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In the year 1816, Assam was invaded by Myanmar, following which Myanmar started controlling the place from 1819 to 1826. In the year 1826, the British started ruling over this region. By the year 1892, the entire Naga region excepting the Tuensang area was under the control of the British. The British rule brought an end to the massive bloodshed and interregional conflicts. Post India’s independence, Nagaland remained a part of the state of Assam. The extremist people and the Naga groups took part in an intense revolt for freedom from the nation of India. However, finally, the Indian army succeeded in making this revolt a failure in the year 1955. Nagaland, the 16th state of the Indian Union, was established on December 1, 1963.
Having failed to prevent the partition of the British India into India and Pakistan in 1947, the Indian nationalist elite, who took over political power from the British, aspired to build up a strong and united nation-state in India. As a part of its nation-building effort, the post-colonial Indian state sought to integrate even the backward tribal communities living in the so-called ‘excluded’ and ‘partially excluded’ areas of British India into the Indian Union.1 Through a carrot and stick policy, the Indian state tried to ensure that majority of indigenous ethnic communities living in the Northeast join the Indian federation.
The Nagas, considered by the colonial rulers as backward tribes, however resisted the assimilative policies of the Indian state. By invoking the right to self-determination on the basis of their `distinct’ ethnic identity and `unique’ history, the Nagas defied the Indian state that sought to make them a constituent part of the post-colonial Indian Union. Although they resorted to peaceful forms of protest initially, with the increase in state repression, the Nagas gradually took to arms to fight for independence from the Indian Union. In the initial years the Indian political leaders expected that the Naga revolt would be easily suppressed by the Indian armed forces and that the Nagas, like other ethnic communities in the Northeast, would accept India’s sovereignty in course of time.
But contrary to expectations, the Naga struggle raged for more than four decades, gradually miring the entire region in insurgency and wars of identity. Realizing the limitations of their counterinsurgency strategy in the Naga Hills, the Indian government effected a major policy-shift towards the Naga insurgency in 1990s and made several attempts to negotiate peace with the insurgent groups. It concluded cease-fire agreements with Isak-Muivah (IM) faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN) in the year 1997 and later negotiated a similar cease-fire agreement with Khaplang faction of NSCN in 2001. At the time of writing this paper, negotiations were taking place between the government of India and the NSCN (IM) leadership to seek a mutually acceptable solution to the decades-old Naga problem.
At the background of the negotiations, however, there simmers a lurking fear that the talks may end up in a deadlock like they did before. Among others, the continuation of inter-tribal and inter-group rivalries among the Nagas and the hostile attitude of neighboring ethnic communities and state governments in the region to the extension of Naga ceasefire agreement to areas beyond Nagaland do pose challenges to the peaceful resolution of the Naga problem. However, because of major changes in some of the parameters that had adversely affected the earlier peace efforts, the prospects of a pragmatic and productive negotiation between the Indian government and the Naga leaders appear to be brighter at the moment than anytime before. The present paper examines the causes for the failure of earlier initiatives and explores the possible solutions for resolving the contentious issues that still stand in the way of a peaceful settlement of the long-running ‘India-Naga’ problem.
The name `Naga’ is a generic term that refers to a group of over thirty tribes inhabiting not only Nagaland but also some hilly regions of the states of Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh in Northeast India. Some of the Naga tribes are also found in the Northwestern parts of Myanmar bordering India. The Naga tribes are reported to have migrated to these places from further east a few thousand years ago. The Naga settlements in the region are mentioned in the Royal Chronicles of Manipur and also in the Ahom Buranjees. Despite racial and cultural similarities, each Naga tribe has its own language and traditional social and political institutions. Till the arrival of the British, most of these communities depended on hunting, food gathering and shifting cultivation for their livelihood. Except among a few of comparatively advanced Naga tribes such as the Angami, Sema and Tangkhul3, which practised wet rice cultivation, the institution of private property was not developed among the Nagas before the arrival of the British. Nor did they have any central political authority like state in the modern sense of the term. Inter-tribal and inter-village conflicts were very common. The practice of headhunting was quite common among some of these tribes.
For long the British did not evince any interest in extending their authority over the Naga inhabited hill areas of the Northeast. They were primarily interested in developing tea plantations in the plains and in the foothills. British officers encountered the hostile Angami Nagas for the first time in 1832, when they were undertaking exploratory tours to build road communication between Assam and Manipur through the Naga Hills.
The development of tea plantations in the region brought them in direct conflict with the Naga tribes. The Nagas, who began to see the growing British interests in the region as encroachment, started raiding and plundering the villages in the plains. They also kidnapped and killed labourers and officers working in the tea plantations. It was primarily to discipline the Nagas and to protect the British colonial subjects and business interests in the plains from the frequent attacks of the marauding Naga tribes that the British forces were compelled to take action against the Nagas.
In some areas the British consciously encouraged the settlement of the Kuki tribes adjacent to the villages inhabited by the British subjects and pitted them against the Naga tribes. The British also used the King of Manipur and the chief of North Cachar Hills to contain the Nagas. Later as they began to realize that unregulated entry and activities of the White and non-tribal Indian settlers in the region would unnecessarily invite confrontations with the savage tribes, the British introduced Inner Line regulations in the Naga and Lushai Hills.
Apart from these measures, the British also undertook several punitive expeditions against the Nagas. By the end of nineteenth century they could subjugate the Naga resistance and establish authority over them. Later the British set up district level administration in the Naga Hills. Keen to avoid direct interference, the British empowered the village headmen to act on behalf of the British Crown. They even constituted the Naga Hills District Tribal Council to guide the administration of the civil affairs of the Nagas in accordance with Naga traditions. However, the British left the frontier areas inhabited by the Nagas such as Tuensang division and Tirap frontier tract almost un-administered, as they viewed establishment of full-fledged administration in these areas economically unviable and financially burdensome. They also felt that the un-administered areas would act as a buffer between British India and China. The British government did very little to bring about a change in the social and economic conditions of the Nagas. However, the Christian missionaries, who were allowed to propagate Christianity among the hill tribes, established hospitals and schools in the Naga inhabited areas. The spread of Christianity and establishment of modern political, administrative and educational institutions led to the birth of an educated middle class among the Nagas. From the very first quarter of the twentieth century this newly emerging class, which had no roots in the landed aristocracy and no links with capitalist enterprise, made attempts to rise above tribal loyalties and think in terms of the collective interests of all the Nagas. The First World War in which some Nagas were recruited as labour corps to assist the British forces in different countries also helped the Nagas to be exposed to the modern ideas of nation and nationalism.
In 1918 these Nagas, with the assistance of the British officials, formed the Naga Club to work for promoting the interests of the Nagas. When the British government appointed the Simon Commission to ascertain the views of different sections of Indians about the future form of selfgovernment, the Naga Club submitted a memorandum to the Simon Commission in 1929, asking the British to exclude the Nagas from the political processes taking shape in the Indian subcontinent.Responding positively to the wishes of the Naga Club, the Government of India Act of 1935 designated the Naga Hills district as an “excluded area” where laws applicable to the rest of British-controlled India would not operate and the Nagas could continue with their own traditional ways of life with little interference from the federal or the provincial government. It is interesting to note that the Nagas, who fought fiercely against the British in the nineteenth century, gradually began to Available documented history about the Naga tribes is very sketchy.
mention of “Kiratas”, golden skinned people who lived in the East. And Ptolemy, in his Geographia, around 150 A.D. make mention of “the realm of the Naked”. The Royal Chronicles of Manipur also make mention of a Kabui Naga village around 33-150 A.D. But there is nothing definite till date. Even the origin of the word “Naga” is still shrouded in mystery and conjecture. What all Naga tribes believe though is that they came from the East (three routes are indicated by some authors) and settled in their present location. The only thing definite appears to be that Naga tribes were already settled in the area before the arrival of the Ahoms, around 1228, under King Sukhapa. A long period of “blow-hot-blow-cold” Naga-Ahom relations followed.
The next significant period involved the advent of the British who entered the region in a major way after the Treaty of Yandanbo between Britain and Burma in 1826, under which the latter agreed to cede all claims to Assam, Manipur and the Jaintia Hills.But from all appearances, the British had not only set their eyes on the region but they were also already in the region much before that. A map drawn by one Rennel, around 1664, showed some Naga villages.
The first Naga encounter with the British took place in 1832 when Captains Jenkins and Pemberton were ordered to trace a land route from Imphal to the British Headquarters in Assam – Britain had retained the Manipuri Kingdom through the Treaty of Yandabo. Just like the earlier resistance to Ahom and Burmese attempts to cross Naga country, the British attempt was also fiercely resisted by the Naga tribes, living along the route, and the British party was attacked all the way to Dimapur.
There followed a long period of British “expeditions” against Naga villages. The British also kept changing policies between ‘controlling’ Naga tribes and pursuing non-interference into Naga affairs – these policy decisions were being taken at the Vice-roy level and higher. Finally, a decisive policy action was taken in 1866 when the British decided to set up a district headquarter at Samaguting (present Chümukedima near Dimapur) to look after Naga affairs. But Captain Butler, who was appointed to this new post could take charge only in 1869, three years later. This district headquarters, after much consideration, and study of alternate sites, was shifted to Kohima in 1878.
The shifting of the British headquarters to Kohima also proved decisive in controlling and containing Naga resistance to British rule.
organized resistance to colonial authority took place during the next winter of 1879-80, at Khonoma Village. With the fall of Khonoma, organized resistance to the British collapsed within British administrated areas. There were, naturally, other tribes in the eastern Naga areas who never came under British rule. They were referred to, by the British, as the “Free Nagas” in the “Un-administered Areas”2 The tribes in Mon Tuensang, Longleng and Kiphire districts did not come under the British.
Before the advent of the British, Naga tribes (even villages!) were living “independent” of each other. British administration brought many tribes “together” and provided them with the opportunity to work together 3 . Christianity further cemented the bond among intra- and inter- tribe “faithful”.
The bringing together of disparate Naga tribes by the British Administration had a kind of “culmination” when about 5,000 Nagas, from different tribes (cutting across present-day State boundaries) went to France during World War I, as part of the Allied Labour Corps. On return, these “veterans” organized themselves into a “club”. Later, when the Simon Commission arrived, the Naga Club members, feeling responsible for the future of the Naga tribes, presented their now famous Memorandum to the Commission in 1929. Basically, two points were raised:-
Neither of these two requests was fulfilled although the Nagas were placed under the “Naga Hills Excluded Area” and directly placed under the Crown’s Representative, as per British Government of India Act 1935 which actually took effect in 1937. As a result, as the date for Indian Independence drew closer, the Naga tribes, who still helped the British and Allied Forces during the World War II, began to organize themselves into a political body, demanding complete independence from India.
The Naga National Council (NNC), formed out of the earlier Naga Hills District Tribal Council, in 1945, soon became the umbrella organization for the fight for Naga independence. After a lull, during the World War II – when at least two war time world records were created – the Naga issue was taken up again. It led to the Nine-Point Agreement of June 19474 which basically only asked for autonomy with provision for a review of the Agreement after 10 years.
While there were efforts from Naga side, as well as assurances from Indian leaders, to resolve the impasse surrounding the 9-Point Agreement of June 1947, the “conflict”, nevertheless, continued. Gradually, as usually happens in situations of controversy and potential conflict, provocations led to actual physical and armed conflict in the early 1950s. After nearly a decade of violence, the 16-Point Agreement was arrived at in 1960 with the Government of India through instrumentation of the Naga Peoples Convention (NPC)6. Unfortunately, those still underground – the NNC leaders and cadres — did not participate. Violence continued. In the meantime, moved by conditions of violence and human suffering, the Naga Baptist Church took the lead under the banner of the Peace Mission, which involved Bimala Prasad Chaliha, chief minister of Assam, the Gandhian leader, Jayaprakash Narayan, and the well-know British Church figure, Rev. Michael Scott. The Peace Mission started negotiations for peace. This led to the Cease-fire Agreement of 1964. Several rounds of talks also followed including at the prime ministerial level. But entrenched positions did not allow the impasse to be broken. The ceasefire was effectively over by 1972 but the Peace Mission was aborted by May 1966 with the resignations of Chaliha and Narayan and the explusion of Scott from India for allegedly taking a pro-Naga position. Further efforts by the Baptist Church resulted in the November 1975 Shillong Accord7 But it ended in controversy. After this, slowly, the Naga Movement splintered into four factions. And the impasse continues to this day despite the fact that new ceasefire Agreements were arrived at in 1997 and 2001 with two factions of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, the dominant groups of the Naga Nationalist movement. Peace talks with the most powerful grop (NSCN I-M) lead by Isak Swu, the chairman, and Th. Muivah, the general secretary, have been continuing since 1997, including an intense series of discussions at New Delhi in December 2004-early 2005.
So, the scenario at this time, is that
to Indian and Myanmarese occupation of Naga country who, nevertheless, are fighting one another and trying to prove that their group represent the Naga people.
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