(B) YES to Art. 371(A), NO to 16-Pt. Agreement ! – Stop this humbug.
In the course of an animated conversation I had the other day with an ex-MLA and a failed MLA-aspirant, the ex-MLA lamented that the Centre will sooner than later abrogate Art. 371 (A), the Naga birthright, as he called it, following the abrogation of Art.370 in J & K and added that Nagaland would have been an independent country today but for the ‘infamous’ 16-Pt. Agreement and… the failed MLA-aspirant could not wait for his turn by interjecting that a few educated Nagas were the culprits for the betrayal of the Nagas by signing the said Agreement at the behest of Indian leaders. The glaring contradiction on the part of my partners- in- conversation reminded me of a local newspaper item I had read many years ago wherein an elected MLA and a (then) high profile Minister was reported to have averred in a large public reception organised in his honour that the 16-Pt. Agreement was a sell-out by some past Naga leaders and went on to demand that the signatories to the said Agreement withdraw their signatures. In other words, he demanded that the 16-Pt. Agreement be ABROGATED. Perched on the branch of a tree enjoying its fruits and attempting to cut the branch off from its base, I had metaphor. A (then) Minister, an ex-MLA and a failed MLA-aspirant saying YES to Art. 371(A) and NO to 16-Pt. Agreement! Moron‘ic’ jokers, it is because we have no dearth of pseudo-nationalist, pretentious leaders like you groping in the dark that the intellectually high-calibre Indian leaders perceive and treat the Nagas as all morons, I exploded in silence !
Needless to say, any Naga with minimum commonsense knows that it was in pursuance of the provision enumerated in the 16-Pt. Agreement that Nagaland State was created with its own Legislative Assembly and that Art. 371(A) is an almost verbatim version of the 16-Pt. Agreement sans point 2, 12 & 13.
In order to prevent vested interests from further misleading the Nagas I suggest that we go for a public Referendum, a la the Plebiscite of 1951, putting two simple questions for the Nagas of Nagaland to respond:
i) Do you wish to uphold the 16-Pt. Agreement and further take up with the GOI, democratically and vigorously, for restoration of a sizeable tract of Naga ancestral land, callously transferred to Assam, to its rightful owner, Nagaland and more importantly, for integration of all contiguous Naga areas into a single administrative unit, taking points 12 & 13 as reference ?
ii) Do you wish for ABROGATION of the 16-Pt. Agreement, thereby nullifying Art. 371(A), scrapping statehood for Nagaland (no MLA, Minister, chamchas!) and going nearly fifty-six years back for Nagaland to be a sub-division in Assam ? What say you, readers?
(C) Agreements beget Disagreement – What about a Covenant of Re-affirmation?
This may be taken as rather cheeky and out rightly blasphemous by the remnant of die-hard protagonists for full Naga sovereignty/independence, and rightly so, I concede. However, since everybody is entitled to his opinion, views and suggestion permit me to put up a considered suggestion based on four premises for a possible way out from the present political imbroglio. The premises are- i) India will not cede an inch of its territory, no country with sane leadership would its territory. ii) Sovereignty is ruled out and Integration is virtually not possible.( The phrases ‘at the moment’, ‘at this stage’ etc. are terms of diplomatic nicety/subtlety for ‘never’ in our context). iii) Flag and constitution without sovereignty is only of symbolic and sentimental value (if we feel that we need a separate flag or constitution while being a constituent state of the Indian Union, we already have our Naga constitution ‘Yezhabo’ and a Naga flag more beautiful than the flags of many independent countries !) Then, don’t we know what happened to the separate constitution and flag of Jammu & Kashmir? iv) Both the NSCN (IM) and the NNPGs are now amenable to a solution without sovereignty and integration ‘for now’.
Considering the above, why don’t we forget about agreeing to disagree (Agreement) and instead ponder to go for a ‘Covenant of Reaffirmation’ (or something of that sort) for making Art. 371(A) a permanent safeguard (apologies to legal and constitutional pundits, if due) and expeditious and faithful implementation of Pt. 12 & 13 of the 16-Pt. Agreement.
Let us keep in mind that the 16-Pt. Agreement never mentioned anything about renunciation of sovereignty. Then, India did not say ‘yes’ to restoration of Naga ancestral land and integration of Naga areas (Pt. 12 & 13), but it did not say ‘No’ either. Yes, the matter relating to Point 12 has been the subject of arbitration of the Court of Law since decades ago and the phrase ‘at this stage’ in Pt. 13 remains current for nearly sixty years now. But if GOI is not lying in saying on record that Naga history/problem is unique, why can’t the court arbitration be fast-tracked, and if other general category states can be bifurcated in the face of opposition from existing states to create new ones, what is the big problem in making simple territorial adjustments within the country to fulfil a commitment to a unique state ? (If Nagas can give up our most important demand i.e, sovereignty, why should India not concede to these two comparatively lesser ones in accordance with the principle of give-and-take?). As for the Naga demands for sovereignty and political independence, we can keep on saying ‘as of now’ ‘at the moment’ ‘at present’ etc, infinitely and keep our dream alive. Maybe, a Mahatma Gandhi or Indian Gorbachev will come along in eons from now.
