The Working Committee of the Naga National Political Groups (NNPGs) has sought a review of the Framework Agreement (FA) the Centre had signed with the rival Isak-Muivah faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, or NSCN (IM), in August 2015.
The NNPGs comprise seven rival factions of the NSCN (IM) and older armed groups.
The NSCN (IM) had in the second week of August released the FA after accusing Nagaland Governor R.N. Ravi of tweaking its content to put the Naga political issue “under the purview of the Indian Constitution. The outfit also said the agreement was based on shared sovereignty between India and the Naga domain.
In a statement on August 30, the NNPGs said the FA had erased a “greater part of Naga history and struggle” by stating that the “Indo-Naga political conflict” had started around 1955-56.
Seeking to know whose political conflict the FA was about, the NNPGs said the six decades mentioned accounted for a fraction of the conflict and was tantamount to dismissing a “people’s political journey” in an “abject manner”.
The conglomerate said that “after five years and much secrecy”, the FA “reflects lack of Naga people’s consultation and participation prior to signing”.
The NNPGs also wondered why the FA referred to ‘Nagaland’ instead of ‘Nagalim’, the greater sovereign Naga homeland envisaged by the NSCN (IM). Nagalim includes all Naga-inhabited areas around Nagaland, including in Myanmar.
“If the FA was signed under Nagalim, no response would have been necessary due to the fact that the usage of Nagalim is confined to NSCN (IM) members alone and their interpretation would have been irrelevant. To them, Nagaland denotes the present geographical area of the Indian State of Nagaland,” the statement said.
“They discarded Nagaland and coined Nagalim in their political vocabulary to propagate a different narrative. However, suddenly on the eve of signing the FA in 2015, they found the beautiful, blissful God-given Nagaland more profound and document-worthy in place of the discomforting Nagalim,” it added.
The NNPGs also alleged that the NSCN (IM) was seeking from the Centre the permission to make the Intangki Reserve Forest near Nagaland’s commercial hub Dimapur as their resettlement and rehabilitation area as part of the solution to the Naga peace process.
“Any consideration of any part of the reserve forest as a bargaining chip for rehabilitation shall not be acceptable at any cost,” the NNPGs said, adding that they were on the same page as all other Naga civil society groups on this issue.