Nagaland assembly recognizes underground movement

KOHIMA - The Nagaland assembly’s decision to give legitimacy to the six-decade-long insurgency has been generally hailed by political observers in the state.

“I think this is an astute political move to recognize the underground movement. It gives the movement a sense of credibility,” Monalisa Chankija, editor of the mass circulation English daily Nagaland Page, told IANS.

The 60-member legislature Friday unanimously resolved to “recognize” the Naga underground movement and their leaders, saying they have “selflessly worked, fought and sacrificed for the aspirations and the rights of the Nagas, and also to those who continue to follow the tradition of selfless sacrifices for the common cause of the Nagas”.

The resolution, moved by Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, is significant as the entire 60-member house, including 19 opposition Congress party legislators, endorsed the move.

“There is no public reaction, but then, the move seems to have gone down well as it is probably aimed at uniting all underground groups and ending violence and bloodshed,” Changkija said.

Another significant resolution was to integrate all Naga-inhabited areas in the northeast, a demand that has for long been raised by the Isak-Muivah faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-IM).

“It is the desire of the Nagas to live together as one family and this house has rightly voiced the cry of the Naga people,” Rio said in the assembly.

The NSCN-IM, one of the oldest and most powerful of about 30 rebel groups in India’s northeast, was earlier fighting for an independent homeland for the Nagas but has scaled it down to a “Greater Nagaland”, to be formed by slicing off parts of adjoining states that have Naga tribal populations.

The governments of Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh have rejected the demand for unification of Naga-dominated areas.

New Delhi too has earlier rejected demands for unification of all Naga inhabited areas.

The Indian government is already holding talks with the NSCN-IM after the group entered into a ceasefire in 1997. The rival NSCN faction headed by guerrilla leader S.S. Khaplang too is in a ceasefire since 2001, although formal talks are yet to begin.

The rival NSCN factions are fighting a bitter turf war for territorial supremacy in Nagaland since they split in 1988. The internecine war has claimed more than 500 lives in the past five years.

The Naga insurgency dates back to India’s independence in 1947 with an estimated 25,000 lives lost in the past six decades, including of security forces fighting the guerillas.