Centre thinking of leaving NSCN(IM) out of Naga peace deal

Amidst stalemate in the talks between the Centre and the NSCN(IM), New Delhi is weighing possibilities of striking a peace deal leaving out the outfit in what is seen by many as a repetition of past mistakes.

Also read: Centre withdraws AFSPA from parts of Nagaland, Assam, Manipur

To chart its future course of action, the Centre has called the core committee on the Naga political issue headed by Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio to New Delhi for “substantive discussions”, home ministry sources said.

Rio and other members of the committee, including Deputy Chief Minister Y Patton and ruling United Democratic Alliance Chairperson and former chief minister T R Zeliang, are expected to reach New Delhi later today (May 16).

Significantly, on the same day, a 10-member delegation of the NSCN (IM) is returning to Nagaland from New Delhi after their latest round of talks with the Centre ended without any headway in resolving the two last remaining sticky points in the 25-year-long peace process — the outfit’s demand for a separate constitution and flag.

The past with NSCN(IM)

The NSCN (IM), which is often called in the security circle ‘mother of all insurgencies’ in the north-east, it being the most powerful insurgent group in the region, entered into a ceasefire agreement with the Centre in August 1997 after series of offshore backdoor negotiations.

To bring the outfit to the negotiating table, then prime minister Narasimha Rao secretly met the outfit leadership in Paris in June 1995, in a major breakthrough in the Naga political imbroglio that has been festering since 1947. Thereafter, HD Deve Gowda again met NSCN (IM) leadership in Zurich in February 1997 to pave the way for the truce agreement.

Since then, the outfit held several rounds of negotiations with the Centre to iron out its differences with the Indian establishment. Most of the contentious issues barring the NSCN (IM) demands for the constitution and flag have been resolved, the government and the NSCN (IM) sources maintained.

To break the deadlock, the NSCN (IM) delegation met the Centre’s interlocutor in the Naga peace process, A K Mishra, last week. But two rounds of meetings that ended on Friday last remained inconclusive.  Mishra, former special director of the Intelligence Bureau, had also flown to Dimapur last month to meet the NSCN (IM) general secretary Thuingaleng Muivah at Camp Hebron, the outfit’s headquarters near Nagaland’s commercial capital. They had about two hours of closed-door meetings.

“The peace process is now in a very sensitive stage and hence will not like to comment on it,” said an NSCN (IM) spokesperson R John.

Pact with NNPG

Sources, however, told The Federal that the Centre has now been advised by certain quarters in Nagaland to sign a peace agreement with the Naga National Political Groups (NNPG), a conglomerate of seven other Naga rebel groups that have also joined the peace process.

The group’s separate negotiations with the Centre have already got over, and a signing of the agreement with it has been delayed only because the NSCN (IM) is yet to be on board.

Senior BJP leader and Nagaland’s deputy chief minister, who also holds home portfolio, at a tribal council programme on Saturday said that the peace agreement should not be delayed further.

“Those who don’t want a solution can go to hell…. For how many years should we wait… Enough is enough. We know why and because of whom there is not a final solution yet to the Indo-Naga political issue,” Patton said at an event of the Central Nagaland Tribal Council in an oblique reference to the NSCN (IM).

Former Nagaland chief minister S C Jamir too reportedly suggested to the government of India to go ahead and sign the agreement with the NNPG if the NSCN (IM) is not ready to accept what has been already agreed upon and offered to it by the Centre.

The veteran politician is the only living signatory to the 16-point statehood agreement of 1960 that led to the formation of Nagaland as a 16th state of the Indian Union. Union Home Minister Amit Shah met Jamir in New Delhi on Friday. Earlier, Jamir also had discussions with Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Naga peace process.

Significantly, NNPG leader N Kitovi Zhimomi too has reportedly reached New Delhi.

‘Without NSCN accord not fruitful’

However, any peace agreement without the NSCN (IM) would not be fruitful, observed the Naga Hoho, the apex umbrella body of all the Naga tribes. “Unless and until all the groups are the party to the peace agreement, we cannot have a final settlement. The issue will persist,” Naga Hoho president H K Zhimomi said over phone.

He had a point as the past peace accords signed by the government leaving aside the principal insurgent group failed to end insurgency in the state.

The 16-point statehood agreement was signed by Jawaharlal Nehru’s government with the Naga People’s Convention, an organisation of moderate Naga leaders, side-lining the Naga National Council of Angami Zapu Phizo. The agreement failed to establish peace in the Naga areas as the NNC continued its armed insurgency.

Again, when the Shillong Accord was signed in 1975 leaving out top NNC leaders, it failed to bring a permanent solution to the Naga problem. “Only an all-inclusive peace agreement will succeed in bringing a lasting peace. There should not be any attempt to divide Nagas,” Zhimomi added.

Also read: Centre’s interlocutor for Naga peace talks in Nagaland