RPP urges 14th NLA to lead Naga peace talks
The Rising People’s Party (RPP) has stated that the elected members of the 14th Nagaland Legislative Assembly are bound by the Constitution of India and are therefore incapacitated from leading the negotiation of the Indo-Naga political settlement
- DIMAPUR — The Rising People’s Party (RPP) has
stated that the 14th NLA should lead the Naga peace talks.
- In a press statement, the party said that the elected
members of the state assembly are bound by the Constitution of India and are
therefore incapacitated from leading the negotiation of the Indo-Naga political
settlement, which betrays a limited understanding of constitutional possibilities.
- It noted that the members of the 14th NLA may feel that they
are hamstrung by their oath to the Constitution of India, but the Constitution
of India is rather a "flexible organism," and the MLAs' imagined
incapacity to lead the peace talks is without substance.
- “Our present MLAs should not view themselves as politicians
first but as nationalists first, akin to the founding fathers of the state,
particularly the 12 Democratic Party MLAs who resigned in 1964,” it read.
- Speaking of British India, it mentioned that the Indian
National Congress (INC) of pre-independence India was both a movement and a
political party. In elections held under the Government of India Act, 1919,
almost every political party, except the INC, participated in the elections. In
1934, the INC participated for the first time in the pan-India Central
Legislative Assembly election. In the last election before independence, held
in 1945, even Jawaharlal Nehru himself was a nominated member of the Central
Legislative Assembly, Delhi.
- The RPP said that both the “Agreed Position” and the
“Framework Agreement” are drafts of “constitutional reforms” within the
Constitution of India. The Congress (and others) pushed for constitutional
reforms within British India through a two-pronged strategy: as elected members
working from within and as mass-based bodies advocating for reforms from
outside. This strategy led to incremental constitutional reforms through the
decades, most notably the Acts of 1909, 1919, and 1935, eventually leading to
the ultimate reform, the India Independence Act 1947.
