Mainstream WeeklyThe demand for a Greater Nagaland or Nagalim and the intended visit of the General Secretary of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN-IM), Thuingleng Muivah, to his ancestral village Somdal in the Ukhrul district of Manipur has brought the State of Manipur to the centre stage of political controversy. Isak Swu and Muivah of the Greater Naga movement, and popularly known as the leaders of NSCN-IM, have been demanding a separate homeland for the Naga people scattered across the States of Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, besides of course the Nagaland State.
The dominant inhabitants in the Ukhrul district of Manipur are the Tangkhul Nagas and Th Muivah belongs to this community. In Manipur, the Meities comprise the dominant section of the population, and they along with the government are opposing Muivaha’s visit to his ancestral village of Somdal in the Ukhrul district in Manipur. The Manipur Government argues that the ceasefire does not apply to Manipur, and the Manipur State is not bound to provide security cover to Muivah if he visits his village.
The reasons to deny Muivah the right to visit are many. First, the dominant Meities in Manipur are apprehensive that if Muivah is allowed to come to Manipur, his visit might trigger political troubles with the demand for Greater Nagaland emerging at the centre-stage. Manipur is not expected to let the four Naga-dominated hill districts secede. If the NSCN-IM’s demand to extend the ceasefire to the four Naga-dominated hill districts of Manipur is allowed, the logical development will be greater clamour for a unified Nagaland, a prospect which Manipur dreads. The NSCN will interpret extension of the ceasefire as an excuse to legitimise their claim over the four Naga-dominated hill districts of Manipur.
Why did Muivah choose to visit his ancestral village at this point of time after nearly forty years of absence? Newspaper commentators and analysts on the North-East issue float different reasons. However, none of the reasons seems to be credible. The truth, however, is that there is no love between the Nagas and Meities. Unless the trust deficit between the NSCN-IM-backed Nagas and Meities is removed, no dialogue between the two tribes seems possible. As a first step, therefore, the NSCN-IM leader, Muivah, must engage the Meities in dialogue and sort out the conflicting issues. Unless both the tribes learn to live with mutual respect and not see each other as mutual enemies, peace as well as solution of the conflict between the two sides will continue to elude them.
Why are the States of Manipur and Nagaland in the news now suddenly years after the Greater Nagaland issue left the two States on the boil but was then kept dormant? Is the planned visit of the NSCN-IM General Secretary, Muivah, to his ancestral village in Manipur so important to trigger so much political heat in the region? The truth is that it has. The reactions to the intended visit have created such a situation in the state of Manipur that the average citizen of the State is suffering from the economic blockade very severely.
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Before examining the impact of the planed visit, some bare facts of the main actors and issues are necessary to put the problem in perspective.
The present General Secretary of the NSCN-IM, Muivah, worked with A.Z. Phizo in the Naga National Council (NNC) in 1964. Now he is 75 years old and currently the General Secretary of the NSCN faction headed by him. Its Chairman is Isak Swu—thus the acronym NSCN-IM. He, Swu and Khaplang (now heading the NSCN-K faction) launched the NSCN in 1978 following the Shillong Accord by the NNC in November 1975. The NSCN split into NSCN-IM and
NSCN-K in 1988.
The present State of Nagaland was created on December 1, 1963 out of the Naga Hills district of Assam. The present demand for Nagalim embraces the Tuensang Tract of the erstwhile North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA). Nagalim or Greater Nagaland is the proposed sovereign Naga State that the NSCN wants. It comprises the present Nagaland as well as all “Naga-inhabited