Naga integration still on IM’s agenda : More than just a statement
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: December 09 2016 -

It is obvious that integrating all Naga inhabited areas under one administrative umbrella is still very much there on the agenda of the NSCN (IM).

The very announcement of senior NSCN (IM) leader Anthony Ningkhan Shimray has only reinforced this.

Difficult to say how receptive is Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP to this idea, but this is something which the Congress will play to the hilt in the run up to the Assembly election next year.

Wonder how the BJP will respond when such a card is played by the Congress.

It was not only the announcement that made the announcement interesting, but also the fact that Shimray went into the finer details.

Just recount his statement which went like this, ‘Nagas are likely to have an interim administrative set up under Regional Autonomous Territorial Council and in the process a joint commission will be instituted to work out the boundaries of the Naga inhabited areas so as to integrate the Nagas under one administrative roof,’ and this is where no one in Manipur will easily dismiss his claim as another statement on Greater Nagaland from a senior leader of the NSCN (IM).

To be sure there will be no response from the Centre and this is something which the Congress will use to whip the BJP, especially in the valley which gets to send 40 out of the 60 MLAs in the State Assembly.

The very statement of Shimray may also be understood better in the backdrop of the strong opposition to the demand that Sadar Hills be upgraded to the status of a full fledged district.

More than obvious that to the UNC, Sadar Hills is Naga area and hence no other hill tribe can lay claim to it.

This is despite the logical explanation that districts are created for administrative convenience and not along ethnic line.

More than obvious that some concrete progress has been made in the peace process between the NSCN (IM) and the Government of India.

The Framework Agreement inked between the NSCN (IM) and the Government of India last year should underline this point.

While no one seems to know the finer details of the talk process, more so the Framework Agreement, it stands that the peace process seems to have picked up pace since then and this can be known from the positive vibes that have been coming from the outfit and the different Naga frontal organisations.

So while the NSCN (IM) which fought against the Government of India for decades seems to have found an ally in Delhi, its nemesis seems to have undergone a drastic transformation.

Today it is no longer Delhi, which is seen as standing against the interest of the outfit and by extension the Naga people, but the Government of Manipur.

With numerous Naga civil society organisations dubbing the Government of Manipur, ‘communal Government’, it does not need a genius to decipher what this term reflects.

It is this which is unfortunate. The State Government too should introspect why it has been dubbed communal by a group of people who are indigenous to the land.