the Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio offered to resign in September in favour of an interim government once the Naga Peace accord was signed. Addressing the Lotha Tribal Council (Lotha Hoho) at Wokha in the state, he said, "The settlement (of Naga political issue) should come at the earliest and if (it) so happen(s), we would not obstruct but would pave the way in Naga wisdom and tribal wisdom and resign for the interim government."

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Since then, there seems to have been a major step forward on one of the two crucial issues on which the peace talks had got stuck. These were the demands for a Naga national flag and a separate Naga Constitution or "Yehzabo". Both were difficult propositions for a government which had made Constitutional changes to take away these two symbols of autonomy from the people of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, 2019.

However, the Nagas believe that the flag issue has been resolved in the current round of negotiations with Delhi. It is not clear, though, exactly how that has been done as the NSCN(IM) had earlier refused the government's offer of a "cultural flag" instead of a "political flag" of the Nagas. It is also unclear what would be the relative status and protocol for flying both the Naga flag and the Tricolour together. Although no agreement has been signed as yet, if indeed the Naga national flag issue stands resolved informally, then that is a major step forward. The issue of a separate Naga Constitution, however, remains intractable.

It is important to note that this progress has been made despite the turbulence in the peace process that A K Mishra had inherited from his predecessor R N Ravi, who was also appointed Governor of Nagaland in addition to being the Chief Interlocutor for the Naga peace talks. Ravi is now the Governor of Tamil Nadu and was responsible for signing the Framework Agreement in 2015 to provide legitimacy to the detailed settlement.

Because the Sema Naga leader and then Chairman of the NSCN(IM) Isak Chishi Swu was seriously ill, the "framework" agreement was quickly drafted in the hope that it would tie the Nagas of both Nagaland and Manipur (Muivah is a Tangkhul Naga from Manipur) together in a future peace accord. On August 3, 2015, in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his official residence, the Framework Agreement was signed by Swu (his signature was obtained from his hospital bed), Muivah and Ravi.

Today the NSCN (IM) accuses the government of resiling from the positions agreed in the Framework Agreement. The language of the Agreement has been understood differently by the two sides. After claiming that India had recognised the "unique history and position of the Nagas" and that both sides, having understood each other's position, were "cognizant of the universal principle that in a democracy sovereignty lies with the people", the Framework Agreement said that the government and the NSCN agreed on "sharing sovereign power". This was qualified by saying that this would mean a division of competencies (presumably as defined in the Union, State and Concurrent lists of the Indian Constitution).

Sharing of sovereignty, so defined, it turned out, was understood differently by the two sides. Another careless phrase in the Agreement hopes that the dialogue process "will provide for an enduring inclusive new relationship of peaceful co-existence of two entities". The term "two entities", coming as it did after agreeing to share sovereign powers, was taken by the NSCN(IM) to mean that the Agreement was between two sovereign entities or nations – entitled to signs of sovereignty, including their respective national flags and Constitutions. What was proclaimed as a major breakthrough in 2015 soon became the biggest hurdle in the way of a settlement.

However, it is important to appreciate that the draft agreement, minus the issue of a flag and Constitution, seems to be unique in its scope wherein a people spread over several contiguous states had negotiated territorial councils, an overarching Pan Naga Hoho without the immediate geographical integration of the Naga areas, these areas (Nagaland and contiguous Naga areas) to have 7 MPs in Lok Sabha and 5 MPs in the Rajya Sabha, setting up of a High Court and Customary Courts, full ownership and control over mineral resources and their joint-exploration and the accommodation of armed cadre of NSCN (IM) into the state's security apparatus, among others. The integration of Naga areas contiguous to Nagaland was recognised as a longstanding demand, but it was left as an issue to be approached through democratic means in the future.

Have these substantial gains been foregone in the quest for a Naga flag and Constitution? It does not seem so. The compromise on the flag suggests that there is still hope. The issue of a separate Constitution, the NSCN (IM) has suggested, may be resolved with the Nagas accepting the final Agreement on the sharing of competencies as their "Yehzabo" (translated into English language as "Constitution"). The Agreement could then be incorporated into the Indian Constitution by replacing Article 371A, they have suggested.

The problem, however, is with the nomenclature – Naga Constitution and government statements committed to "One Nation, One Constitution". If a different agreed descriptor could be found for "Yehzabo" in English, could even this seemingly intractable issue also be resolved amicably? One does not know. If the "Yehzabo" is the overarching framework of laws that the Nagas give to themselves as the guiding principle of governance and its essentials are also part of the Indian Constitution, then there should be space enough for the Nagas to be a part of India's heart. However, for this, both sides would need unusual political imagination and take each other's sensitivities into account. The assembly elections in Nagaland in March 2023 may be the next possible deadline for such a positive outcome.

(Bharat Bhushan is a journalist based in Delhi)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.