After August 5, 2019, with the onset of a more aggressive Kashmir policy aimed at ‘integrating’ Jammu & Kashmir with mainstream India, the prospects of Naga peace seem almost non-existent
Every August 14, the sky‑blue Naga flag with the Star of Bethlehem and rainbow unfurls, as armed cadre parade and recall Naga history, marking Naga Independence Day celebrated since 1947.
In 2017, journalists at Camp Hebron, outside Dimapur, thought it might be the last such event, with hopes of a settlement with the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) or NSCN(IM).
The Narendra Modi government is squarely to blame for the Naga peace process spiralling down. After August 5, 2019, with the onset of a more aggressive Kashmir policy aimed at ‘integrating’ Jammu & Kashmir with mainstream India, the prospects of Naga peace seem almost non-existent. The tragedy is that the Modi government seems unaware of what it has jeopardised with the Nagas and in the Northeast.
Yet the 29-year-old ceasefire with the NSCN(IM), which began in 1997, has been remarkable in its achievements. It set up an unprecedented modus operandi for political negotiation which, if tended with wisdom and statesmanship, could strengthen India’s national security and integrity. The NSCN(IM) played a laudable role in fostering this process.
Despite no final accord, the last 29 years have not seen open warfare between the Nagas and Indian security forces. Barring a few stray incidents, the ceasefire has held, with hardly any loss of life among Indian security personnel at Naga hands. This is because the Nagas honoured their part of the bargain struck in the ceasefire agreement signed on August 1, 1997.
It was governed by an elaborate mechanism of Ceasefire Ground Rules, monitored by a Ceasefire Monitoring Group and a Joint Monitoring Group comprising government and Naga representatives. Designated camps were set up where NSCN(IM) cadre could stay with their weapons, effectively separating field operations from the political dialogue, and allowing peace talks to proceed without active insurgency on the ground. Overnight, a violent confrontation became a non-violent standoff that both sides worked to resolve.
The Nagas convinced Indian political leadership at the highest level that their issues with government were political in nature and needed political, not law-and-order, solutions. Talks began at the prime minister’s level. Governments in New Delhi that understood the need for a political resolution were careful in appointing interlocutors to deal with the Nagas — from Rajesh Pilot and Swaraj Kaushal to Oscar Fernandes, who led a three-member ministerial group with Prithviraj Chavan and S Reghupathy of the DMK. The contributions of bureaucrats like K Padmanabhaiah and R S Pandey, the latter responsible for breakthroughs in the negotiations, cannot be underestimated.
While earlier governments used experienced bureaucrats as frontline facilitators under political oversight, the Modi government has left negotiations entirely to former policemen.
By contrast, the NSCN(IM), across over 600 rounds of talks, consistently put forward its highest political leaders, unlike the Government of India. Through persistence, they ensured they were recognised as legitimate interlocutors for the Nagas rather than treated merely as a security problem. The Modi government’s approach has been the opposite, especially after the high point of 2015.
That year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the NSA sat alongside NSCN(IM) leader Thuingaleng Muivah to announce a framework agreement. The haste was driven by the declining health of NSCN(IM) chairman Isak Chishi Swu, who signed from his hospital bed in Delhi; he died in 2016.
The framework agreement was a symbolic and substantive milestone — a baseline achievement recognising the Nagas’ unique history and with the government accepting the coexistence of ‘two entities’, India and the Nagas, sharing sovereign power. This formulation, open to differing interpretations by both sides, is likely why the Modi government has tried to keep the agreement’s text secret, though it is now freely available, thanks to the Nagas.
The agreement was an important step toward further negotiations, persuading the Modi government to discuss the Centre-State relationship and reopen the sharing of competencies listed in the state, central and concurrent lists of the Constitution. This again was an unprecedented achievement. The NSCN(IM) evidently studied the Constitution closely to grasp its flexibilities and engage with specific Articles.
Their seriousness is evident in their consultations with constitutional experts: Michael van Walt van Praag, a Dutch constitutional expert and legal adviser to the Dalai Lama; Professor Yash Ghai, a Kenyan-born expert who helped draft post-independence constitutions for Kenya, Fiji, and Papua New Guinea; and Professor Anthony Regan of the Australian National University. They sought to understand not just the Constitution itself but how to frame their political demands in actionable legal language — an effort no other armed group in India has matched.
As a result, they forged an agreement on how competencies from the state, central and concurrent lists would be shared between the Centre and the Nagas — covering mineral resources, toll taxes, education, customary courts, and plans to absorb NSCN(IM) cadre into a special police force. With active engagement from Indian negotiators, they also found a non-territorial solution — without altering the boundaries of Nagaland’s neighbouring states — to unite Nagas through Autonomous Regional Territorial Councils with defined powers.
Some issues were left unresolved, but the aim was to maximise common ground with the Indian government while minimising differences. The two outstanding issues — a separate flag and constitution — have been blown out of proportion by those opposed to any settlement that doesn’t move toward a unitary state. After J&K’s flag and constitution were derecognised, conventional wisdom holds that nothing can now be done for the Nagas on these two fronts.
The Nagas have themselves proposed a solution on the constitution issue, suggesting the final agreement be designated their ‘Yehzabo’, or Constitution, and incorporated into the Indian Constitution as a separate chapter. On the flag, they have been less flexible. In S R Bommai vs Union of India (1994), the Supreme Court ruled that a state flag is permissible under the Constitution as long as it complies with the Flag Code of India — it cannot share a mast with, sit above or dishonour, the national tricolour.
A significant achievement of the Naga peace process has been its unspoken peace dividend. An entire generation has grown up without witnessing large-scale armed conflict. The absence of violence has created space for economic and civic life to function in ways not possible three decades ago. Regular elections are held in Nagaland, a legitimate state government functions, and governance operates within the constitutional framework — unlike at the height of the insurgency.
Yet the Modi government appears to have complicated the prospects for a peace agreement by imposing the entirely different historical trajectory of J&K onto the Naga peace process.
https://www.deccanherald.com/india/naga-independence-day-indias-missed-opportunity-4110809
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After the truth-shower 