Among the many failed slogans that supposedly proclaim singleness to the Manipur fusion has been that of integrity. This failure is more obvious and apparent when a keen intent exists to resize its present borders from those residing inside it.

The failure exists in part, to a Rip Van Winkle-ish approach to pooh the issue until it becomes unavoidable to do anything else but wake up and face its bitter realities. It exists and proliferates out of processes rooted in pure materialism. And in a time, age, and region defined by human agony, distress, and deprivation, the selfish emphasis upon boundaries is unintelligently over-emphatic.

In the build-ups to the demands for territory, and in the exhibitions demonstrated in its defence, it would seem that there is no room for adjustment. Although the progress of the Naga peace process has been commendable, this process has met with formidable obstacles. Alongside the formal aspects of citizenship, there is a disturbing emergence of a neo-apartheid, or the recurrence of external borders in the form of internal borders nurtured by superpatriotic notions of ethnic, local and racial identity.

The uniqueness of identities and history has never been in doubt. But when that uniqueness is emphasized as the only factor in defining territorial possession, and when it is emphasized as a single viewed monologue, it minimizes the history and uniqueness of other, relatively connected, peoples. The issue appears to be dealing with two absolute concepts.

One is the concept of Manipur as an enduring political and social entity, whereas the concept of greater Nagalim explicitly denies this, asserting that the reality of the Naga historical experience is to be found in the existence of perennial nuclear regions - the regional structures matching the structure-lines of political and social history.

When viewed in this way, both concepts are equated and identified with a search for self-determination - a concept that is common and applicable to the region as a whole, and which entangles and impedes the process of developing the entire region into a strong one. Such approximations examine regions and territories within narrow myopic parameters, and set the stage for erroneous conclusions, speculations, suspicions and misunderstandings - all of which bring about most unwanted results.

Man as a social being is also essentially a territorial being. Dividing and sub-dividing the world according to the territorial principle is probably as old as man himself. But the explanation for our regional sub-divisions is not so simple.

It is a development rooted in insecurity and driven by a constant urge to insulate itself within the safe limits of its world. This can perhaps be clarified by an analogy with painting. The pictures and maps of our region are like a palette of primary colors that constitute multiple structures, and which restrict and form possibilities at the same time.

The general pattern has been to identify oneself emotionally within a territorial bracket where communicative mechanisms, belief systems, and value-patterns are common, and hence, rationalized. The territorial integrity embroilment is therefore more emotional than political. Take away the raw emotional undercurrent, and what you see are two sides of the same coin, each justifying and presenting its own side of the picture. Heads I win, tails you lose.

An understanding of the present forms of disintegration must inevitably start with a basic understanding of history. This is because it is difficult to move forward without removing some of the basic misunderstandings of the past.

Especially for those of us still suffering from the splitting headache of the New Delhi hangover. And especially more for those of us who still refer to each other within brackets and enclosures. Those of us who do not understand the past invariably end up misunderstanding the present and the future as well.

Being a strongly emotional and individual people, we are, within our own borders, in a state of constant disunion and friction. We have had no interior unity, either in the past or in the present. The notion of territory has no real content than that of the ancient historical accumulation of religious, linguistic, and genealogical identity preferences.

The continued emphasis upon territorial possessions blinds us to the true value of our possible regional contribution. And heads us deeper within our own disintegrated headaches. Especially when our headhunting ways are a thing of the past.

A long historical past lays upon us the responsibility of a definite cultural effect upon our surroundings, and a spiritual giving of which we are as yet apparently unaware. The psychological barrier that needs to be undone is to achieve an integration, which will be based upon the overcoming of mutual suspicions. The need is to resolve the issue in terms of goodwill and not of selfish interests.

The real solution is the attaining of right and rational internal relationships. And other equally rational ideas and institutions such as liberty, equality, fraternity, democracy, and free trade, which broaden the traditionally narrow confines of culture, creed and region, and put into perspective the free and natural right of man to become no one but himself.

The difficulty for territorial definitions and clichés is to avoid becoming enclosed in representations that have historically been associated with emancipatory projects and struggles, and have now become obstacles to their revival, to their continuous reinvention. Every definition is subject to the double constraint of the structures of cultural and political units.

What is currently at stake does not consist in a struggle for or against Greater Nagalim or Manipuri integrity in itself. After the start of the peace talks the beginning of the reconciliatory process, the stakes revolve instead around the formation of a status quo that allows it to democratize borders, to overcome interior divisions, and to reconsider completely the role of its peoples in the region.

The uniqueness of inhabitancies can be defined and developed only by a conversation between the old and the new, a fusion of elements, and a willingness on the part of both the moderns and the ancients to be flexible and accommodative. The ultimate decisions, however, must not be made on the basis of history or of ancient glory, but on the basis of what is best for the peoples involved.

They themselves must determine the issue. If the peoples throughout the region reap the benefits of free and genuine election, if peoples in disputed areas are permitted by a free plebiscite to decide their own loyalties and adherences, and if freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of understanding, and a truly free peoples are the outcome of this, a great step forward will have been made by the entire North East family.