Nagaland: India's Waziristan

No passage of time has changed the situation. It is as real in Nagaland today as it was then. The government is there only on paper. The real ruler is the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), the underground Nagas. They levy their own taxes, post their own men to keep an eye on the subjects, and punish or even kill those who dare to defy.

Ministers and officials in the state see to it that they stay in their good books. In fact, the government comes to their rescue whenever the "underground" are chased by the Indian army, more to register its presence than to chastise them. Not long ago, the state Director General of Police (DGP), an Indian Police Service officer from Delhi, caught one "underground" red-handed with several lakhs of rupees which he had robbed. But the DGP had to release him because the car in which he rode was that of a minister.

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Since independence there have been a series of talks between New Delhi and the "underground" who surface and disappear at their will. The ceasefire is effected during negotiations. The current one is the seventh in the series.

The endless talks are meant to determine the "relationship" between India and Nagaland. Strange, this should be a topic when Nagaland is one of the states of the

Indian Union. Every five years Nagaland elects its assembly through the Central Election Commission. The turnover of voters over the years has averaged 60 per cent. Seldom the polls have been boycotted or disturbed. The state has two parliament members, one sitting in the Lok Sabha and the other in the Rajya Sabha. Still both the Indian government and the underground Nagas go over the exercise to reach a "settlement" every now and then.

In a way, Nagaland may well be India's Waziristan, an unruly part of Pakistan's northwest area. The problems are similar: too many guns, too many mixed-up bureaucrats, too many foreigners, and too many central agencies to disburse money. New Delhi, like Islamabad, is happy that its flag flies. But all those who rise against the established authority play the same hide-and-seek game.

Pakistan calls the territory by the name of "autonomous tribal areas." India has the satisfaction of listing Nagaland as one of its states. The question the two countries have to ask themselves is: Are the areas over which they claim their sovereignty ever been their part? Does their writ really run? Why is there insurgency all the time?

Islamabad pursues the policy to let the sleeping dogs lie. But New Delhi has asserted its authority through a Common Minimum Programme (CMP) which the new government has enunciated "for maintaining the territorial integrity" of the "existing" northeast states.

This has led to a tiff between the NSCN's two top leaders, Issac Chesi Swu and Thungaland Muivah (I-M), conducting the talks and interlocutor K. Padmanabhiah, representing New Delhi's point of view. The I-M reportedly told him that the Indian army, already stretched from China's border to Kashmir, was in no position to fight their 5,000-strong cadre. They want New Delhi to define what "the territorial integrity" means. It goes counter to their initial demand for a "Greater Nagaland," incorporating Naga-dominated areas of Manipur and Assam. The NSCN regards the CMP's declaration as the rejection of its demand.

New Delhi is in the midst of formulating a reply because the ceasefire ends on July 31. Some high-ups believe that the demand can be considered by the States Reorganisation Commission which the new government contemplates

to appoint to consider the claim for separate states like the Telengana, part of Andhra Pradesh, and Vidarbha, part of Maharashtra. The appointment of another States Reorganisation Commission may give an indication of New Delhi's procrastination. It does not want any confrontation with the underground Nagas. But the fact it does not want to face is that the NSCN is not yet accepting India's total sovereignty over Nagaland. True, any government has to reckon with the well-trained and well-armed men that the NSCN commands, besides the links it has with Myanmar, China and the ISI operating from Bangladesh. The fallout can be protracted guerilla warfare, not a savoury situation. Yet, New Delhi cannot allow the NSCN to be overground

and underground at the same time.

A ceasefire is any day preferable to hostilities, limited or large. But the government has to ensure that the ceasefire is not used to collect arms, have fresh recruitment and force the opponents to submission. The NSCN has done all this. On the other hand, the Nagas want to lead a normal life. They are sick of the underground's parallel rule of duplicity and dictation.

Some defiance against the NSCN is beginning to take shape. For the first time, some 5,000 people celebrated at the centre of Kohima, the capital of Nagaland, the 100th birth anniversary of A.Z. Phizo, the most respected Naga leader. The "underground" threatened to wipe them out but they still assembled. Two bombs exploded at the venue but none left the meeting which continued for three hours.

A few among them traveled to Delhi to tell alllike the old lady appealing to the emperor. No leader met them, neither from the Congress nor from the BJP. For some time, both parties have developed a cosy relationship with the NSCN. When Issac and Muivah came to Delhi one and a half years ago, the two parties were on the best of their behaviour as if the country was

beholden to their peace efforts. The fact is that New Delhi does not want to face the ever-smouldering situation.

What may give the opening to New Delhi is the reason why the NSCN was opposed to the celebrations of Phizo's birth anniversary? There can be two: one, the NSCN does not want anyone else to claim his mantle. Those who held the celebrations at Kohima must be posing a challenge to the NSCN. Two, Phizo had come to the end of the road before his death and told his colleagues that the Nagas must find a solution within India.

I was India's High Commissioner in London when Phizo died. Khodao-Yanthan, his old comrade-in-arms, met me. Since the days of the insurgency in Nagaland, both of them had been staying in the UK. Khodao-Yanthan said that Phizo had "changed" and wanted "to settle the Nagaland question with the Indian leaders." But he did not live long enough. However, before dying, Phizo advised his friends in Nagaland "to give up violence and seek a solution within the framework of a united India."

My meeting with Khodao-Yanthan was a friendly one. I was confident that he would be a moderating force on the extremists. I informed New Delhi about his visit. Unfortunately, the V.P. Singh government fell a few days later. New Delhi should have established contact with Khodao-Yanthan.

India has to draw a line. It cannot allow the NSCN to dictate terms. No solution is worth considering if it means watering down India's sovereignty. New Delhi should have realised this by now.

Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian columnist.