Re­call­ing the his­toric oc­ca­sion when in 1947, the Naga lead­er­ship re­jected the British move to push Na­ga­land to ei­ther go with In­dia or Burma -pre­sent-day Myan­mar, the Gov­ern­ment of the Peo­ple’s Re­pub­lic of Na­galim cel­e­brated their 77th In­de­pen­dence Day on 14th Au­gust, at their head­quar­ters in He­bron, led by nona­ge­nar­ian Thuin­galeng Muivah, Gen­eral Sec­re­tary of the Na­tion­al­ist So­cial­ist Coun­cil of Na­ga­land (I-M). Up­hold­ing their right as a sov­er­eign sui generis peo­ple, they re­it­er­ated their re­solve to be mas­ters of their des­tiny, with­out in­ter­fer­ence from any­one. An an­a­lyt­i­cal re­port by WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh.

Cel­e­brat­ing the 77th In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions, Na­ga­land’s strug­gle for sov­er­eignty con­tin­ues to echo through his­tory. On this mo­men­tous oc­ca­sion, amidst the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship of the Naga move­ment to main­tain the dis­tinct iden­tity of the Naga peo­ple, the ag­ing yet de­ter­mined Naga leader Th. Muivah, walked the ram­parts of the ground at its head­quar­ters amidst salu­ta­tions by the Naga army and de­liv­ered an in­spi­ra­tional speech in the name of God, and ex­tended greet­ings to the Naga peo­ple while re­flect­ing on the jour­ney that has shaped Naga as­pi­ra­tions.

He cat­e­gor­i­cally re­marked, “The vi­sion of our lead­ers in 1947 saved us from ig­nominy. Theirs was a his­toric step that gave a new mean­ing to the Naga na­tional iden­tity and saved the fu­ture of the Na­gas.”

In­vok­ing the spirit of God Almighty, the vet­eran leader rem­i­nisced how God had sup­ported the Naga strug­gle through thick and thin, en­abling and em­pow­er­ing them on the mil­i­tary, diplo­matic, and po­lit­i­cal fronts and most sig­nif­i­cantly on the spir­i­tual front too.

Clar­i­fy­ing in de­tail, the NSCN (I-M) leader said, “The heart of the mat­ter is that the Na­gas are a sov­er­eign peo­ple, who have been liv­ing in their own land from time im­memo­r­ial. They are not beg­ging for a piece of land from oth­ers. They have every right to build their own na­tion-state in their land, They must de­cide their fu­ture by them­selves. And that should not be viewed as an ag­gres­sion on the right of oth­ers.”

The diehard Naga leader pointed out that since 1947, when the Na­gas de­clared their na­tional in­de­pen­dence on the eve of British In­di­a’s de­par­ture, the path has been marked by re­silience and de­ter­mi­na­tion. The re­jec­tion of the Union of In­di­a’s of­fer led to In­di­a’s ag­gres­sion, atroc­i­ties, de­struc­tion and loss. “Yet, the Na­gas en­dured,” he ob­served.

“The heart of the mat­ter is that the Na­gas are a sov­er­eign peo­ple, who have been liv­ing in their own land from time im­memo­r­ial. They are not beg­ging for a piece of land from oth­ers. They have every right to build their own na­tion-state in their land, They must de­cide their fu­ture by them­selves. And that should not be viewed as an ag­gres­sion on the right of oth­ers.”

Thuin­galeng Muivah, Supreme leader and Gen­eral Sec­re­tary Na­tional So­cial­ist Coun­cil of Na­ga­land (I-M)

Na­gas wit­nessed and bore mas­sacres, mass tor­tures, mass as­saults on women, mass de­ten­tions in con­cen­tra­tion camps, mass sum­mary ex­e­cu­tions, and mass de­struc­tion of vil­lages, churches, schools and forests. Yet, we rose like a phoenix and with­stood op­pres­sion and per­se­cu­tion.

The Naga leader, in the spirit of grat­i­tude, paid trib­ute to Naga mar­tyrs and ac­knowl­edged that his­tory was a liv­ing wit­ness to their tra­vails.

“Through the tu­mul­tuous jour­ney, Naga lead­ers have held firm in their be­lief in the sov­er­eign rights of their peo­ple. The re­jec­tion of the 16-point mem­o­ran­dum and the Shil­long Ac­cord un­der­lined their com­mit­ment to an in­de­pen­dent Na­galim.”

On 3 Au­gust 2015, the Frame­work Agree­ment was signed be­tween the Naga and In­dian lead­er­ship for Indo-Naga peace. 8 years have passed by and apart from dilly-dal­ly­ing and chi­canery by peo­ple in gu­ber­na­to­r­ial posts and In­dian bu­reau­cratic emis­saries, this agree­ment signed in the pres­ence of none other than the Prime Min­is­ter of In­dia Naren­dra Modi has come to a naught.

Hold­ing the gov­ern­ment of In­dia solely re­spon­si­ble for reneg­ing on its com­mit­ment to the peo­ple of Na­ga­land, Th. Muivah stated that “Af­ter nearly two decades of ne­go­ti­a­tions, the Frame­work Agree­ment of Au­gust 3, 2015, be­tween the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia (GoI) and the Na­tional So­cial­ist Coun­cil of Na­galim (NSCN -IM) seemed like a break­through. It rec­og­nized the unique his­tory and sov­er­eignty of the Na­gas, aim­ing for shared sov­er­eignty and co­ex­is­tence. This agree­ment, seen as a hard-fought achieve­ment, bore the weight of Naga his­tory and strug­gle.”

The sky-blue Naga flag un­furled in many ar­eas of Na­ga­land and Ma­nipur with peo­ple joy­ously greet­ing each other on the mo­men­tous oc­ca­sion.

This di­chotomy of Na­gas cel­e­brat­ing their in­de­pen­dence and yet be­ing an In­dian state, ne­go­ti­at­ing with In­dia, can be broadly un­der­stood if one com­pre­hends the con­cept of shared sov­er­eignty, which was the hall­mark of the dis­cus­sions and con­clu­sions lead­ing to the for­mu­la­tion of the Frame­work Agree­ment in 2015.

The leader in his speech men­tioned that the is­sue of in­te­grat­ing all Naga ar­eas was ac­knowl­edged by the In­dian gov­ern­ment as a le­git­i­mate right, in­di­cat­ing a sem­blance of progress. How­ever, the in­sep­a­ra­ble link be­tween a flag, con­sti­tu­tion, and sov­er­eignty posed a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge. While the Frame­work Agree­ment marked a step to­wards peace, the in­tri­ca­cies of achiev­ing a shared iden­tity re­mained.

“The di­chotomy of Na­gas cel­e­brat­ing their in­de­pen­dence and yet be­ing an In­dian state, ne­go­ti­at­ing with In­dia, can be broadly un­der­stood if one com­pre­hends the con­cept of shared sov­er­eignty, which was the hall­mark of the dis­cus­sions and con­clu­sions lead­ing to the for­mu­la­tion of the Frame­work Agree­ment in 2015.”

Tak­ing a holis­tic view of the con­cept of free­dom, the Naga leader spear­head­ing the Naga strug­gle for decades painted a broad can­vas of in­de­pen­dence. He men­tioned that “the im­por­tance of free­dom was not merely as po­lit­i­cal in­de­pen­dence but as the free­dom to choose one’s path, in­clud­ing faith, sal­va­tion, and progress. The nar­ra­tive of free­dom was in­ter­twined with a quest for a sov­er­eign Na­galim, which Na­gas see as a God-given land to be de­fended with un­wa­ver­ing de­ter­mi­na­tion.”

As the gov­ern­ment of In­dia lead­er­ship at var­i­ous lev­els vac­il­lates on the ques­tion of the Naga flag and a shared con­sti­tu­tion, the NSCN leader re­minded In­dia that, “The flag and con­sti­tu­tion are nat­u­rally in­sep­a­ra­ble from the sov­er­eignty of a peo­ple. It is uni­ver­sally ac­cepted truth that the flag and con­sti­tu­tion are con­stituent parts of sov­er­eignty. There is no am­bi­gu­ity about it. The In­dian lead­ers un­der­stand it too. They must take the stand to speak the truth.”

Var­i­ous Naga bod­ies, in­clud­ing the Naga Stu­dents Fed­er­a­tion, cel­e­brated Naga Free­dom Day with tra­di­tional gusto singing prayers and songs.

On the side­lines, it is com­fort­ing to re­call how some years ago, ac­tivists of Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal (Am­rit­sar) which is led by Sim­ran­jit Singh Mann, par­tic­i­pated in the Naga in­de­pen­dence day cel­e­bra­tions at Jan­tar Man­tar, New Delhi.

Nona­ge­nar­ian Thuin­galeng Muivah, Gen­eral Sec­re­tary of the Na­tion­al­ist So­cial­ist Coun­cil of Na­ga­land (I-M)’s last words res­onated with those pre­sent and those who lis­tened to and read his speech, “We must pos­sess Na­galim and de­fend it at all costs. No power on earth can stop the mov­ing wheels of his­tory. We will keep go­ing.”

As the world ob­serves the Naga strug­gle from a dis­tance, the echoes of his­tory and the Indo-Naga Frame­work Agree­ment re­mind us of the com­plex­i­ties and deeply en­trenched ideals that shape this jour­ney. While the Agree­ment holds promise, the quest for true co­ex­is­tence and shared sov­er­eignty re­mains a chal­leng­ing path.