With the ap­point­ment of Ravin­dra Narayana Ravi, for­mer Deputy Na­tional Se­cu­rity Ad­vi­sor (In­ter­nal Af­fairs) to In­dian Na­tional Se­cu­rity Ad­vi­sor (NSA) Ajit Doval as the in­ter­locu­tor of Indo-Naga peace process, as the Gov­er­nor Na­ga­land on 20 July 2019 and the ab­ro­ga­tion of Ar­ti­cle 370 and 35 A on 5th Au­gust 2019, the Naga peace ini­tia­tive has been inch­ing to­wards a precipice. When R N Ravi, in his gu­ber­na­to­r­ial ad­dress on 1 De­cem­ber 2020, ruled out the de­mand of a sep­a­rate Naga flag and con­sti­tu­tion, only the san­guine can still hope for a pos­i­tive out­come, ar­gues po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst and Delhi Uni­ver­sity His­tory teacher, Ku­mar San­jay Singh. This ex­plana­tory ar­ti­cle has lessons for other strug­gling na­tion­al­i­ties and re­gional iden­ti­ties.

INTRAN­SI­GENCY ON THE QUES­TION OF NAGA CON­STI­TU­TION AND FLAG has cre­ated a sit­u­a­tion where the peace process is sur­viv­ing from one dead­line to an­other -first 31 Oc­to­ber 2019 and then Sep­tem­ber 2020. Un­rav­el­ling of a peace process that has since 1995 (when Shri. Narasimha Rao met the lead­er­ship of NSCN (IM) in Paris), sur­vived suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments—that of Shri A B Va­j­payee (last­ing only for thir­teen days), Shri H D Deve Gowda, Shri I K Gu­jral, Shri A B Va­j­payee, Dr Man­mo­han Singh and Shri. Naren­dra Modi—is bound to in­vite con­cern and scrutiny.

Im­me­di­ate and in­di­vid­ual rea­sons do not ex­plain the per­sis­tent fail­ure of Naga Ac­cords
Break­down of peace is an af­flic­tion of every Indo-Naga Ac­cord, a fragility un­der­scored by the dura­bil­ity of the Mizo Peace Ac­cord signed on 30 June 1986. In con­trast suc­ces­sive Naga Ac­cords—Ak­bar Hy­dari Agree­ment (1947), The 16 Point Agree­ment (1960), and The Shil­long Ac­cord (1975)—failed to achieve en­dur­ing peace. The shared fail­ure of Naga Ac­cords sug­gests that analy­sis of the causes for this fail­ure should not fo­cus only on the al­leged capri­cious­ness of the lead­er­ship of the NSCN (IM) and the democ­racy deficit in the or­ga­ni­za­tion, but also take ac­count of the long-term struc­tural causes.

The shared fail­ure of Naga Ac­cords sug­gests that analy­sis of the causes for this fail­ure should not fo­cus only on the al­leged capri­cious­ness of the lead­er­ship of the NSCN (IM) and the democ­racy deficit in the or­ga­ni­za­tion, but also take ac­count of the long-term struc­tural causes.

Long-term struc­tural causes of the in­sta­bil­ity of Naga Ac­cords
Three long-term struc­tural de­vel­op­ments have be­queathed en­demic in­sta­bil­ity to the Naga Ac­cords.

First, the ac­cords are dic­tated by a trend where every suc­ces­sive ac­cord grants lesser po­lit­i­cal rights to the Na­gas. The Ak­bar Hy­dari Agree­ment in­cluded nine clauses de­mar­cat­ing the ju­di­cial, ex­ec­u­tive and leg­isla­tive pow­ers of the NNC. It also rec­og­nized the power of the NNC to con­trol the land and re­sources of the Naga in­hab­ited ar­eas, as well as the mech­a­nism to im­pose, col­lect and spend land rev­enue and tax. The ac­cord clearly stated that the Na­gas had the right to de­velop them­selves ac­cord­ing to their wishes and stressed upon the de­sir­abil­ity of bring­ing them un­der one uni­fied ad­min­is­tra­tive unit as far as pos­si­ble.

The 16 Point Agree­ment, while it granted state­hood to Na­ga­land, was more re­stric­tive. The clauses of the ac­cord can be di­vided into two cat­e­gories. The first ex­tended to the Na­gas, rights pro­vided to other eth­nic, cul­tural and re­li­gious mi­nori­ties such as the right to freely prac­tice their cus­tom and re­li­gion, pro­hi­bi­tion on the trans­fer of tribal land and the right to es­tab­lish ad­min­is­tra­tive lo­cal bod­ies to deal with the cus­tom­ary laws, etc. It also gave them the right to rep­re­sen­ta­tion. These are rights granted to every cit­i­zen who ac­cepts In­dian na­tion­hood; thus, no rights spe­cific to the Na­gas were ac­corded.

The 16 Point Agree­ment, while it granted state­hood to Na­ga­land, was more re­stric­tive.

The sec­ond cat­e­gory deals with clauses lay­ing down the spe­cific re­la­tion­ship be­tween the gov­ern­ment of In­dia and Na­ga­land. Un­der the 16 Point Agree­ment, spe­cial pow­ers were granted to the Gov­er­nor for main­te­nance of law and or­der till armed hos­til­i­ties con­tin­ued, em­pow­er­ing him to act on his in­di­vid­ual judge­ment. The Gov­er­nor was given sole ad­min­is­tra­tive ju­ris­dic­tion over Tuen­sang dis­trict. The only curb on his au­thor­ity was the Re­gional Coun­cil, but even that had the Deputy Com­mis­sioner (an of­fi­cial sub­or­di­nate to the gov­er­nor) as its Ex-of­fi­cio chair­per­son. This pro­vi­sion was fi­nally in­cor­po­rated in the con­sti­tu­tion by the thir­teenth amend­ment act of 1962, sec. 2 (w.e.f. 1.12.1963) as the ar­ti­cle 371A. Thus, the Gov­er­nor, a nom­i­nated au­thor­ity, was em­pow­ered to over­ride the duly elected civil au­thor­ity.

The Shil­long Ac­cord of No­vem­ber 1975, of­fered no rights.

The Shil­long Ac­cord of No­vem­ber 1975, of­fered no rights. Clause 3 (ii) of the main ac­cord and the five clauses of the sup­ple­men­tary agree­ment laid down the terms and modal­i­ties of the sur­ren­der of the un­der­ground guer­ril­las and their dis­ar­ma­ment.

Sec­ond, that the 16 Point Agree­ment has struc­tured the Naga polity which is founded on a se­ries of di­vi­sions:

• i. The ac­cord in­sisted that the sig­na­to­ries will not be the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the NNC but of the Naga Peo­ple’s Con­ven­tion. Thereby cre­at­ing a le­gal pol­i­tics within the con­sti­tu­tional frame­work, while the mil­i­tary move­ment was de­clared as a law-and-or­der prob­lem and the gov­er­nor suit­ably em­pow­ered to deal with it. The lat­ter was dri­ven un­der­ground due to the im­po­si­tion of Armed Forces Spe­cial Pow­ers Act (1958) and the Naga Se­cu­rity Reg­u­la­tion of 1962.
• ii. The ac­cord di­vided the Na­gas ad­min­is­tra­tively into four states.
• iii. The ac­cord was pre­ceded and fol­lowed by a paci­fi­ca­tion pro­gram along tribal and re­gional lines. Af­ter 1964 a dis­trict-wise ap­proach of paci­fi­ca­tion was im­ple­mented— a log­i­cal corol­lary of the idea that had ceded to the gov­er­nor the sole ad­min­is­tra­tive ju­ris­dic­tion over Tuen­sang dis­trict. Trib­al­ism was de­ployed to achieve po­lit­i­cal goals. The ri­valry in the ranks of the NNC along tribal lines reached a flash­point with the killing of Gen­eral Kaito, lead­ing to a se­ries of killings along tribal lines.

These di­vi­sions frag­mented the sup­port of NNC and eroded its le­git­i­macy, nev­er­the­less, they ob­vi­ated the pos­si­bil­ity of achiev­ing pan Naga con­sen­sus, a must for se­cur­ing last­ing peace.

The 16 Point Agree­ment cre­ated the Na­ga­land state but its ben­e­fits did not per­co­late to the Naga tribes out­side the state.

Third, that the 16 Point Agree­ment cre­ated Na­ga­land state but its ben­e­fits did not per­co­late to the Naga tribes out­side the state. Con­se­quently, the cen­tre of grav­ity of Naga move­ment shifted out to the dis­grun­tled tribes mostly out­side Na­ga­land. NSCN was founded in 1980 un­der the lead­er­ship of Messers Muivah, Is­sac Swu and Kha­p­lang. This shift­ing of the cen­tre of the Naga move­ment meant that the rights of­fered by the 16 Point Agree­ment proved in­ad­e­quate to the task of en­sur­ing peace. Con­sider the fate of Mizo ac­cord if the Lushai tribe was kept out of Mi­zo­ram founded as the 23rd state of In­dia in 1986.

Shadow of the 16 Point Agree­ment on the cur­rent Naga peace process
The Frame­work Agree­ment, signed on 3 Au­gust 2015, de­lin­eates two in­ter­re­lated lev­els of ne­go­ti­a­tion. First deal­ing with shared sov­er­eignty be­tween two en­ti­ties, in­clud­ing the fraught ques­tion of sep­a­rate Naga flag and con­sti­tu­tion. Sec­ond deal­ing with com­pe­ten­cies or de­mar­ca­tion of rights and ju­ris­dic­tions of the cen­tral and Naga in­sti­tu­tions of gov­er­nance and ad­min­is­tra­tion, in­clud­ing a spe­cial ad­min­is­tra­tive arrange­ment for Naga in­hab­ited ar­eas out­side Na­ga­land.

Ne­go­ti­a­tions on shared sov­er­eignty have been in­ter­rupted on the ques­tion of a sep­a­rate Naga Flag and con­sti­tu­tion. Na­ga­land Gov­er­nor R N Ravi has re­peat­edly ex­pressed his aver­sion for the de­mand since mid-2019, its forth­right re­jec­tion in his speech on 1 De­cem­ber 2020, is in keep­ing with his po­si­tion. Then to stall ne­go­ti­a­tions on sep­a­rate Naga con­sti­tu­tion and flag, vi­o­la­tion of law and or­der by armed groups has been grafted onto the peace process. The Gov­er­nor’s let­ter to the Chief Sec­re­tary, dated 14 Feb­ru­ary 2020, asked for “a data­base of State Gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ees’ fam­ily mem­bers and rel­a­tives in un­der­ground or­gan­i­sa­tions”. In a let­ter to the Chief Min­is­ter Neiphiu Rio, dated 16 June 2020, the Gov­er­nor cited the de­te­ri­o­rat­ing law and or­der sit­u­a­tion to in­voke ar­ti­cle 371 A clause (1)(b), to ex­tend con­trol over trans­fer and post­ing of of­fi­cials re­spon­si­ble for main­tain­ing law and or­der of and above dis­trict level.

The Frame­work Agree­ment, signed on 3 Au­gust 2015, de­lin­eates two in­ter­re­lated lev­els of ne­go­ti­a­tion. First deal­ing with shared sov­er­eignty be­tween two en­ti­ties, in­clud­ing the fraught ques­tion of sep­a­rate Naga flag and con­sti­tu­tion.

Gu­ber­na­to­r­ial squea­mish­ness to­wards armed groups is be­lied by the fact that the gov­ern­ment of In­dia was aware of the na­ture of the groups prior to ini­ti­at­ing the talks; and that the Gov­er­nor in a let­ter to the Chief Sec­re­tary in late Oc­to­ber 2020 sought se­cu­rity to lead­ers of a sec­tion of the armed groups. De­pict­ing a ne­go­ti­at­ing party as an ex­tra-le­gal armed group, sev­er­ing its ties with civil­ians and uti­liz­ing ex­ist­ing di­vi­sions within the Naga groups to achieve de­sired po­lit­i­cal ends are all de­riv­a­tive of the of­fi­cial mind­set from the days of the 16 Point Agree­ment.

Ne­go­ti­a­tions on com­pe­ten­cies have been rel­a­tively smooth-sail­ing with both par­ties re­peat­edly pro­claim­ing, since 2019, sat­is­fac­tory con­clu­sion of the talks. Its im­ple­men­ta­tion will, how­ever, wit­ness se­ri­ous un­rest in Arunachal Pradesh, As­sam and Ma­nipur. Civil so­ci­ety groups in Arunachal Pradesh and Ma­nipur have reg­is­tered their ob­jec­tions on sev­eral oc­ca­sions.

The Gov­ern­ment of Ma­nipur in its press re­lease dated 18 Au­gust 2020 de­nied hav­ing any dis­cus­sion with the gov­ern­ment of In­dia on the pro­posal to form “two au­tonomous dis­trict coun­cils…in Arunachal Pradesh and Ma­nipur un­der the pro­vi­sions of the Sixth Sched­ule of the Con­sti­tu­tion of In­dia.” “Fur­ther, the State Gov­ern­ment had ear­lier re­quested MHA (the In­dian Min­istry of Home Af­fairs) to make avail­able a copy of the draft Ac­cord to the State Gov­ern­ment at least one month be­fore the date fixed for a con­sul­ta­tion so that the State Gov­ern­ment may be in a po­si­tion of ex­press (ex­press­ing) its views and com­ments.”

The vis­ceral re­sponse to sug­ges­tions for re­draw­ing of ad­min­is­tra­tive units is a re­sult of the sus­tained ef­fort of the colo­nial ad­min­is­tra­tive/​car­to­graphic en­deav­our to tie eth­nic pop­u­la­tions to des­ig­nated ge­og­ra­phy through a process of eth­ni­ciza­tion of ter­ri­to­ries. 

The vis­ceral re­sponse to sug­ges­tions for re­draw­ing of ad­min­is­tra­tive units is a re­sult of the sus­tained ef­fort of the colo­nial ad­min­is­tra­tive/​car­to­graphic en­deav­our to tie eth­nic pop­u­la­tions to des­ig­nated ge­og­ra­phy through a process of eth­ni­ciza­tion of ter­ri­to­ries. Eth­nic home­lands were cre­ated and sus­tained by ad­min­is­tra­tive in­stru­ments such as the in­ner line per­mit. These in­stru­ments, es­pe­cially the in­ner line per­mit, were also in­cor­po­rated in Ar­ti­cle 371 es­pe­cially in the case of North-east­ern states of In­dia, most of which have been ac­corded spe­cific pro­tec­tions un­der this Act.

Dur­ing the anti-CAA ag­i­ta­tions, pro­tec­tion from the set­tle­ment of out­siders, pre­vent­ing out­siders to pur­chase im­mov­able prop­erty and in­ner line per­mit was ex­tended to ar­eas hith­erto not cov­ered, such as Ma­nipur val­ley, Megha­laya, etc.

Over­lay­ing of the in­stru­men­tal­i­ties of Ar­ti­cle 371 upon colo­nial con­struc­tion of eth­nic home­land has re­sulted in the frag­men­ta­tion of dis­tinct but re­lated com­mu­ni­ties of north-east into in­su­lar eth­nic­i­ties, each de­mand­ing its home­land. This un­der­lies the en­demic eth­nic con­flicts such as the Naga-Kuki con­flict or the con­flict­ing ter­ri­to­r­ial claims in Ma­nipur be­tween Na­gas and Meit­eis. This also ex­plains why bound­ary dis­putes be­tween states in North­east­ern In­dia, such as that be­tween As­sam and Na­ga­land, or the more re­cent dis­pute be­tween As­sam and Mi­zo­ram, of­ten turn vi­o­lent. How­ever, this po­tent eth­nic con­flict over ter­ri­tory al­lows the cen­tral agen­cies to break their po­lit­i­cal as­pi­ra­tion by play­ing one eth­nic claim against an­other. Ev­i­dently, im­ple­men­ta­tion of the agreed-upon “com­pe­ten­cies” may be con­founded by this pos­si­bil­ity of the di­vide and rule pol­icy.

Sta­sis over the de­mand of a sep­a­rate Naga flag and con­sti­tu­tion and the an­tic­i­pated dis­rup­tion in the com­pe­ten­cies in the Naga in­hab­ited ar­eas out­side Na­ga­land could scup­per the talks.

Predica­ments and pos­si­bil­ity of peace
Sta­sis over the de­mand of a sep­a­rate Naga flag and con­sti­tu­tion and the an­tic­i­pated dis­rup­tion in the com­pe­ten­cies in the Naga in­hab­ited ar­eas out­side Na­ga­land could scup­per the talks. In an in­ter­view on 16 Oc­to­ber 2020 Th. Muivah, Gen­eral Sec­re­tary NSCN (IM), had un­equiv­o­cally re­fused to sign an agree­ment that did not in­clude a sep­a­rate Naga flag and con­sti­tu­tion. Pro­pos­als to by­pass NSCN (IM) to bring an early con­clu­sion to the talks are in­ad­vis­able. Con­straints on the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the com­pe­ten­cies out­side of Na­ga­land would, by pre­vent­ing per­co­la­tion of ben­e­fits to Na­gas in Arunachal, As­sam and Ma­nipur, erode any pos­si­bil­ity of peace.

The ur­gency to suc­cess­fully con­clude the talks with NSCN (IM) notwith­stand­ing, is there a res­o­lu­tion to the de­mand of a sep­a­rate Naga flag and con­sti­tu­tion, and the an­tic­i­pated hos­til­i­ties to the im­ple­men­ta­tion of com­pe­ten­cies?

A dis­grun­tled NSCN (IM) poses an even greater chal­lenge. Its re­turn to the old ways of the 1980s could re­con­fig­ure the mil­i­tary move­ments in the re­gion, thereby re­duc­ing to in­signif­i­cance the much-touted ad­van­tages from high pro­file sur­ren­ders of un­der­ground lead­ers. Avoid­ing po­lit­i­cal tur­moil at a time when there is a re­ported build-up of Chi­nese mil­i­tary in­fra­struc­ture and de­ploy­ment of troops and ar­ma­ments near Dok­lam and Arunachal can­not be over­stated. The ur­gency to suc­cess­fully con­clude the talks with NSCN (IM) notwith­stand­ing, is there a res­o­lu­tion to the de­mand of a sep­a­rate Naga flag and con­sti­tu­tion, and the an­tic­i­pated hos­til­i­ties to the im­ple­men­ta­tion of com­pe­ten­cies?

The de­mand for a sep­a­rate flag is­n’t nec­es­sar­ily a chal­lenge to the sov­er­eignty of the In­dian state. Na­gas are nei­ther the first nor the only re­gion to de­mand a sep­a­rate flag.

The de­mand for a sep­a­rate flag is­n’t nec­es­sar­ily a chal­lenge to the sov­er­eignty of the In­dian state. Na­gas are nei­ther the first nor the only re­gion to de­mand a sep­a­rate flag. Even if we dis­count the now with­drawn flag of J&K, Tamil Nadu had pro­posed for a flag in 1970. Kar­nataka made a sim­i­lar pro­posal in 2018, which was with­drawn in Au­gust 2019, when BJP came to power in the state. These de­mands are not a chal­lenge to the In­dian Con­sti­tu­tion. In the sig­nif­i­cant S. R. Bom­mai v. Union of In­dia, the Supreme Court de­clared that there is no pro­hi­bi­tion in the Con­sti­tu­tion of In­dia for a state to have its own flag. Un­der­stand­ing de­mand for a sep­a­rate flag as a re­gional po­lit­i­cal as­pi­ra­tion could ease the log­jam in ne­go­ti­a­tion.

In the sig­nif­i­cant S. R. Bom­mai v. Union of In­dia, the Supreme Court de­clared that there is no pro­hi­bi­tion in the Con­sti­tu­tion of In­dia for a state to have its own flag. Un­der­stand­ing de­mand for a sep­a­rate flag as a re­gional po­lit­i­cal as­pi­ra­tion could ease the log­jam in ne­go­ti­a­tion.

As Prof. Partha Sarthi Gupta of the De­part­ment of His­tory, Delhi Uni­ver­sity, in his pres­i­den­tial ad­dress to the In­dian His­tory Con­gress in 1998 had spec­u­lated how re­gional po­lit­i­cal as­pi­ra­tions in in­de­pen­dent In­dia could have been bet­ter ac­com­mo­dated if enough at­ten­tion had been paid to the his­to­ries of the Baltic na­tions.

“The re­gional po­lit­i­cal as­pi­ra­tions in in­de­pen­dent In­dia could have been bet­ter ac­com­mo­dated if enough at­ten­tion had been paid to the his­to­ries of the Baltic na­tions.”

Prof. Partha Sarthi Gupta of the De­part­ment of His­tory, Delhi Uni­ver­sity, in his pres­i­den­tial ad­dress to the In­dian His­tory Con­gress, 1998 

To ac­com­mo­date the con­flict­ing ter­ri­to­r­ial claims of eth­nic com­mu­ni­ties of the north­east, it will be well worth our while to study the dy­nam­ics of the for­ma­tion of ‘pass state’ in Switzer­land, “or rather, the con­fed­er­a­tion of Swiss can­tons.” A sig­nif­i­cant trove of re­search ex­ists in Nether­lands and Switzer­land who have es­tab­lished a spe­cial type of po­lit­i­cal state called the ‘conso­ci­a­tional state’ where the po­lit­i­cal elites of dis­tinct so­cial groups suc­ceeded in es­tab­lish­ing a vi­able plu­ral­is­tic state by a process of mu­tual for­bear­ance and ac­com­mo­da­tion. 

Dixi et sal­vivi an­i­mam meam!! -I have spo­ken and saved my soul.