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 The Naga peace talks began 10 years ago with the signing of a ceasefire that came into effect on August 1, 1997. These longwinded talks finally came home to Dimapur this week. Through it all, a peaceful solution, acceptable to all, has eluded the vexed issue. Many despair that the ritualistic extension of ceasefire — on Tuesday both sides agreed to extend the ceasefire “indefinitely” — has failed to ensure a lasting settlement. So what is at stake? And how did it all begin? Samudra Gupta Kashyap pieces together the story

• What is the genesis of the problem?

The Naga tribes inhabiting the Naga Hills that now comprise the state of Nagaland, were living on their own. They shared a friendly relationship with the Assamese, until they discovered they were being gradually brought under British rule. The British constituted the district of Naga Hills in 1866 but it took almost five decades to consolidate their effective control over the Nagas. British occupation of the Naga Hills, however, was marked by several incidents of violent resistance, forcing the British to keep the Naga Hills — then geographically clubbed under Assam — outside the purview of the Assam Provincial Assembly.

In 1929, the Naga Club submitted a memorandum to the Simon Commission saying the Nagas would not join India when the British departed, and that they should be left to live on their own, “independent of others, as they were before the colonisation.” In 1935, the British declared the Naga Hills as an “Excluded Area.” As the British prepared to leave India, the Naga National Council (NNC) proposed an interim government in the Naga Hills with India as a “guardian power” for ten years.

Meanwhile, Gandhi told a delegation of Nagas that the Nagas had a right to be independent of India. Angami Zapu Phizo took a leading role in this revolt, and on August 14, 1947, the NNC declared independence for Nagaland. Since then it has been a story of successive groups taking up the call for a ‘sovereign’ Nagaland comprising of Naga-inhabited areas of India as well as those that lie in Myanmar.

• When did the NSCN(M) appear on the scene?

The government of India took a tough stand since day one; several top Naga leaders were almost immediately arrested. The NNC, bent on achieving a ‘sovereign’ state, held its own plebiscite in May 1951 with 99.9 per cent voting for Naga independence. The government rejected it. The Nagas then boycotted the 1952 general elections.

On March 22, 1956, the NNC set up its Federal Government of Nagaland with a military wing called Naga Home Guard, which was soon rechristened as the Naga Army. Meanwhile, the Naga People’s Convention signed a 16-point agreement with the government in July 1960 that led to the creation of Nagaland as a separate state within the Indian Union. Phizo, with the patronage of Pakistan and China, however, continued to step up the armed movement.

In 1975, the NNC signed the Shillong Accord, but a section of leaders under Thuingaleng Muivah, Issac Swu, and S.S. Khaplang dismissed it as a sell-out.

In January 1980, the trio formed the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN). The group, however, split into two in 1988, one led by Issak Swu and Muivah called NSCN (IM) and the other led by Khaplang called NSCN(K). Of these the NSCN(IM) has been described by intelligence agencies as the group spearheading the “mother of all insurgencies in the Northeast.”

• What kind of peace efforts have been made so far?

In April 1964 the government of India constituted a peace mission with Rev Michel Scott, a Baptist Church leader and British national, then Assam Chief Minister Bimala Prasad Chaliha and Jai Prakash Narayan. This group brought about a ceasefire agreement between the underground leaders and the government of India on August 15 1964. The ceasefire, however, failed and the peace mission was subsequently dissolved.

In September 1964, the government and FGN held the first peace talks. The 1975 Shillong Accord too fizzled out. In June 1995 then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao met Swu and Muivah in Paris, and held preliminary talks on a prospective peace process. Rao met them again in September 1995 in New York. After two years of behind-the-scene preparations, the two sides announced on July 25, 1997 their decision to enter into a “cease-fire agreement” effective from August 1, 1997. Since then the two sides have met nearly 50 times, in different places including Amsterdam, Bangkok, New Delhi and finally on July 31, 2007 at Dimapur in Nagaland.

• What is the main hurdle in the process?

The NSCN(IM) wants “unification” of all Naga-inhabited areas of the Northeast (including those in Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh) as well as those in Myanmar to constitute a sovereign Nagalim. The other states obviously do not want to part with their territories. The NSCN does not appear agreeable to a solution that falls short of anything short of a sovereign state.