Indo-Naga Talk Likely to end soon with amicable settlement mutatis mutandis
- Part 1 -

Waikhom Damodar Singh *

Isak Swu and Th Muivah

The word "Naga" has been derived from the sanskrit word "Nanga", meaning "Naked". It is from this derived very meaning that there is a large (in thousands) group of "Naked Sadhus" called "Naga Sadhus". These very strange group of people lead an isolated and very unusual life of their own as "Hermits" - persons completely "renounced" from all the narrow and selfish worldly living and activities and live a solitary existence as the ardent devotees of God, who quite mysteriously appear, from where not known exactly, but come out only at the time of "kumbh-mela" festival performed in every four years in U.P. etc. as one the biggest "religious festivals" of the Hindus where lakhs of Hindu devotees throng and very thickly congregate, and they (the Naga Sadhus) participate in the huge and very thickly crowded congregation mixing up freely, frankly and without any shyness with the crowd who also do not have any "look-down-stances" on them (rather they regard them as the divine and very holy persons), though their "stark naked bodies" smeared with "ashes" give a very awkward and ugly sight to look at.

As for the "apellation" latley given to some of a "few" groups of the Hill tribes of the north-eastern fringe of India, it was originated from the Assamese word "Noka-Manu", meaning Hill people, the word Noka used is also a deviated sanskrit word "Nanga". It was only when the British appeared in the region during the beginning of the 19th century that they began widely using the racial "sobriquet" (borrowed and assumed name) for classifying the above mentioned particular groups of the Hill tribes with formation even of an admfnistrative unit of their erstwhile Province of greater Assam in the name of "Naga Hills District". It is not known exactly as to why the British people had so selectively given the "borrowed apellation" only to the "few" indigenous groups of the hill tribes out of the so many Mongoloid stock of tribal hill peoples are there inhabiting the north-east region, speaking different dialects of their own. One of the reasons, perhaps, is for the fact that they found these few groups of the hill tribes called "Nagas" living in semi-naked and quite uncivilised features.

Until the advent of the British these tribes lived actually in "isolation" and in "continuous warring" with each other in which "head-hunting" amongst them was freely practised for showing supermacy of a tribe over the others. In fact, there was no such a thing known as "composite Naga people or Nation" until A.Z.Phizo appeared on the scene in the 1950s, and he propounded the theory of a "Naga, Nation" although the indigenous individual groups of people did not know calling them by the name "Naga" - they called each other only by their original tribal designations. It was under the "extremist schemes" of Phizo that demanding of a separate independent set-up called "Nagaland", the land of the independent Nagas inhabiting the areas of Nagaland district, the States of Manipur, Assam and then of the NEFA (North Eastern Frontier Agency, now Arunachal State), began in earnest.

Phizo's claim that the Nagas lived as a composite Nation could not be accepted as they never lived in a "unified political set up under a common chief or ruler of their own and with all the requisites for being a Nation e.g. a common territory, a common languag, etc.". Rather they lived in scattered and isolated villages on the top of the high hills, each village constituting an "independent entity" of a particular tribe living in it under its own chief.

A. Zaphu Phizo, an Angami tribe from Khonoma village, who attempted to run a "tyre retreading business in Kohima town" during the 1930s but uttely failed with loss of Government money invested, ran away to Burma and lived there for some years and during the second world war he met Netaji_ Subhas Chandra Bose there and joined his revolutionary Organisation, the INA in the rank of a corporal.

He returned to Kohima after the end of the second world war in 1945 and "plunged into active politics" - he founded a Political extremist Organisation known as Naga National Council in 1950, converted from a civil Naga Club formed earlier under the initiatives of the British Deputy Commissioner of the District, Charles Pawsay, ICS (later on Sir Charles Pawsay) for rendering recreationary life and development of social service for the Naga officials living in the District Head Quarter at Kohima and Mokokchung towns. The organisation so formed became soon a party having very strong "anti-Indian-feelings and stances" incited by Phizo which finally broke out in "armed revolt" against the independent Government of India from 22 March 1956 onwards demanding a separate independent country of the Nagas of their own in which, Thuingaleng Muiyah, a Tangkhul born and brought up at Somdal village, of Ukhrul District of Manipur and educated from Imphal and Shillong joined as a very active Member and a confident assistant of Phizo.

Then in 1980 the Ntional Council was "split" into two factions and the revolutionary group under the name of National Socialist Council of Nagaland was formed with Issak Swu, a Sumi Naga as its Chairman, S.S.Khaplang, a Burmese Homi Naga and Thuingaleng Muivah as the vice-Chairman and General Secretary respectively as they did not agree to the having of the NNCs Peace-Talk process initiated by its pro-Phizo moderates and signed a Peace Accord with the Gover~ ment of India in the year 1975 giving up the armed revolutionary activities.

The split group then further divided into two warring factions quite surprisingly - one led by Khaplang known as NSCN(K) group and the other led by Issak and Muivah known as NSCN(IM) group due to serious dissension of opinions that arose amongst them regarding having of another Peace-Talk with Government of India proposed by Issak and Muivah. The break away of the party, into two groups took place with a large number (some 150 members) of Issak Muivah's men massacred in an early dawn surprise armed swoop carried out on their hide-out camp in the Nagaland-Burma border in the year 1980 by Khaplang group.

Both the insurgent groups carried on violent subversive activities not only in the State of Nagaland but also in the four hill districts of Manipur, namely, Senapati, Ukhrul, Tamenglong and Chandel districts and also in some Naga inhabited areas of Assam and Arunachal States, in contiruation of their demand of a sovereign country of Nagas though the Naga Hill District had been upgraded, as a special case, to a full fledged Indian State (the 16th) in the year 1963 as was formally inaugurated by late Dr. Radhakrishnan, the President of India with Shri Shilu Ao as its first Chief Minister.

The NSCN (IM), then with a U turn, after Issak and Muivah met the Prime Minister of India, P.V. Narashimha Rao, first in Paris and later on in New York in 1995, H.D. Deve Gowda in Zurich in February 1997, and Atal Behari Vajpayee in Tokyo in 2002 entered into a "cease-fire-agreement" with the Government of India and started the "Indo-Naga-Peace-Talk" with an aim of keeping a permanent "peace" in Nagaland and its adjoining States of Manipur, Assam and Arunachal.

To be continued...