India must Honour Her Word to the Naga People

Mazie Nakhro

India would claim that the Naga lands---as part of the Lieutenant Governorship of Bengal, and thereafter, of the Chief Commissionership of Assam, and finally, of the province of Assam---was part and parcel of British India, and therefore became part of the Dominion of India by virtue of the Indian Independence Act of 1947 (Y.D. Gundevia, War and Peace in Nagaland, 1975, p. 50). This above argument or claim by India is grossly misleading. Historically, the Naga people had never given up the ownership rights of their homeland to the British (refer to my previous three articles onUrraUvie). In this sense, the British had no legal right to hand over the Naga homeland to India. Also, to argue that the Naga Hills District became a part of British India as any other state in India is to ignore some very important historical facts: First, the British’s introduction of the Inner Line Permit (ILP) in Naga Hills on November 1, 1873 is a testament to the fact that the Naga country was treated very differently from mainland India. That small travel-pass was more or less like a visa, which everyone from mainland India was required to obtain if he or she wanted to enter the Naga country. Second, the Naga Club submitted a memorandum to the Indian Statutory Commission led by Sir John Simon on October 10, 1929 at Kohima, asking the British government to continue safeguarding the rights of the Nagas “against all encroachment from other people.” Consequently, the British Parliament recognized the Naga Hills District on March 3, 1935 as “Excluded Area” from the British India administrative jurisdiction. Third, the Naga Hills District was administered directly by the Governor of Assam instead of the Assam Legislature. Prior to granting independence to India, the British proposed to turn most of North-East India into a Crown colony. But this proposal was met with opposition from the Nagas. (Had the Nagas accepted it, India would have lost most of North-East India.) In connection with this proposed British colony, Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru also acknowledged that the Naga-inhabited areas did not belong to any anyone else. On August 19, 1946, he said: “The Tribal Areas are defined as being those long Frontiers of India which are neither part of India nor Burma, nor of Indian States nor of any foreign power.” Interestingly, this was what he said as a freedom-fighter a year before India became independent. As for the position of Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, on the rights of the Naga people, he made it crystal clear when he met with the leaders of the Naga National Council (NNC) at his Bhangi Colony, New Delhi, on July 19, 1947. Among other things, Gandhi said: “If you say that you are not Indians and your country does not belong to India, then the matter ends there. Nobody will force you to join the Indian Union.” Also, he added: “The Nagas have every right to be independent. We do not want to live under the domination of the British and now they are leaving us.” Obviously, Mr. Gandhi’s statements were not his own personal opinion but a reiteration of the Constituent Assembly’s resolution no. 2, out of the 8 resolutions adopted on 22nd January, 1947, which states: “Wherein the territories that now comprise British India, the territories that now form the Indian States, and such other parts of India as are outside British India and the states as well as such other territories as are willing to be constituted into the Independent Sovereign India shall be a Union of them all” (italics added). Put it another way, Gandhi’s position was that the Nagas have every right to be on their own if they are unwilling to join the Indian Union. On the basis of a very different Naga political history, the pre-independence attitude of the Indian leaders towards the Nagas was very clear: that the Nagas’ political right was unique. That was why the Nine-Point Agreement was reached between the Government of India (GoI) and the NNC on 28th June, 1947. Under this Agreement, the GoI agreed: “(1) to bring back into the Naga Hills District all the forests transferred to Sibsagar and Nowgong Districts in the past, and (2) to bring under one administrative unit as far as possible all Nagas …” (No. 6). In other words, the early Indian leaders had already offered an honorable settlement to the NNC by promising to return all the Naga ancestral territories and to amalgamate all the Naga-inhabited areas under one administrative unit. This Agreement was signed by Sir Akbar Hydari, the then Governor of Assam as the central agent and Mr. GopinathBordoloi, the then Prime Minister of undivided Assam, on behalf of his people. When the NNC leaders of that time wanted a further official confirmation of India’s sincerity, both the previously mentioned Indian emissaries reassured the Nagas in no uncertain terms “that the agreement reached between His Excellency and the Naga leaders in June, 1947, will be implemented” (Memo No. 88-C/47-570-72, the 22nd June, 1948; also Memo No. 490/C, the 11th June, 1948). This was certainly the position of both the parties at that point of time, although they later interpreted Point No. 9 in the Agreement differently. But as far as the other 8 points in the Agreement were concerned, there was no disagreement. Unfortunately, both Sir Hydari and Mr. Bordoloi died shortly after the Agreement was signed. Now, the question is this: Is this Agreement to be regarded as already dead? From the perspective of some later Indian leaders, the Nine-Point Agreement was never ratified and therefore not valid. At least, the first Prime Minister of India, Mr. Nehru, did acknowledge that there was an agreement with NNC, “but for obvious reasons it could not be implemented.” This raises the question, what could be behind the “obvious reasons”? Was it the fear that this Agreement could jeopardize the national security of the Indian State? What has been missing from the Nine-Point Agreement is only the implementation part. Contrary to some opinions, the document as such must still be considered legally binding for the following reasons: First, it has never been officially abrogated, so no one can just wish it away by simply ignoring it. Nor can it be said that it has been superseded by the granting of the Statehood in 1963, which was an arrangement done with a different group. Second, this was a pre-independence Agreement between the Indian representatives and the Naga national leaders at the highest level, which happened even before Mr. Nehru became the first Prime Minister and Dr. Rajendra Prasad became the first President of India. In other words, this was a pre-independence treaty duly signed between two emerging nations. Because of this reason, the need for ratification does not arise. Third, the fact that this Agreement is still legally valid can be supported by the Indian Constitution which was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 26th November, 1949. For example, Article 363 of the Constitution of India clearly states: “Notwithstanding anything in this Constitution but subject to the provisions of article 143, neither the Supreme Court nor any other court shall have jurisdiction in any dispute arising out of any provision of a treaty, agreement, covenant, engagement, sanad or other similar instrumentwhich was entered into and executed before the commencement of this Constitution by any ruler of an Indian State and to which the Governor of the Dominion of India or any of his predecessor Governments was a party [italics added] and which has or has been continued in operation after such commencement …” (see also Article 131). In short, India is, in my opinion, still constitutionally boundto fulfill her commitment made to the Naga people in the Nine-Point Agreement of 1947, as much as the Naga people are also under obligation to live by the same Agreement made to the Indian people.