Does the NSCN (IM)'s Threat of Violence Hint at a Leadership Transition?

It is through Muivah’s persistent, patient, and sagacious vision that the Naga peace process has lasted 27 years.

The largest Naga resistance group, the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah), or the NSCN (IM), has ostensibly threatened to return to “violent armed resistance against India” unless India agrees to a “third party intervention” to resolve the Naga issue. The five-page statement has divided the collective leadership of the organisation.

It is signed by Thuingaleng Muivah, Chief Naga Negotiator, general secretary of the NSCN(IM) and ‘Prime Minister’ of the ‘Government of the People’s Republic of Nagaland’.

However, the new conditions are apparently not based on any consensus amongst the collective leadership of the NSCN(IM). Most of them are fuming having only become aware of the statement after it had been issued on social media.  

The issue is likely to be taken up in a meeting of the organisation’s ‘National Security Council’, its highest decision-making body, sometime this week. It may also be debated on 27 and 28 November in the winter session of the ‘Naga Parliament’ or the Tatar Hoho.

The NSCN (IM) can only walk back from the statement by withdrawing it publicly. However, then it will have to come clean on Mr Muivah’s mental and physical health. Although a very tough leader with a strategic view of the Naga peace process, he is now 90 years old and has hearing problems and lucidity issues among other age-related ailments.

Admittedly, it is through his persistent, patient, and sagacious vision that the Naga peace process has lasted 27 years. Before it was stalled five years ago, much had been achieved in a detailed draft agreement on many issues.

These gains range from creating Naga Autonomous Territorial Councils in each state adjoining Nagaland which has a Naga population, with financial and judicial powers (for customary law only); the creation of a Nagaland High Court with original and appellate powers; the Naga identity being recognised in Indian passports and defining the permanent residents of Nagaland as those who were residents on or before 1 December 1963.

Only permanent residents would be allowed to buy property, and Nagaland and the Naga people would have full ownership of all minerals above and below the ground. Any further exploration would be joint with the central government. Stamps would be issued honouring Naga heroes.

Nagaland would impose toll tax on goods from other states except those to and from the territorial council areas. Nagaland and the territorial councils would impose Inner Line Permits. Nagaland would have a 'Naga Security Force' as well as a police. And finally, all roads within Nagaland and the territorial council areas would be built by the Centre.

Consensus in the draft statement was missing only on two subjects: the demand for a “separate Naga flag” and a separate Naga Constitution. On the Constitution, the NSCN (IM) leadership had suggested that the overall peace agreement with the Centre would be designated “the Constitution (of the Nagas) and will be called Yehzabo”. This too was a doable proposition when it was formulated. It is no longer viable after the abrogation of Article 370 and Article 35A of the Constitution in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. That is perhaps the crux of the problem.

However, it is also true that the Centre’s later Naga negotiators created a host of ancillary problems that unnecessarily stalled progress on these intractable issues.

Despite the real or imagined misdemeanours of the government negotiators, the collective leadership of the NSCN (IM) cannot afford to go back on the gains made in the peace process so far. They are unprecedented achievements in Delhi’s negotiations with any separatist group.

From all accounts, the controversial statement has been drafted by someone who wanted to outflank the collective leadership of the NSCN (IM) by forcing a radical shift from its known position of continuing the peace negotiations and rubbishing the significant gains made so far.

The needle of suspicion seems to point to Muivah’s nephew Pamshing aka Apam Muivah, who is believed to be in Ruili in the Yunnan province of China. He is there along with the former chief of the NSCN Army, Phungthing Shimray.

The move to China could have originally been an attempt to protect an alternative leadership in case the current leadership of the organisation was “compromised” or placed under arrest. Apam Muivah’s move to China also seemed to have the consent of his uncle, who appointed him as his ‘Political Emissary on Foreign Affairs and National Security Advisor’.

The move, however, can't be seen as instigation by China. No parallels can be drawn with the 1974 trek of Muivah senior and his comrades Isak Swu and S Khaplang to China seeking arms and training. Times have changed and Beijing seems no longer interested in funding, arming, or sheltering Indian insurgents from northeast India.

So, if the threatening statement is indeed the handiwork of Apam Muivah, it will be seen as an attempt to wrest the leadership by projecting himself as the only tough and no-nonsense leader left. Since his propositions rubbish the gains made in the two-and-a-half decades of Th Muivah’s leadership, the statement raises questions about the latter's ability to comprehend, assess, and issue statements drafted by persons who neither have his experience nor foresight.

Anyone familiar with the peace negotiations will know that a third-party role is never going to be acceptable to India. Earlier, both sides had agreed to do away with international legal facilitators like Michael van Walt van Parag, general secretary of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation, and Constitutional expert Yash Ghai from Kenya. All progress made in the negotiations was bilateral after talks shifted to India from foreign venues.

Moreover, going back to violent resistance is easier said than done. The old armed cadre is virtually incapable of going back to jungle life after 27 years of peace. Some new cadres are apparently in Myanmar but the collective leadership may not be in favour of a return to violence.

The best option for the NSCN (IM) now is to retract the statement and prepare for a smooth leadership transition to the next generation. Perhaps they will have to choose someone who is as pragmatic and flexible as Muivah and who will not give up on the core values that the Nagas hold dear. There are some obvious choices but it is for the NSCN (IM) collective leadership to decide.

Clearly, leadership cannot be claimed by simply throwing down the gauntlet.

(The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)