Coping with the pressure of pull and push within : Need to take all on board
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: December 05 2015 -
The foe within can be more dicey and more potent that all the external forces taken together.
A point which Messrs Thuingaleng Muivah and Isaac Chisi Swu must know well by now.
A look at the history of the armed movement of the Naga militants should testify this observation.
The National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) sprang from a breakaway group of the Naga National Council after the Shillong Accord of 1975. Thuingaleng Muivah, Isaac Chisi Swu and SS Khaplang, the three men behind the NSCN however could not stay together for long and the outfit saw a split in 1988 into the NSCN (K) and the NSCN (IM).
Important to note that the three leaders stayed together for just 8 years, after the NSCN was formed in 1980.
Things did not stop there as the NSCN (K) further split into the NSCN (Khole-Kitovi) group in 2011 and later the NSCN (Reformation) under P Tikhak and Wangtin Naga in April 2015.
In between the NSCN (IM) also witnessed a break in 2007 when a group broke away and floated the NSCN (Unification).
Conflicting ideologies may be the primary reason for the series of splits witnessed in the Naga armed groups, but it is also true that in some cases it was due to tribe affiliations.
And it stands that there are numerous sub-tribes in the big Naga family.
A point which came to the forefront in all its ugliness in 2007 when the houses of some rebel leaders of the NSCN (IM) were targeted and set ablaze at Wungram Colony in Dimapur.
A more than enough indication that it is the internal pressure of pull and push that has been dogging the Naga armed movement.
The interesting point is whether the different factions have learnt any lesson from the past.
This question is all that more important in the face of the fact that the Government of India has inked the Framework Agreement with the NSCN (IM) on August 3 this year.
While both parties are tight lipped on the finer aspects of the Framework Agreement, it is more than indicative that some significant progress has been made in the peace parley between the rebel outfit and New Delhi.
A final agreement may be inked anytime in the near future, but the question of bigger import is whether the other armed outfits, particularly the NSCN (K) would be agreeable to the pact or not.
Can the NSCN (IM) alone claim to represent the Naga people ? Will peace be a possibility, if the other outfits do not come on board ?
The NSCN (IM) may brush aside this question as of no significance, but it stands that peace, as understood universally, cannot be a patchwork arrangement.
Important too to question whether the armed outfits have studied the possibility of coming together to sign a collective agreement with the Centre.
Also important to ask whether Delhi can afford to ignore the other armed groups for peace to become a reality.
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