BackGovt walks the talk on Look East policy, signs peace accord with NSCN (IM)
The announcement of the peace treaty with the Naga outfit was made at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's official residence
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New Delhi: In a major breakthrough, the Union government on Monday inked an accord with one of the largest insurgent groups in the country’s northeast, paving the way to end one of India’s longest running insurgencies.
The move is expected to bring peace to a region riven by a myriad insurgencies and at the centre of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s plans for sub-regional cooperation with Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal on the one hand and connecting northeast India with the key economies of Southeast Asia on the other.
Thuingaleng Muivah, one of the leaders of the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM) group, signed the pact with R.N. Ravi, the interlocutor appointed by the National Democratic Alliance government last year.
The pact was signed in the presence of Modi, home minister Rajnath Singh, Army chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag and other senior ministers and officials in New Delhi. The other leader of the group, Isak Chishi Swu, stayed away due to ill health.
“It is a major development. One does not know the details of the agreement but the NSCN-IM is one of the largest armed groups in the region. It ran extortion networks and provided arms to other insurgent groups in the region. The pact will allow the principal Naga rebel group to come into the political mainstream," said Ajai Sahni, executive director at the Institute for Conflict Management, a New Delhi-based think-tank.
In his remarks, Modi, who hosted the event at his official residence, 7 Race Course Road, noted that the Naga insurgency had “lingered for six decades, taking a huge toll on generations of our people. Unfortunately, the Naga problem has taken so long to resolve because we did not understand each other".
“Today’s agreement is a shining example of what we can achieve when we deal with each other in a spirit of equality and respect, trust and confidence; when we seek to understand concerns and try to address aspirations; when we leave the path of dispute and take the high road of dialogue. It is a lesson and an inspiration in our troubled world," Modi said.
Muivah, on his part, appreciated Modi’s “vision" and “wisdom" and said Nagas “can be trustworthy". He recalled that the peace moves started during the tenure of Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, who recognised the problem of insurgency as a “political problem" and not just a law and order problem.
The government and the NSCN-IM implemented a ceasefire in 1997 and held talks in Southeast Asia, where Isak and Muivah were based. Subsequently, the two Naga leaders returned to India for negotiations. The outfit’s leaders then held talks with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2001. The ceasefire with the group was extended by the government on an annual basis.
According to Sahni, despite the peace talks and the ceasefire, the NSCN-IM continued to have enormous outreach, with bases in countries neighbouring India’s northeast. “Their cadres were involved in supporting other militant groups in other states of India’s northeast. This pact puts an end to that," he said.
Peace in the region is vital for many key projects that Modi has in mind like the Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and India road connectivity project as well as one that will link India to Southeast Asia through Myanmar. “Without peace in this region, these would just be a pipe dream," Sahni said.
He, however, noted that a second NSCN group, led by S.S. Khaplang and blamed for the ambush in Manipur in June that killed 18 Indian soldiers, was yet to be brought to the negotiating table. The group is based in Myanmar.
The NSCN-Khaplang, or NSCN-K, faction was born out of a split of the NSCN in 1988. The Khaplang faction entered into a separate ceasefire with the Indian government in 1998 that it called off in 2012.
According to Sahni, the June ambush by the Khaplang faction might have been triggered when it got wind of the fact that the NSCN-IM was close to clinching a pact with New Delhi.
“In the short run, we could see an upscaling of the violence with the NSCN-K taking the space vacated by the Isak Muivah group. It would have been better if both were brought to the negotiating table together," Sahni said.
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