From ‘equi-distance’ to advisor: Change has come for Jamir

Our Correspondent
Kohima, May 24 (EMN): In a statement of stark contrast to the ‘equi-distance’ policy during his years as the chief minister of Nagaland, Dr. SC Jamir has now expressed a desire to ‘play secondary and advisory role on the ongoing Indo-Naga political talks between the government of India and the Naga political groups.’

It was during his years as chief minister that Jamir had strongly advocated the ‘equi-distance’ approach towards the armed Naga groups. But on Thursday, decades since he was dethroned, Jamir told journalists in Kohima that he wants to ‘play the advisory role.’

When asked to explain the ‘secondary and advisory role’ he wants to don, Jamir responded that although he was not an ‘active member’ of any of the negotiating parties, he nonetheless was prepared as a Naga and an elder to give his services ‘on advisory capacity’ when required.

Labelled ‘the grand old man of Naga politics’ by the media, Jamir was one of the members of the body that negotiated with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1960 in leading to the creation of the state of Nagaland. One of the armed Naga groups, the NSCN-IM, had declared Jamir ‘anti-people and anti-national.’

Addressing journalists during the sidelines of a programme at Jotsoma village in Kohima, Jamir said he was hopeful of something positive emerging from the ‘framework agreement.’ Stating that New Delhi was ‘serious about bringing an end to the Naga political issue,’ he said, ‘Let us wait for the outcome of the negotiation.’

Jamir maintained that the framework agreement ‘doesn’t reflect or speak of sovereignty.’ Therefore it can be safely presumed that the ‘sovereignty for Nagas is not possible now.’ The ‘document of agreement’ signed in the presence of the prime minister and Home minister, according to him, would mean that ‘it will be within the Indian union or the Constitution.’

While not denying that there just might be some ‘safeguards’ in the agreement, Jamir said that it cannot be above the Constitution of India.

‘Will die a Congress-man’

Jamir was the spine of the Congress party in Nagaland for many decades. He asserted: “I was born as a Congress-man, worked as a Congress-man and will die as a Congress-man.”

In the run-up to the Nagaland assembly elections in February this year, the president of Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC) K Therie had declared severance of any connection with Dr. SC Jamir and his family.

“For me at this age, how can I change my principle and ideologies? I am not going to join electoral politics. I will be a free man and I will remain as an old man. I will give my advice whenever it is asked of me,” said Jamir. He was responding to a query if there was a possibility of his joining state politics or any other party now that his son, Apok Jamir, was contesting the Lok Sabha by-election with the Naga People’s Front ticket.

“We are going to decide something at this crucial moment, (and) if we send a person whose record is clean that will do much better than those people who have been, in one way or the other, criticised. I am only telling people what we should do during election and that is ‘clean election,’” he said.

Also, Jamir flatly denied suggestions that ‘corruption in Nagaland and the mess’ he had referred to during his speech earlier in the day was an accumulated culture that began from his tenure as the chief minister of Nagaland.

He claimed that ‘these are not at all an accumulated culture but a nascent culture and a gradual process which have been created today.’ He was of the view that only after his departure (from state politics) he ‘could see that corruption has become a normal culture and people are not ashamed of it.’