The fragile Naga peace process has plunged into uncertainty with the Naga rebel group National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) seeking a “third party intervention” to end the stalemate over the Framework Agreement it had signed with the Government of India (GoI) in 2015. In a statement issued on November 7, Thuingaleng Muivah, the Chief Political Negotiator and NSCN(I-M) general secretary, alleged that the GoI had “deliberately betrayed” the letter and spirit of the Framework Agreement by refusing to recognise and acknowledge the “Nagalim sovereign national flag” and “Nagalim sovereign national constitution”. Muivah is also the Ato Kilonser (Prime Minister) of the self-styled Government of the People’s Republic of Nagalim, the parallel government run by the rebel group.

The NSCN(I-M) has also threatened to resume “the violent armed resistance against India” if the GoI rejects such an initiative and “imposes” a political agreement without the “sovereign national flag” and “constitution”. By Nagalim, the NSCN(I-M) refers to all contiguous Naga-inhabited areas of Nagaland, Manipur, Assam, and Arunachal Pradesh.

The political development is not sudden but a culmination of the ambiguity that gripped the Naga talks five years ago, in 2019, when dialogue came to a halt over the two contentious issues of a separate flag and constitution for Nagalim. Talks resumed in 2022 when the GoI appointed A.K. Mishra, former Special Director of the Intelligence Bureau, as its interlocutor. R.N. Ravi, the previous interlocutor and former Nagaland Governor, was appointed as the Governor of Tamil Nadu in 2021. The several rounds of dialogue between Mishra and NSCN(I-M) negotiators yielded no breakthrough.

Timeline of the peace talks

The Naga peace talks began on August 1, 1997. The Framework Agreement, signed by Muivah and Ravi and copies of which were exchanged in New Delhi on August 3, 2015, in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the then Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, and top NSCN(I-M) leaders, triggered hopes for a quick settlement of the decades-long armed conflict.

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Both sides hailed the Framework Agreement as “historic”. In an official release after the signing of the pact, the government stated: “The sustained dialogue between the two sides, conducted in a spirit of equality, respect and trust, deepened their mutual understanding and confidence, and enabled the two sides to reach an equitable agreement. The Government of India recognized the unique history, culture and position of the Nagas and their sentiments and aspirations. The NSCN understood and appreciated the Indian political system and governance.”

Neither the GoI nor the NSCN(I-M) divulged the content of the Framework Agreement. This left the Naga people clueless about the contours of the final settlement and how the “unique history and position of the Nagas” would be articulated in the final accord, what changes it would bring to the State of Nagaland and Naga-inhabited areas of the neighbouring States, and the power and governance-sharing model.

Muivah maintains that the two significant agreements signed by the NSCN (IM)—the Amsterdam Joint Communique with the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 2002 and the Framework Agreement with the Modi government in 2015—officially recognised and acknowledged “Nagalim sovereignty”. According to him, the agreements also recognised that the Indo-Naga issue was a political conflict between two sovereign entities and therefore the Indo-Naga conflict was not an internal matter of India. He claims that through the Framework Agreement, the two sides had agreed upon “sharing sovereign power” in a “new relationship”. The GoI has not issued any official statement until now.

Parallel dialogue

Two years after the signing of the Framework Agreement, the GoI initiated a parallel dialogue with the Naga National Political Group (NNPG), a conglomeration of seven other Naga rebel groups, after the two sides signed an “Agreed Position” in 2017. The NNPG’s consistent stand has been that the States derive space to exercise sovereign powers from the Constitution of India through the Central List, the State List, and the Concurrent List. According to the Working Committee of the NNPG, the political dialogue concluded on October 21, 2019, and only the final accord remained to be signed.

The NNPG says that the question of sharing sovereign power with the Union of India would take a natural course and claims that it was agreed that the Indian Passport Act would be amended to include a separate page mentioning the identities of Nagas. It has taken the stand that all unresolved matters will be negotiated through political representation of the new legislature and constitutional bodies that would emerge as a result of the final settlement.

The GoI has made it clear that there will be only a single peace accord with all Naga factions. There is no immediate possibility of a final Naga accord being signed without consensus between the NSCN(I-M) and the NNPG on the contentious issues of a separate flag and constitution for Nagalim.

NSCN(I-M) hardens its stance

A speech delivered by NSCN(I-M) chairman Q. Tuccu on August 3 at the rebel group’s council headquarters atop Hebron hills, 40 km off Nagaland’s commercial hub Dimapur, indicated that it was hardening its position on the flag and constitution. “On the question of Naga national flag and constitution, it is a matter of universal custom that flag and constitution are constituent parts of sovereignty. There should be no ambiguity about it. Hence, competencies are being worked out on the principle of the Framework Agreement,” he said while commemorating the signing of the Framework Agreement on the day nine years ago.

Tuccu maintained that the agreement held immense political value as it was done with an aim to correct or rectify past mistakes. “Unfortunately, the GoI’s stand is getting more unsteady with the passage of time, desperate to interpret the Framework Agreement according to their interest and convenience. This has become the crux of the issue and the reason for the inordinate delay in the implementation of FA as agreed upon,” he said.

In his speech as the Ato Kilonser on the occasion of the celebration of the 78th Naga Independence Day at Hebron on August 14, Muivah claimed that Prime Minister Modi, who had supervised the details of the signing of the Framework Agreement, “has turned cool as the years keep going away”. “What makes him go slow in implementing FA, his own brainchild? Certainly, he is in default playing with the protracted Naga issue,” Muivah said.

Muivah also asserted that major mineral resources, including petroleum spread out in different parts of Nagalim, “belongs to us and nobody can exploit at the cost of undermining the sovereign ownership”.

In 2023, Assam and Nagaland agreed in principle for a Memorandum of Settlement for joint oil exploration in the disputed areas along the inter-State boundary and about sharing the royalty. However, the NSCN(I-M), the NNPG and various Naga organisations opposed any such move until the Naga political issue was resolved.

The issue of oil exploration also brought to the fore the complexities and limitations of power sharing under Article 371A of the Constitution. On July 26, 2010, in exercise of its powers under sub clause (a) of the Article, the Nagaland Assembly unanimously passed a resolution rendering inter alia all Acts of Parliament governing petroleum and natural gas inapplicable to the State of Nagaland. Subsequently, the Nagaland Assembly passed another resolution on September 22, 2012, for framing “the Nagaland Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulations, 2012”.

Sub-clause (a) of Article 371A(1) says: Notwithstanding anything in this Constitution, no Act of Parliament shall apply to the State of Nagaland unless the Legislative Assembly of Nagaland by a resolution so decides, in respect of:

(i) religious or social practices of the Nagas,

(ii) Naga customary law and procedure,

(iii) administration of civil and criminal justice involving decisions according to Naga customary law,

(iv) ownership and transfer of land and its resources.

In 2013, the Manmohan Singh government declared the Nagaland Assembly resolution as “unconstitutional and invalid”.

The NSCN(I-M) has maintained that Article 371 poses a roadblock to the implementation of the Framework Agreement and the final settlement. The insertion of Article 371A in the Constitution in 1962 and the subsequent creation of Nagaland as a State on December 1, 1963, itself were the outcome of a 16-point agreement between the Naga People’s Convention and the GoI on July 29, 1960. The rebel group, however, rejects the 16-point agreement, saying that any agreed solution should apply to Nagalim and not confined to the geographic territory of the current State of Nagaland.

Other than R. N. Ravi’s claim in an exclusive interview with Tinakali Sumi of Nagaland Post on February 28, 2020, that the Framework Agreement had no mention of “shared sovereignty” or “Nagas as separate entity”, the GoI has made no official statement on the NSCN (IM)’s position on the contentious issues of the flag and constitution.

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Meanwhile, a consultative meeting on the Naga political issue, convened by the Nagaland government in Kohima on September 12, expressed concern over the stalemate in the Naga talks and urged the rebel groups to reach an understanding among themselves and try to formulate a single document and approach the GoI. The consultative meeting also urged the GoI to elevate the talks to the level of a senior Union Cabinet Minister by appointing a new interlocutor.

Parliamentary Standing Committee

The 213th report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs, presented in Parliament in 2018, states that Ravi had briefed the committee that the position of the NSCN(I-M) from the very beginning had been that “Nagas were exceptional, Nagas were not Indians, Nagas were sovereign and any settlement could be reached only on the basis of the fact that this is a settlement between two sovereigns. While the government kept them engaged, they had continued their position that they will be with India on the basis of a negotiated agreement and would not be ‘within India’”.

The report further states that “in 2015, the government reached an understanding with the NSCN(I-M), which agreed to a settlement within the Indian federation, with a special status. The Interlocutor informed the Committee that this was a departure from their earlier position of ‘with India, not within India’ and the Government called it ‘Framework Agreement’ and signed it”.

The NSCN(I-M)’s hardened position belies such claims. The veil of secrecy shrouding the contentious issues has added to the intractability of the six-decades-long armed conflict, making the Naga peace talks murkier than before.