IMPHAL FREE PRESS Editorial
Posted: 2007-07-20
The ceasefire between the NSCN(IM) and the government of India is due to end on July 31, unless it is extended again, as it had been over and over again for the past one decade. Whether it is back to the jungles for the NSCN(IM) or another leash of life to the ceasefire remains to be seen. As of now, expectedly, it is a war of rhetoric, posturing and threats of resorting to the extreme – a modern equivalent of ritualistic war dances of the primitive era, aimed at making the opponent cower before the battle and ease up on their respective intransigent stances. But the hunch is, as it has happened in the past, at the end of the day on July 31, it will be another leash to the ceasefire that both parties agreed upon in 1997.
Posted: 2007-07-20
The ceasefire between the NSCN(IM) and the government of India is due to end on July 31, unless it is extended again, as it had been over and over again for the past one decade. Whether it is back to the jungles for the NSCN(IM) or another leash of life to the ceasefire remains to be seen. As of now, expectedly, it is a war of rhetoric, posturing and threats of resorting to the extreme – a modern equivalent of ritualistic war dances of the primitive era, aimed at making the opponent cower before the battle and ease up on their respective intransigent stances. But the hunch is, as it has happened in the past, at the end of the day on July 31, it will be another leash to the ceasefire that both parties agreed upon in 1997.
This is a natural presumption, for in the 10 years that have gone by, the peace that the ceasefire ushered in, however flawed it may be, has become a powerful vested interest for everybody, the Government of India, the NSCN(IM), the Naga public and indeed all other neighbouring northeastern communities. The peace talks may have stagnated miserably and the light at the end of the tunnel may still be as remote as when the talks began, but all said and done, it is better to stagnate in peace than in hostility. It needs to be recalled that if the 10 years of peace negotiations did not bring in any tangible result for the Nagas, armed rebellion could not do it either in all of half a century.
It is unlikely that a resumption of hostility now would make this scenario any different. It is a bitter irony, but short of a radical paradigmatic change in notions of people-hood, ethnicity, nationhood, territory etc, neither hostility nor ceasefire is likely to hold any promise. This is a valuable lesson not just for those who have bitten the peace bait, but also those who still have been resisting it stubbornly. On an optimistic note, the futility of it all must serve as the trigger for thoughts of other routes to a resolution. Whatever the case is, one thing is certain, the conditions for peace must be rooted in the soil, and in the present reality, not in the past or in ideologies evolved out of attempts to understand social conditions in other parts of the world in past eras.
The stagnation of the Naga ceasefire, in this sense was inherent in its very inception. In the semantics of the ceasefire terms agreed upon, maybe it was a ceasefire between two equal parties, but never so in reality. For there was another unwritten script that emerged concurrently, one which became the general understanding of the spirit of the agreement too. Unfortunately, in the euphoria accompanying the “peace breakthrough”, the signatories themselves either failed to notice it or ignored it. In this script, the Government of India was the benefactor, giving the insurgent organisation another chance to reform, or else an honourable exit.
If this was not so, the preconditions of the ceasefire would not have been about setting up designated camps for the insurgents, but of a clear Line of Control, LOC, between the two entities, just as there exists an LOC in Kashmir between India and Pakistan, or more relevantly between the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE (ceasefire line as it is called in this context). Would the Government of India ever agree to such a term in the Naga situation, or for that matter any other insurgency in the northeast? The answer is a foregone conclusion. The unarticulated understanding always was, and still is, whatever the settlement reached, it will have to be ultimately within the Indian Constitution, or else within acceptable limits of amendments of this same constitution. If the NSCN(IM) or for that matter any other group which chooses to negotiate peace thinks anything beyond this is achievable, they better be prepared for a hundred years of unending fruitless negotiations.
The lack of an LOC has another implication. It puts the ordinary citizens in total misery. They are harangued by different and opposing laws, different tax (extortion) regimes, are expected to be loyal to two powers on the threat of being penalised either for the crime of being party to sedition and treachery to the nation, or else for being a collaborator of colonisers. Nobody has given much thought to this matter, but this is actually the status of ordinary life in this complex conflict theatre. Official ambiguity, be it on the terms of peace or strategies of war, have only accentuated the hopelessness of this predicament.
It is unlikely that a resumption of hostility now would make this scenario any different. It is a bitter irony, but short of a radical paradigmatic change in notions of people-hood, ethnicity, nationhood, territory etc, neither hostility nor ceasefire is likely to hold any promise. This is a valuable lesson not just for those who have bitten the peace bait, but also those who still have been resisting it stubbornly. On an optimistic note, the futility of it all must serve as the trigger for thoughts of other routes to a resolution. Whatever the case is, one thing is certain, the conditions for peace must be rooted in the soil, and in the present reality, not in the past or in ideologies evolved out of attempts to understand social conditions in other parts of the world in past eras.
The stagnation of the Naga ceasefire, in this sense was inherent in its very inception. In the semantics of the ceasefire terms agreed upon, maybe it was a ceasefire between two equal parties, but never so in reality. For there was another unwritten script that emerged concurrently, one which became the general understanding of the spirit of the agreement too. Unfortunately, in the euphoria accompanying the “peace breakthrough”, the signatories themselves either failed to notice it or ignored it. In this script, the Government of India was the benefactor, giving the insurgent organisation another chance to reform, or else an honourable exit.
If this was not so, the preconditions of the ceasefire would not have been about setting up designated camps for the insurgents, but of a clear Line of Control, LOC, between the two entities, just as there exists an LOC in Kashmir between India and Pakistan, or more relevantly between the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE (ceasefire line as it is called in this context). Would the Government of India ever agree to such a term in the Naga situation, or for that matter any other insurgency in the northeast? The answer is a foregone conclusion. The unarticulated understanding always was, and still is, whatever the settlement reached, it will have to be ultimately within the Indian Constitution, or else within acceptable limits of amendments of this same constitution. If the NSCN(IM) or for that matter any other group which chooses to negotiate peace thinks anything beyond this is achievable, they better be prepared for a hundred years of unending fruitless negotiations.
The lack of an LOC has another implication. It puts the ordinary citizens in total misery. They are harangued by different and opposing laws, different tax (extortion) regimes, are expected to be loyal to two powers on the threat of being penalised either for the crime of being party to sedition and treachery to the nation, or else for being a collaborator of colonisers. Nobody has given much thought to this matter, but this is actually the status of ordinary life in this complex conflict theatre. Official ambiguity, be it on the terms of peace or strategies of war, have only accentuated the hopelessness of this predicament.
