India-Myanmar-Naga maze: Why it is a wake up call for New Delhi to ensure security in the North East

An interesting communiqué dated 5 November 2022 suddenly came to the fore from the International Council of Naga Affairs. Although it was innocuously titled India, Myanmar and the Naga People: Unresolved Colonial Political Conflict the statement—which was both detailed and closely written—conveyed a great deal of thought and lament about the issue pertaining to the Naga Peace Process and the chequered history of the movement.

Although much has been written about the Naga movement, Nirmal Nibedon’s Night of the Guerrillas being one of the most authoritative, a student of Naga insurrection can perhaps never completely exhaust the manner in which its pages turn and unfold. The statement of 5 November 2022 is one such curious addition to the treatise. It is appealing because of the Myanmarese component that it incorporates. After all, few in even the corridors of power of New Delhi know about the way in which the Naga community snakes in and out of Myanmar and then tucks itself away from sight! Indeed, it is perhaps this lack of knowledge that had cost dear many an innocent lives including eighteen bravehearts of the 6 Dogra Regiment who were ambushed by a group of terrorists belonging to the NSCN (Khaplang) and Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL) in Manipur’s Chandel on 4 June 2015.

This author had been to Yangon with a delegation of prominent Indian personages in 2014 for a “Track II Dialogue” with Myanmarese counterparts, In one of the sessions dedicated to security he had queried as to what Myanmar’s specific relation with NSCN (K) was. After all, New Delhi was, at the time, in a ceasefire mode with the Naga grouping. There was considerable disquiet in the hall as a result of the question, but the moot point was that Yangon did not consider NSCN (K) to be an insurgent group and had, as a matter of fact, got into an agreement with the outfit on 9 April 2012 in Hkampti well after New Delhi had signed a cessation of hostilities with the group in 2001. This author had simply wanted to know the contours of Myanmar’s agreement with NSCN (K) because it had a bearing on the Naga Peace Process that was underway. The NSCN (K) has important footprints in Myanmar and although New Delhi had got into a ceasefire agreement with the organisation, there were mandarins in Raisina Hill who were of the opinion that there should be no dialogue with NSCN (K) because it was a Myanmarese Naga outfit and its leader was a Myanmarese national.

Much of such a narrow outlook, of course, stemmed from the fact that NSCN (K) was a rival faction of the prima donna among insurgent groups in the North East, NSCN (IM) and New Delhi was willing to bend backwards to appease it at all cost—even if it meant abrogation of ceasefire with NSCN (K) which eventually took place, leading to the ambush on the 6 Dogras and sundry other acts of violence. Indeed, the question that has been uppermost in the mind of this author ever since the Chandel attack is why NSCN (K) could not been humoured to the extent that it could have continued with the ceasefire and at least abjured the violence that it perpetrated? Innocent lives were lost as a result of some official in New Delhi ordaining that there is no point in holding dialogue with a “Myanmarese Naga”. Indeed, this author’s query to the Myanmarese delegate in Yangon bore exactly that very theme, an aspect about the way in which the Nagas curiously criss-cross political boundaries in order to preserve ethnic contiguity and the dilemma which India is faced with in order to quieten the warring community.

The communiqué of 5 November 2022 had—in all fairness—unravelled this harsh truth. One of which is that even as India and Myanmar were on the path to gaining independence on 15 August 1947 and 4 January 1948 respectively, the Nagas of Myanmar had refused to sign the Panglong Agreement of 12 February 1947 which “was instrumental in forming the Union of Burma” and was the crucial step for providing “full autonomy in internal administration for the Frontier Areas” to some of the ethnic groups of Myanmar such as the Kachins. In other words, the Nagas that inhabited the territory of Myanmar at the time of Burmese independence had not accepted the Bamar “consolidation” in any form or manner.

The fact that it did enter into a bilateral agreement with Yangon in 2012 was an event that came rather late in the day. However, the hard truth is that there was—and continues to be—great puzzlement and dissonance in New Delhi about how to deal with the Naga issue in its entirety. As aforesaid, there is a section that is against speaking to NSCN (K) because of the group’s station in Myanmar and yet there are splinter factions of the original organisation that have entered into agreements with New Delhi. But the fact of the matter is that a comprehensive solution to an all-inclusive Naga issue would decisively rest on a “tripartite dialogue” which the Nagas of Myanmar have been seeking. This had even led to the NSCN (K) which has a population of 400,000 Nagas living in Myanmar not signing the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement of 15 October 2015.

It is another matter that the Tatmadaw violated the ceasefire after the military takeover of 1 February 2021 and the ethnic groups presently are in a state of disarray with a few of them joining the People’s Defence Force and fighting the Myanmar army. In any event, the long and short of it is that there is utter confusion about the manner in which the Naga Peace Process would pan out even if the days that lead up to 25 December 2022 witnesses North Block ferrying fair tidings for NSCN (IM). The Naga issue is not a matter that can be broad-brushed by seeking to appease a particular faction. Indeed, even NSCN (IM) has a formidable presence in Myanmar’s Somra Tracts with 34 Tangkhul villages and important camps in Heirenkot, Yowpi, Koki and Mayinlon. Now, are these Myanmarese Nagas? Definitely so, but they fall under the ambit of Hebron that New Delhi to come into an agreement with. Has New Delhi taken into account the possibility of what could befell it if NSCN (IM) cadres under say the ranking leader in Myanmar, David Raising (Rambo) decides to stay on in Myanmar and out of an agreement with the parent NSCN (IM)?

It would be a repeat of exactly what happened when NDFB entered into a ceasefire in May 2005 but its 3^rd Battalion and chairman, Ranjan Daimary continued to stay on in Bangladesh and three years later perpetrating—at the behest of the ISI—the infamous serial blasts of 30 October 2008 all over Assam resulting in 81 deaths. The statement that emanated from the annals of International Council of Naga Affairs on 5 November 2022—nothwitstanding its exclusive intent of seeking to showcase Naga unity—should act as a grim reminder of aspects that may come to pass as a result of not only piecemeal resolution, but the condescension with which New Delhi approaches certain vexed issues in the enchanted frontiers.

Myanmar is at present in a state of great turmoil. But it has an extremely important bearing on both the security and development of the North East. But the fact of the matter is that New Delhi’s policy towards the country and the strife that it is undergoing has been less than patent. Ambivalence has cost India dear in the past with innocent lives being lost and an ambitious project such as the “Act East Policy” refusing to “Go East”.

Incidentally, the traditional security aspects that govern the outlands are not confined to only the Nagas, but the valley based insurgent groups of Manipur who have been responsible for attacks on Indian security forces from across Myanmar. Even an innocent five year old child, Abeer was killed by a gang of PLA (Manipur) and MNPF during the ambush on the 46 Assam Rifles on 13 November 2021. The killers, reportedly twelve in number, headed by a Sanatomba of PLA (Manipur) are still at large. It is just as well that one of the culprits, Machukring Jamshin Shimray was nabbed on 5 November 2022. But justice for Col Viplav Tripathi and his ill-fated family has to be meted out in full measure. New Delhi cannot rest on the laurels of having nabbed one perpetrator of a heinous crime which not only snuffed away the family of a commanding officer of the Assam Rifles, but reportedly made a scapegoat of a senior officer of the same force in a bid to temper the tormented sentiments that the entire country was giving vent to in the aftermath of the heinous act.

Updated Date: November 11, 2022 17:04:23 IST